How Much Moving Sucks, and Other Things I Keep Forgetting

Thanks to a few stupidities (some of them from my landlord, some of them from me, since I was unwilling to let a friend come into town without hanging out with him for more hours than was probably wise), I am a day behind in my moving, and it doesn't look like I'll get the dolly back by 3 o'clock.

There's some insane optimism that strikes me every time I plan to move. "Oh, it'll be nothing!" I tell myself, looking around at my single room. "Just a few boxes of books, the computer, the TV, and a large bunch of clothing! How could it possibly take more than three trips?" This time I made an additional blunder: I thought, "I bet I can move that 23-inch TV all by myself!" But what I always forget is the hundreds of little things that lie around and that you have to do something with. The scissors. My camera. The stray box of Altoids. A bottle of wine and a bottle opener. Oh, look--I bought a can of beans! And here's a cord that might come in handy... Add this to the two bags of things I never unpacked the last time (turns out one contains batteries, medicines, and a spare toothbrush), and I find (as always, but I always forget) I have a whole helluva lot of miscellanea I hadn't really budgeted my time for.

So I'm now in the moving doldrums. The big stuff--the books and clothing, basically--have all been moved, and now I have the stuff that's a bit more annoying (my collection of games, for example, takes up an astonishing amount of room). I have to either move that or move the heavy stuff, such as the exercise bike (it's got wheels, thank heaven) and the computer. And since I'm only going to be in this new place for a few months, I am committed more than ever to get my possessions down to a manageable size. (My friend Michael said yesterday, "If you're renting in Manhattan, you really should try not to own more than you can put in a cab.") So if, over the course of the next few weeks, you see me giving away vast swaths of my possessions, it's because I'm trying to become horribly, horribly efficient, not because I'm committing suicide. Unless, I suppose, it's by degrees.

Okay. Break is over. Time to move more goddamn objects.