The emotionally affecting part of moving, at least for me, lies not in the new place necessarily but the act of packing your life away itself. I used to joke back when I left New Orleans and had my things from that era packed up and shipped to Florida that I would title my eventual memoirs My Whole Life Fits in Eight Boxes, a nod at the shipping requirements I had to carry my existence with me to another city. And the thing then was that those eight boxes were filled mostly with assorted things I'd written, not even any real possessions.

This new move, though it was only a few feet to the adjacent room next to my old one, was as weird to me as if I'd decided to ship off to the Upper West Side to live on my own finally. For though the floorspace of my new room is four-fold bigger than my old one, its closet is not and I'm taking a hit storage-wise. Ergo, I had to spend a lot of time this weekend with the junk in my old closet, deciding what of my pack-rat mentalities should survive or finally be discarded.

This time around my things would take a lot more than eight boxes to ship.

A lot of the things hiding in my closet were scraps that had clung to me from when I first moved to NYC. And a lot of those scraps were pieces of Tommy. I elected to throw away the suitcase he'd given me, which was what I lived out of for my first eight months in this city. It was falling apart and served no use anymore except for the nostalgic-factor. I threw away a lot of his letters as well. I don't see the point in keeping them. Though I'm still up in the air as to what I should do with the pillow that I still have from my first birthday, a gift from my grandmother. By all rights it should be garbage as well, but like my inability to delete Kent's screenname from my AIM buddy list I'm not ready yet to let this piece of myself go either.

I found birthday cards, letters from friends that I'd saved from when I finally quit school and gained the admiration of everyone I knew for saying "fuck this" and leaving New Orleans behind me as resolutely as I could. Movie stubs from stupid things like Star Wars: Episode Two and Spider Man. Because I collect these things.

Some things will always give you pause whenever you come across them unexpectedly. Like an e-argument I'd printed out from Kent that went into detail about why the lead singer of Savage Garden was gay, a detail I was steadfast in refusing him. Guess the joke's on me, huh. He and Lance Bass and it's been a month of suddenly-gay celebrities.

Anyway I finished moving everything last night and then began the long process of arrangement, but though it took me all night and I went to work blurry and exhausted I think it was worth it, and I'm happy with what I produced.

For comparison, here's the room before I moved into it.

And after.

26 July 2006 at 7:51 pm | 1 Comment »
introspection, shutterbugs, the daily things

• Lisa Loeb
  ("Firecracker")
  You need to download Flash if you see this message.

when I'm done with thinking, then I'm done with you
when I'm done with crying, then I'm done with you
when I feel so tired, then I'm done with you
everybody feels this way sometimes,
everybody feels this way–

and I do
you can't hear it, but I do

you're trying to convince me
that what I've done's not right
and I get so frustrated, I stay up every night
you ask me for an answer, and I'm so tired
and I'm up in the air, I'm up in the air
you know everybody feels this way sometimes,
everybody feels this way–

you can't hear it, but I'm feeling this way
just because you say:

I will be ignored
and I will be denied
and I could be erased
I could be brushed aside
and I will get scared, and I will get shoved down,
but I feel like I do because you push me around

I'm starting to ignore you,
you know I've doubted you so long
I'm tired of over-thinking, I know you don't belong
now I'm asking questions– no one pushes me around
oh everybody feels this way sometimes,
everybody feels this way–

you don't seem angry, but I do.

20 July 2006 at 8:47 pm | No Comments »
soundtrack

When I was in the 9th grade there was this girl I knew from my piano class. She was blonde and immensely stupid, and I used to pick on her in a very mean, sarcastic way. I think her name was even Bridget or something. She never really got my jokes, or that I was picking on her, but everyone else in my class did and we used to laugh at her expense over all my witticisms.

I didn't dislike her, it was more that I enjoyed the attention I got when everyone thought I was clever and funny. As a result I was generally pretty brutal to her, but like I said, she never got the fact that we were all laughing at her.

Ultimately I realize now it was a defense mechanism, because I was alone in this school, having just moved in from New Orleans and not knowing anyone (and making friends isn't my forte much to begin with) and insulting this poor girl with jokes that went over her head and being thought funny because of it was my tie to popularity, at least as far as Mr. Cotton's 5th Period Intermediate Piano was concerned.

So I lashed out at her because she was an easy target, much the same way that the bullies pick on the shrimpy kids because they won't pose a threat. At lunch I would always sit alone underneath a tree behind one of the buildings that invariably smelled of pot, but I was always allowed to go back there by the teacher keeping watch because I just read science fiction novels for my break, alone and undisturbed.

I guess they figured I'd reenact Columbine or something.

But even though I was mean to this girl, more often than not she'd find me at lunch and keep me company, either quietly eating her own food as I read or telling me about her family and where she was from. I was nice to her at lunch. But two hours later in class I'd be tearing her apart once more.

I tend to think about her from time to time now. I wish I had told her I was sorry.

18 July 2006 at 12:00 am | No Comments »
introspection

13 July 2006 at 6:41 pm | No Comments »
shutterbugs

(note, adjust your gamma if you don't see buildings)

12 July 2006 at 12:10 am | No Comments »
shutterbugs

11 July 2006 at 8:00 pm | No Comments »
shutterbugs

10 July 2006 at 10:43 pm | No Comments »
shutterbugs

I've been busy so I didn't share this.

Last week my roommate J.P. shared with us that he was leaving, so once again I got to go through the lovely adventure of craigslist and interviews. However, this time, I've decided I'm no longer going to be in my little boy's room, and I am heading out for the wide world of one of the larger rooms. With windows. And a closet.

So I put an ad up with pictures for my room. And I have been overwhelmed by the response.

Since Wednesday. Literally. Two hundred emails.

I don't think I'm going to have any trouble finding someone to replace me.

9 July 2006 at 9:09 pm | No Comments »
the daily things

Thursday the New York State supreme court ruled that gay marriage wasn't legal in this state. Essentially their reasoning for this decision is because gay relationships are apparently temporary, transient things that are unimportant.

I have noticed that those trying to oppose gay marriage have wizened up. They've realized that while a lot of people are against homosexuality, gay marriage, etc, many more are against this continual erosion between Church and State, and are willing to fight decisions and legislature borne out of religious aims. So gone from this ruling were the comments on the morality of gay marriage, IE, that there is none, and it was instead replaced by so many references to the poor children that gay people corrupt that I think Sally Struthers should maintain a hotline and a telethon for those such victimized.

The ruling essentially said that marriage is only for child rearing and that, as gay people shouldn't have children, there's no reason for gay marriage. It also went a step further in an interesting way and told me something that I was grossly misinformed about. Apparently, according to the justice writing for the majority, gay rights cannot be compared to civil rights, because the oppression of gay people is apparently a new invention dating back to the sixties and seventies, and prior to that we were apparently living happy lives running around through fields of daisies and happily hitching ourselves to one another while we raised our deformed adopted children.

The insanity of that statement was beyond even me. Dumb-asses, gay people have been oppressed since before SLAVERY.

A rally was called out of nowhere that I managed to find out about while I was still at work, and after some initial hesitation I went with a coworker friend of mine. The initial hesitation was because I've never been to a protest rally before, and I wasn't sure what to do. But I'm frankly tired of bitching without action.

The rally ended up being worth it. Not only were there a lot more people than I expected, but the speakers on stage on whole really took gay people to task. They were making a point, which I've been yelling about for a while now, that the reason why gay people have no rights is as much our own fault as it is the Republicans' and the lunatic Christians' because we never do anything. But the rally was a motivator for me. I was surprised to see as many people my age as older people, which I didn't expect.

I was happy I went. Because now I have a plan. And I'm done waiting for change.

8 July 2006 at 11:00 pm | 1 Comment »
proselytizing, shutterbugs