1581: Two Days

I’m tired, hot and stressed out. We’re moving on Wednesday, which means we have two more days to pack up all our stuff and be ready. I’m sure we’ll manage it, but right now my own feelings of exhaustion — brought on at least partly by the incredibly hot, humid weather we’ve had today — are making that “motivation” thing somewhat troublesome.

I’m sure it’s not as bad as it looks. I hope it’s not as bad as it looks. There is still a lot of stuff to pack into boxes, but at least we had a pretty ruthless clearout of books today, meaning there are a lot fewer of those to move than there once were. It was a little odd to throw out a number of books that have followed me around from house to house since before I went to university, but there’s really no point in carrying a lot of them around any more. All the fiction books I own that I’m going to read I have already read, and if I want a new book I’m more inclined to buy a digital book to read on the go rather than a physical one these days. (A curious inversion of my attitude to video games, where I prefer to have a physical disc.) The reference books I own are outdated and have been made largely obsolete by the Internet anyway. And I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I am never, ever going to read The Lord of the Rings. And so off for recycling they all go.

The last time I was so ruthless with my possessions was a few years back when I ditched the large cardboard outer boxes for the older PC games I still own. There are occasional times when I regret doing that, but my available shelf space thanks me. To be perfectly honest, I could probably stand to throw out some of those old PC games, too, given that a significant proportion of them almost certainly won’t run on a modern Windows 7 machine, but I can’t quite bring myself to throw some of them out. At least I haven’t been able to to date; perhaps I’ll have a closer look at what’s there tomorrow and actually chuck out the games that won’t work on a modern system and which have modernised digital equivalents available from somewhere like GOG.com or Steam.

It’s easy to get attached to possessions and fall into a habit of hoarding. I’ve done that to a certain degree over the years, but in a lot of cases the things that I’ve kept are conversation pieces. Someone sees I have an original copy of Wing Commander III on my shelf and it’s all “oh, cool! I remember that!” That’s also one of the big reasons I keep a big physical collection of console games from the PS1 era onwards — they look cool, they sometimes spark conversations and, frankly, I just like it. (One day I might return to collecting cartridges for older systems, but to be honest I’m much more inclined to return to a PS1 game than an N64 game. Sorry, Nintendo fans.)

Anyway, as the rambling nature of this post will attest, I am far too tired to be able to do anything particularly productive for the rest of this evening, so I think it’s time for me to get into bed. Tomorrow I am getting a haircut — it may sound ridiculous, but I’m convinced part of my tiredness at the moment is coming from the mane I’m currently sporting making my head far too hot — and then coming back to do some packing, packing, packing. Then it’s my final Japanese class for the academic year in the evening, and then probably some more packing, packing, packing.

I’m really looking forward to being in the new house. I just wish all the other stuff wasn’t between me and being able to snuggle down in our lovely brand-new bed.

1580: No, Not the Boxes

Well, we’re nearly there. We own a house, Andie has spent most of this week redecorating it (and done a great job) while I’ve been working, and we have the movers booked for Wednesday.

All that remains to do is to pack everything u–

Shit.

I really, really hate packing to move house. I also hate unpacking at the other end, but that’s marginally better because you get to find new homes for things and figure out aesthetically pleasing arrangements for things like video games and board games and other stuff you might want to display.

But before you can do that, you have to put everything into boxes. And inevitably you don’t have quite enough boxes, or you can’t quite fit everything in one “category” neatly into one box, meaning you end up dumping things in semi-randomly as you get more and more tired and annoyed at the whole hideous process, until eventually you simply resort to grabbing handfuls of possibly related things, throwing them into a box in a disorganised heap, then taping the box up, writing “STUFF” or “MISC” on it and ensuring it’s the very, very last thing you unpack. (In the process, you’ll almost certainly realise that something you really, really need is in there, but you just won’t be able to face digging through the mountains of crap that are almost certainly piled on top of it.)

In other words, yes, I am really not looking forward to packing everything up. I’m thinking I might take the opportunity to ditch some stuff — primarily books that are likely never going to be read again and clothes that haven’t been worn for years in some cases — and minimise the packing of unnecessary crap. I know it’s still going to be a massive pain, but at least we don’t have to actually pick up and carry stuff ourselves this time. I hate that even more than putting things in boxes, particularly as the weather seems to have suddenly got hot and humid lately, so I’m more than happy to pay people money to carry heavy things for me.

Mostly I just want the tedious side of moving to be over and done with and this (our old) place to be clean so I can settle down, relax a bit and look forward to — hopefully — a significant number of years in the same place. Outside of living back with my parents, I’ve never stayed in the same place for longer than about two years, tops, and the prospect of getting to stay somewhere for a significant amount of time — a place where I don’t have to feel guilty about hammering nails or picture-hooks into the walls — is, frankly, extremely appealing. The fact it’s big enough to have guests over — we have a spare bedroom for the first time in my life — is something I’m particularly happy about, and I’m looking forward to actually inviting people over to stay at some point.

So it’s nice to look forward to what the eventual goal is. But I’m conscious that we’re moving in a few days and there are a lot of things to put into boxes. So I supposed we’d better start soon, huh?

#oneaday, Day 235: Social Networking

I’m taking a few minutes out from cleaning and packing to write this as I will probably be too exhausted later in the evening. Things are going reasonably well; thanks for asking. Perhaps not as quickly as I’d like, and I’m terrified that I won’t fit everything in the back of my car despite my genetically-enhanced Tetris skills inherited from my mother. Still, if it doesn’t all fit, then something’s going to have to be thrown out, isn’t it? Divine justice or whatever.

Anyway, what I wanted to talk about today was social networking. I’m not talking Facebook, Twitter, Friendface or what have you here. I’m talking actual social networks.

“Social networking” is one of those terms that sprung up a few years back, along with the word “leverage” being used as a verb (stop it!), and the obnoxiousness that is “monetize”. But it actually has some grounding in good sense, for once. Our social lives are nothing if not a network. And society in general is one gigantic network of people, some of whom are connected to each other, others who are not.

Let me give you an example. You walk into a shop. You attempt to buy a Cornish pasty from the gentleman behind the counter. For some reason, you have some difficulty. Perhaps the shop in question does not sell Cornish pasties. Perhaps the gentleman behind the counter is having difficulty understanding your heavily-accented English. Perhaps you muttered what you said. Perhaps you delivered your request in sign language and the gentleman behind the counter is unfamiliar with it.

Regardless, you have difficulty acquiring said meat-filled pastry product. As a result, your brain informs your mouth that it would be a really good idea to call said gentleman a “twat”. So you do. Then you storm out of the shop. Cut back to gentleman behind the counter, who is standing flabbergasted at the frankly disproportionately offensive response that a dissatisfied customer just gave him. (It was a bit rude. There are plenty of other places to get a pasty.)

His friend comes out of the back room to see what’s happening. He tells her that he just got called a “twat” by someone, and he’s actually a little bit annoyed about that. His friend tells him not to worry and reminds him that there’s a night out planned that evening.

That evening, gentleman and his friend go out for a drink or two with a crowd of friends. Gentleman is a little sullen, so one of his friend’s friends (let’s call her Alice) comes over and asks him what the problem is. Gentleman knows Alice, but not very well. But he quite likes her, so he tells her about the earlier incident and describes you perfectly.

“Oh!” says Alice. “You mean Sam / Don Woods / Kittycow / Elana / Matt / Jeff / Jen / Pook / Rachel / Moonsong / Jane / Mandy / Calin / Graham / Chris / Amy / Denise / Mark / Lynette / that person I know whose name escapes me right now*? Yeah, they’re always like that. Don’t take it personally.”

The next time you see Alice, she tells you to stop calling people in shops twats. You raise an eyebrow at her, then you both have a good laugh about it. Or she punches you in the face. One or the other.

This is a small-scale and somewhat contrived scenario, of course. But these sorts of things are happening every day on varying levels. What is happening to me right now is indirectly going to affect the lives of many, many others. While it would be somewhat presumptious of me to overstate my own influence over other people, I know for a fact that there are at least a couple of people out there who have very strong feelings about the fact I am leaving. These reasons are very different from one another. Some of them know each other, some of them don’t. All of them know that I wouldn’t do this if I had a choice.

Unfortunately, I don’t. And I’m sorry that the actions and choices I have made, along with actions and choices I have no control over, have led to this point, where so many people’s lives are going to be just that tiny bit different from hereon.

Those of you who are going to be that little bit farther away from me than you were before, I’m just an email, comment, text, phone call, tweet, IM, PingChat message or really, really loud scream away. Those of you that all this isn’t affecting directly? Well, I hope you can join everyone in keeping your fingers crossed that this is the beginning of something new and awesome.

I leave town tomorrow sometime. Those of you in the area, keep an eye on Twitter and your phones for details of a meetup.

* Interactivity! Delete as applicable.

#oneaday, Day 233: Keep On Movin’

I hate moving house. I really hate moving house. And yet it’s one of those things that becomes necessary at least several times during your life. Still, I feel like I have done it more than many people, largely due to the fact I moved pretty much every year since starting university, until I ended up in this current place, which I actually lasted about two years in.

I didn’t move every year through choice in most cases. Most of the time there were extenuating circumstances which caused the move. I moved after my first year at university because I wanted to live in a house, not a hall of residence. I moved after my second year because the flat I was in was a shithole and the cheeky bastard landlord put the rent, which was already expensive, up. I moved after my third year because my housemate was leaving town because she’d finished university and I was staying on to do my teacher training. I moved after my fourth year because I was no longer a student. I moved after that year because the beautiful, lovely flat I was living in was reclaimed by its landlord for her daughter. I moved after the next year because my housemate was, again, moving and also the house we were in had damp, mould and smelled slightly of gas. I moved after the next year because I was in Aldershot and was hunting down a job back in Southampton. Also, Aldershot is a shithole. I moved after the next year because the flat I was staying in had damp and mould. Again. And the circumstances under which I am leaving this particular place have already been well documented elsewhere on this blog.

So I’m pretty tired of it. There are a bunch of things that always, always cause stress to do with moving. First of all is never having enough boxes, and ending up having to spend more on boxes than on anything else you’ve ever spent money on ever. I remember when I was younger, our local supermarket used to have a little “pen” near its cash tills with hundreds of discarded boxes that you could just take for yourself. I haven’t seen a supermarket do this for ages. It’s probably some sort of Health and Safety Hazard. What if someone gets trapped inside a box? What if it’s used to carry a bomb? What if Solid Snake is around?

So boxes have to be acquired via alternative means, be it hassling friends for them, finding them discarded in disgusting places or actually purchasing them for vast expense from packaging stores. I went for the latter option largely for convenience more than anything else, and at least it means I’ve got some decent-quality, new boxes that (hopefully) won’t fall apart when I’m lifting the bastards into a van later.

Then of course there’s the packing process itself. Bundle things into a box, seal it up and then suddenly, inevitably, something catches your eye. Something which should be in that box you just sealed up. Something which could easily fit in that box you just sealed up. But it’s not in the box. It’s sitting there on the side, mocking you quietly. So you swear profusely, bundle the thing into another box, consider writing the fact that you’ve bundled said thing into the “wrong” box onto the side of its new home, figure that nah, you’ll remember where you put it, pack it in there and then six months later when you still haven’t unpacked half your boxes and realise you really need that thing that you put in the wrong box, you discover that you can’t, in fact, remember where you put said thing because you didn’t write it on the box.

As part of the packing process, you also reach the inevitable “small bits” stage. No, this is not a euphemism. This is a reference to the stage in the packing where you’ve pretty much cleared all your bookcases and cupboards and all that is left are hundreds, thousands, of small little bits and pieces, none of which can be justifiably assigned a complete box. So you end up with at least one box marked “JUNK” which contains miscellaneous paraphernalia of such diversity that should you ever dare dip your hand into it, you’ll come out with something completely different and unrelated every time. And inevitably, there’s too much “JUNK” for one box, making you think you should have perhaps organised it a bit better, but it’s too late now.

Then you have to move said boxes and furniture into a van. That’s today’s job. And the van will be arriving shortly. So I’d probably better get on with it.