Thursday, August 24, 2006
Why I Could Never Be a Green Bay Fan
I hate packing. The process of boxing things up, throwing things out, and moving things around is among my least favorite chores. Unfortunately, it has also become a highly necessary one because in approximately a week I will be leaving the Invisible Penthouse, piling my stuff into my car, and driving up the highway an hour or so to Old Ivy University...my new home.
My new accommodations, though nice enough, will not be quite as palatial. I will be renting a room in a professor's house within walking distance of campus. There will be several other people living there as well, mostly fellow graduate students, and I will be sharing a kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room with them. All in all, it's an excellent deal. The rent is low, the people seem friendly, and I figure that the house's lack of air conditioning can probably be worked around. Plus, my room already comes furnished with a bed, desk, chest of drawers, and a bookshelf, which means that I can hopefully avoid renting a large truck to haul furniture and make multiple trips by car instead.
Despite this however, I am definitely going to be dealing with a decrease in available space, which means I need to winnow through my possessions and decide what items to keep and which to leave behind, dispose of, or sell. Sometimes, the decision is easy. I do not think I'll particularly miss my old cooler, purchased three years ago to haul dry ice to and from school. Or the hundreds of file folders I've collected over the years. Or several months of back issues of Time Magazine. Not to mention the monitor which has been collecting dust on the top shelf of my closet for over a year and a half. But what about the books?
There are few things more difficult for a bibliophile then clearing his bookshelves for a move. I can only take consolation that at least for a few, the choice is relatively obvious. Some of them I have passed on to other teachers who can use them more effectively than I will once I start graduate school. Other volumes are bulky hardcover editions obtained at libraries or other book sales which could easily be replaced on the shelves by a space-saving paperback. And a few books I may have loved as a teenager and simply held on to due to sentimentality...not because they are likely to be reread anytime in the near future.
But as challenging as the selection process may be, it is eventually completed. Then the question is how to dispose of the all the detritus of my past life, books and all, before I move. My girlfriend and I are holding a tag sale on Saturday where we will both put items from our lives up on the chopping block. (She just moved into a smaller place and found herself with an overabundance of furniture.) But if, after that, some things remain unsold then I'm not sure of the next move.
The books, ironically enough, will be the easiest to dispose of, despite being the hardest to winnow through. The library down the road will certainly be glad to take them off my hands as part of their used book sale. But the other stuff...that may be trickier. Some items may end up in the trash like the aforementioned cooler, which after an incident involving universal indicator still has an interior that smells like fermented cabbage juice. Others, like my bookshelves, will probably go on sale again through the magic of my apartment building's bulletin board.
Of course to get to that point, I need to make sure by apartment is vaguely presentable to outsiders and that means cleaning up all the scattered school materials, memorabilia, and so forth that litter my floor, desk, table...everything. I've filled up 5 trash bags so far with stuff to throw away...and there will likely be more. So much to shed, to cast off, to throw away.
I feel like a reptile shedding its skin. When I owned a pet lizard, he used to molt every few months and the dead skin would lie on the floor of his terrarium as he lounged on his heat rock or snacked on crickets. I wondered at times if it hurt to pull off one's entire skin, to change in effect, one's entire self. He didn't seem to care. He just ate his dead skin and moved on. I suppose I'll have to do something similar as I transition out of teaching and into being a student again. The self-changing part I mean...not so much with the consumption of dead skin.
But for now, that means more of my "favorite" task... packing!
Let the good times roll.
I hate packing. The process of boxing things up, throwing things out, and moving things around is among my least favorite chores. Unfortunately, it has also become a highly necessary one because in approximately a week I will be leaving the Invisible Penthouse, piling my stuff into my car, and driving up the highway an hour or so to Old Ivy University...my new home.
My new accommodations, though nice enough, will not be quite as palatial. I will be renting a room in a professor's house within walking distance of campus. There will be several other people living there as well, mostly fellow graduate students, and I will be sharing a kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room with them. All in all, it's an excellent deal. The rent is low, the people seem friendly, and I figure that the house's lack of air conditioning can probably be worked around. Plus, my room already comes furnished with a bed, desk, chest of drawers, and a bookshelf, which means that I can hopefully avoid renting a large truck to haul furniture and make multiple trips by car instead.
Despite this however, I am definitely going to be dealing with a decrease in available space, which means I need to winnow through my possessions and decide what items to keep and which to leave behind, dispose of, or sell. Sometimes, the decision is easy. I do not think I'll particularly miss my old cooler, purchased three years ago to haul dry ice to and from school. Or the hundreds of file folders I've collected over the years. Or several months of back issues of Time Magazine. Not to mention the monitor which has been collecting dust on the top shelf of my closet for over a year and a half. But what about the books?
There are few things more difficult for a bibliophile then clearing his bookshelves for a move. I can only take consolation that at least for a few, the choice is relatively obvious. Some of them I have passed on to other teachers who can use them more effectively than I will once I start graduate school. Other volumes are bulky hardcover editions obtained at libraries or other book sales which could easily be replaced on the shelves by a space-saving paperback. And a few books I may have loved as a teenager and simply held on to due to sentimentality...not because they are likely to be reread anytime in the near future.
But as challenging as the selection process may be, it is eventually completed. Then the question is how to dispose of the all the detritus of my past life, books and all, before I move. My girlfriend and I are holding a tag sale on Saturday where we will both put items from our lives up on the chopping block. (She just moved into a smaller place and found herself with an overabundance of furniture.) But if, after that, some things remain unsold then I'm not sure of the next move.
The books, ironically enough, will be the easiest to dispose of, despite being the hardest to winnow through. The library down the road will certainly be glad to take them off my hands as part of their used book sale. But the other stuff...that may be trickier. Some items may end up in the trash like the aforementioned cooler, which after an incident involving universal indicator still has an interior that smells like fermented cabbage juice. Others, like my bookshelves, will probably go on sale again through the magic of my apartment building's bulletin board.
Of course to get to that point, I need to make sure by apartment is vaguely presentable to outsiders and that means cleaning up all the scattered school materials, memorabilia, and so forth that litter my floor, desk, table...everything. I've filled up 5 trash bags so far with stuff to throw away...and there will likely be more. So much to shed, to cast off, to throw away.
I feel like a reptile shedding its skin. When I owned a pet lizard, he used to molt every few months and the dead skin would lie on the floor of his terrarium as he lounged on his heat rock or snacked on crickets. I wondered at times if it hurt to pull off one's entire skin, to change in effect, one's entire self. He didn't seem to care. He just ate his dead skin and moved on. I suppose I'll have to do something similar as I transition out of teaching and into being a student again. The self-changing part I mean...not so much with the consumption of dead skin.
But for now, that means more of my "favorite" task... packing!
Let the good times roll.
