I am not a guy who makes plans. No detailed agendas, like Dad always did. My habit is to pinch my nose and belly-flop into the water. It's been about three weeks since I suddenly decided to move to Seattle, and I'm just starting to figure out how the heck I'll do that.
Renting a U-Haul or having all my junk shipped to Seattle would cost about $1,500, and I could afford it (barely) but the math doesn't work. Almost everything I own is just junk and mementos, and all of it combined ain't worth $1,500, or even close.
So my 'plan' is to leave almost everything behind, give it to Goodwill or toss it in the dumpster, and drive to Seattle with only whatever fits in the car. I'll buy new shelves, a new recliner, and new pots and pans when I get there, for lots less than the cost of moving the shelves and recliner and pots and pans and everything else.
Two weeks into packing, here's my best guess at the numbers: I'm 10-15% ready to go. 5 carloads of effluvia have gone to Goodwill, with another two carloads in the closet awaiting the drive. 30 30-gallon barrels have been dumped into the dumpster.
The second bedroom is where I'm staging the stuff I'll bring to Seattle — a much smaller stack. So far, there are two milk-crates full. I anticipate a dozen or so milk-crates and boxes, by the time I'm outta here.
Still no estimated arrival date, but when I finally get to Seattle I'll be crash-landing at Casey & Mom's house, and staying there for as long as it takes to get a job and a place. Hoping that's days, but it might be weeks, might be longer. Thank you both in advance for your hospitality. I promise not to smoke in the living room, which is an easy promise since I don't smoke.
A recurring, perpetual mistake of my life is that I admire and sometimes speak of the virtue of minimalism, but in reality I'm a packrat, same as Mom and a few of my siblings.
Since I was a little kid in the basement bedroom of the red house that's now blue, I've always accumulated as much mess as would fit into the space. Give me a big space, I'll give you a big clutter.
And here in Madison, I've had a big space indeed — two bedrooms, plus a large living room, plus an extra room for storage in the basement. After 18 years here, all those rooms are filled with clutter, which I'm cleaning out bit by bit. I'm up to about 2010.
Seattle, as y'all know first-hand, is a famously expensive metro, so I'll be renting a much smaller space — probably one room in a shared house in a slum neighborhood. A smaller space means a smaller chaos, and I hope it means moving will never again be such an enormous chore.
One quick example: Because I'm an idiot, some years ago I bought a used exercise bicycle. As if Doug's gonna ride an exercycle? Ha! In five years, I've put about five miles on its odometer, so away it goes. The dang thing is huge, though — it's eight feet long, weighs 250 pounds or so, and it has no wheels. Dragging it to the dumpster was a chore and a challenge, more exercise than I ever got on the exercycle, and oy, my aching back.
And that's just the biggest hunk of junk. There are 10,000 smaller hunks of junk, and 9,990 of them will be left behind.
Then comes a long drive, in a dented, rusty Chevy that's old enough to vote and sounds like a volcano. Gotta take her into the shop for an expensive look-see before the drive, and then cross my fingers all the 2,000 mile way.
Still trying to find a way to bring my cat. She's kind of bonkers, and has oodles of 'issues'. She hates people and wants to be left alone, and since those are my issues too, we've bonded. She doesn't like cars and doesn't like change, but if I don't have Izzy the Cat hiding from me and hissing at me and once weekly letting me pet her for a few minutes, can any place truly be home?
And that's the way it is, Sunday, March 5, 2022. Big adventure, almost underway. Comments welcome. More next week.