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Packed Up, Put Away, Moving On
Feb. 21st, 2006 11:00 pmI'm finally starting to feel a bit better from this cold that has lingered on, and on, and on. It didn't help that I had a ton of stuff to do this past weekend. It was finally time to clean out the old apartment and get everything moved off to a storage facility.
I remember feeling that the whole thing was starting to stack up against me, as I was trying to make sure that the movers were hired, to get my Dad to set up the storage space we would share, and of course, having to drive down to Houston. Of course, Chris had planned to come with me, but then had to bow out when he got placed on call from work. Then of course, it decided to get cold.
In a way, it was good that Chris wasn't able to be there, since the wasn't a hotel room to be had in Houston because of the NBA All-Star game. in fact, the All-Star game caused a few problems with traffic as tons of people thought they needed to go to the Galleria to look for celebrities. Of course, they mostly found others just like them not finding anything.
Of course I called my mother on Wednesday and asked, "Has Dad actually got the storage room?", and was then given 45 minutes of useless information about their trip to Las Vegas the week before. Still, the answer was no, and it was also no when I called home on Friday. Finally mid-day on Friday I got a call while I was at the work cafeteria telling me that we now had a place and I didn't have to call off the movers. It was frustrating, but Dad did finally get there.
The other thing was the incoming cold air that would send temperatures in Texas plummeting. Chris needed to stay home to take care of Joey, and I had to get out of town before the rain started to freeze on the overpasses. One morning I was listening to Sirius Traffic which goes back and forth from Houston to Dallas. Houston was fine, just cool and wet, but Dallas had some of the usual ice skating car competition going on. The phrase that stayed with me was, "I-35E at the George Bush Turnpike, there are fifteen accidents, so stay away from that intersection." I mean fifteen? Insane.
So not having Chris and not having a hotel room meant that I would be staying at my parent's new house, where I had never stayed before. There's a couple of downsides to staying at home, one being that the bed that would be in the guest room was still down in my apartment bedroom. This allowed me to spend a couple of nights on a terrible, tiny blow-up mattress that would end up giving-up all of it's air in the middle of the night, allowing me to wake up on the floor.
Of course, the other downside is staying with my mother for a few nights. As soon as I walked in the door her mouth was going, and I know I wouldn't have a moment's peace. Now I have to admit that it's probably a little sad for her with now both of her children living out of town, and my Dad working most days. she really doesn't have a lot to do, and she'll never be one to take a job just for something to do, or be doing a lot of hobbies and such. Really, I do have to think that she's breaking down a lot more than the average person in her early sixties. Her body is thin, frail and stoops now and I wonder if she's eating right - but it's not like she ever did previously. Anyone who's main source of nourishment for much of the day is ice cream, isn't going to be doing to well, I think.
After waking up on Saturday morning in the rather large, but empty guest bedroom in my parents house, I went down to the old apartment (hums) and opened it up for the first time in a month after clearing off all of the notes and takeout menus off. As I started to go around the place, I started to realize that there was a hell of a lot more stuff around than I thought. Still, i got a call from the mover's who said they'd be late, so I had the opportunity to throw some stuff out and pack up a few more things. I started listening to some old podcasts that I hadn't gotten to from the B-Talk bears and Coverville.
Then I got another call from the movers, and another, and finally one more, and suddenly it was seven o'clock, not noon, and I knew that the storage unit closed at 9, and you can't get in or out. Of course, the mover understands this problem as he tells me a story about being trapped overnight in a mini-storage unit. Yeah, whatever. When the heck will my move be, since I've totally ruined my day. Finally, he agreed to be there at seven AM the next morning, which meant any chance of going out on the town for the evening was totally done.
One of the odd things about staying with your parents is that some of those little eccentricities from your childhood come up. Sunday morning would be an early one, and Mom had to wake me up, and as she always did when I was growing up, she nudges the bed while telling me to get up. Of course, all she's doing this time is kicking the deflated plastic on the floor, rather than a mattress. Of course, at the first sign that I'm actually awake, and going to take my CPAP hose off, she's talking about anything and everything. I had to throw her out of the room so I could get ready to...
Wait, as an accident was being cleared off of the freeway. I sat there for thirty minutes waiting for them to get the car, who must have slid on the wet pavement. Of course I get the call from the movers who are outside my apartment, waiting. Luckily, I didn't do what I first thought, and that would be to send them on to their next destination. That was off in Katy, many miles away, so I'm glad I kept them waiting. The two guys, both thin guys who are surprisingly powerful for their size, were nice, though the one who wasn't driving the truck certainly wasn't the brightest guy. He shared a lot with Tigger bounding up and down the three flights of stairs to and from my apartment.
They quickly got every stick of furniture out and down the stairs and into the truck. They call the next customer, who they are already late for, and tell her that they will be there in two hours. The driver mentioned that they had four other moves to do this day, and I knew that they would never make it to all of them. I drove back up to Conroe and met my Dad at the storage place and we helped the movers get all of the furniture placed in the very back of the storage space, ready for all of the other stuff, some of it mine, that's in Dad's smaller space in the same mini-storage compound. Of course it was still cold and drizzling, so Dad and I wanted to get out of there as soon as we could.
Dad talked to me about the new job, but stayed away from talking about other things, except for the olympics, which we chatted about a bit watching various events. Mom however, wants to know everything, especially about living with Chris, that I could see that Dad wasn't really going to touch. The good thing with Mom will usually take over the conversation once again so I don't always end up talking forever.
I went back into Houston and had a rather off-the-cuff brunch with Jerry (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
goofycubb) and then i went back to the apartment to clean, vacuum, scrub and remove the last few things, like a couple of posters, throw out the bathmats, and put the tuba in the car. I sort of felt sad about it, as it was a great apartment, but I realized that I felt more lonely than anything, and that was the most constant feeling about the place. I spent a lot of time alone there, waiting for the day that would come when I could be with Chris, and now, here I was one more time without him. Fitting, I suppose, and fitting that it was cold, overcast and rainy.
I cleaned everything out, locked the door, and placed my keys in an envelope along with next month's rent, and dropped it down the mailslot at the rental office. About six months ago, they stopped opening the rental office on Sundays. I'm not sure how this affects their rentals, but it seems strange. I never could get anything done with their office while I lived there because I was always working when they were open.
I didn't get back to Conroe to help Dad move more stuff between storage units, but we did get the bed and set it up in the guest room, so I ended up sleeping once again on my old bed. We went out to eat at the exotic Red Lobster for a bit, and I asked Dad about his thoughts on the Vice President shooting that guy and he got very defensive about the whole thing. I guess that spin really does work, where a guy who's been a member of the NRA, and a hunter can still defend such stupidity as Cheney trying to cover up what happened in a hunting accident.
Mom asked me about Brokeback Mountain, and what all the fuss was about. Of course, I'm one of the few gays who hasn't seen the movie, but I told here it was just a good film, from the acting to the direction, with a good story. I told here I didn't really think of it as a "gay" movie, but a movie that has two men who love each other in it. The hype comes more for some of the movie's implications than from what's actually presented on screen, and the media's going to talk about anything that takes a small risk, even though the movie seems tame to where it could have been. I think my Dad's a little concerned that a western writer like Larry McMurtry was involved, but as I told them, it's just a moving, human story, and nothing more. If it wins the oscar, many will claim that it's a part of Hollywood's endorsement of the gay agenda, but really, it's more about a nice story told and acted well.
Finally, Monday mom let me sleep in, especially since I'd been coughing all weekend, so there wasn't that familiar bump trying to get me to wake up for school. I had to leave back for the northlands, now that it had thawed, and leave this bed behind to go back to Chris'. She did offer to do my laundry, but there wasn't time. No, it was just one more little reminder that I've grown up, and now I'm a Houstonian no longer.
I remember feeling that the whole thing was starting to stack up against me, as I was trying to make sure that the movers were hired, to get my Dad to set up the storage space we would share, and of course, having to drive down to Houston. Of course, Chris had planned to come with me, but then had to bow out when he got placed on call from work. Then of course, it decided to get cold.
In a way, it was good that Chris wasn't able to be there, since the wasn't a hotel room to be had in Houston because of the NBA All-Star game. in fact, the All-Star game caused a few problems with traffic as tons of people thought they needed to go to the Galleria to look for celebrities. Of course, they mostly found others just like them not finding anything.
Of course I called my mother on Wednesday and asked, "Has Dad actually got the storage room?", and was then given 45 minutes of useless information about their trip to Las Vegas the week before. Still, the answer was no, and it was also no when I called home on Friday. Finally mid-day on Friday I got a call while I was at the work cafeteria telling me that we now had a place and I didn't have to call off the movers. It was frustrating, but Dad did finally get there.
The other thing was the incoming cold air that would send temperatures in Texas plummeting. Chris needed to stay home to take care of Joey, and I had to get out of town before the rain started to freeze on the overpasses. One morning I was listening to Sirius Traffic which goes back and forth from Houston to Dallas. Houston was fine, just cool and wet, but Dallas had some of the usual ice skating car competition going on. The phrase that stayed with me was, "I-35E at the George Bush Turnpike, there are fifteen accidents, so stay away from that intersection." I mean fifteen? Insane.
So not having Chris and not having a hotel room meant that I would be staying at my parent's new house, where I had never stayed before. There's a couple of downsides to staying at home, one being that the bed that would be in the guest room was still down in my apartment bedroom. This allowed me to spend a couple of nights on a terrible, tiny blow-up mattress that would end up giving-up all of it's air in the middle of the night, allowing me to wake up on the floor.
Of course, the other downside is staying with my mother for a few nights. As soon as I walked in the door her mouth was going, and I know I wouldn't have a moment's peace. Now I have to admit that it's probably a little sad for her with now both of her children living out of town, and my Dad working most days. she really doesn't have a lot to do, and she'll never be one to take a job just for something to do, or be doing a lot of hobbies and such. Really, I do have to think that she's breaking down a lot more than the average person in her early sixties. Her body is thin, frail and stoops now and I wonder if she's eating right - but it's not like she ever did previously. Anyone who's main source of nourishment for much of the day is ice cream, isn't going to be doing to well, I think.
After waking up on Saturday morning in the rather large, but empty guest bedroom in my parents house, I went down to the old apartment (hums) and opened it up for the first time in a month after clearing off all of the notes and takeout menus off. As I started to go around the place, I started to realize that there was a hell of a lot more stuff around than I thought. Still, i got a call from the mover's who said they'd be late, so I had the opportunity to throw some stuff out and pack up a few more things. I started listening to some old podcasts that I hadn't gotten to from the B-Talk bears and Coverville.
Then I got another call from the movers, and another, and finally one more, and suddenly it was seven o'clock, not noon, and I knew that the storage unit closed at 9, and you can't get in or out. Of course, the mover understands this problem as he tells me a story about being trapped overnight in a mini-storage unit. Yeah, whatever. When the heck will my move be, since I've totally ruined my day. Finally, he agreed to be there at seven AM the next morning, which meant any chance of going out on the town for the evening was totally done.
One of the odd things about staying with your parents is that some of those little eccentricities from your childhood come up. Sunday morning would be an early one, and Mom had to wake me up, and as she always did when I was growing up, she nudges the bed while telling me to get up. Of course, all she's doing this time is kicking the deflated plastic on the floor, rather than a mattress. Of course, at the first sign that I'm actually awake, and going to take my CPAP hose off, she's talking about anything and everything. I had to throw her out of the room so I could get ready to...
Wait, as an accident was being cleared off of the freeway. I sat there for thirty minutes waiting for them to get the car, who must have slid on the wet pavement. Of course I get the call from the movers who are outside my apartment, waiting. Luckily, I didn't do what I first thought, and that would be to send them on to their next destination. That was off in Katy, many miles away, so I'm glad I kept them waiting. The two guys, both thin guys who are surprisingly powerful for their size, were nice, though the one who wasn't driving the truck certainly wasn't the brightest guy. He shared a lot with Tigger bounding up and down the three flights of stairs to and from my apartment.
They quickly got every stick of furniture out and down the stairs and into the truck. They call the next customer, who they are already late for, and tell her that they will be there in two hours. The driver mentioned that they had four other moves to do this day, and I knew that they would never make it to all of them. I drove back up to Conroe and met my Dad at the storage place and we helped the movers get all of the furniture placed in the very back of the storage space, ready for all of the other stuff, some of it mine, that's in Dad's smaller space in the same mini-storage compound. Of course it was still cold and drizzling, so Dad and I wanted to get out of there as soon as we could.
Dad talked to me about the new job, but stayed away from talking about other things, except for the olympics, which we chatted about a bit watching various events. Mom however, wants to know everything, especially about living with Chris, that I could see that Dad wasn't really going to touch. The good thing with Mom will usually take over the conversation once again so I don't always end up talking forever.
I went back into Houston and had a rather off-the-cuff brunch with Jerry (
goofycubb) and then i went back to the apartment to clean, vacuum, scrub and remove the last few things, like a couple of posters, throw out the bathmats, and put the tuba in the car. I sort of felt sad about it, as it was a great apartment, but I realized that I felt more lonely than anything, and that was the most constant feeling about the place. I spent a lot of time alone there, waiting for the day that would come when I could be with Chris, and now, here I was one more time without him. Fitting, I suppose, and fitting that it was cold, overcast and rainy.I cleaned everything out, locked the door, and placed my keys in an envelope along with next month's rent, and dropped it down the mailslot at the rental office. About six months ago, they stopped opening the rental office on Sundays. I'm not sure how this affects their rentals, but it seems strange. I never could get anything done with their office while I lived there because I was always working when they were open.
I didn't get back to Conroe to help Dad move more stuff between storage units, but we did get the bed and set it up in the guest room, so I ended up sleeping once again on my old bed. We went out to eat at the exotic Red Lobster for a bit, and I asked Dad about his thoughts on the Vice President shooting that guy and he got very defensive about the whole thing. I guess that spin really does work, where a guy who's been a member of the NRA, and a hunter can still defend such stupidity as Cheney trying to cover up what happened in a hunting accident.
Mom asked me about Brokeback Mountain, and what all the fuss was about. Of course, I'm one of the few gays who hasn't seen the movie, but I told here it was just a good film, from the acting to the direction, with a good story. I told here I didn't really think of it as a "gay" movie, but a movie that has two men who love each other in it. The hype comes more for some of the movie's implications than from what's actually presented on screen, and the media's going to talk about anything that takes a small risk, even though the movie seems tame to where it could have been. I think my Dad's a little concerned that a western writer like Larry McMurtry was involved, but as I told them, it's just a moving, human story, and nothing more. If it wins the oscar, many will claim that it's a part of Hollywood's endorsement of the gay agenda, but really, it's more about a nice story told and acted well.
Finally, Monday mom let me sleep in, especially since I'd been coughing all weekend, so there wasn't that familiar bump trying to get me to wake up for school. I had to leave back for the northlands, now that it had thawed, and leave this bed behind to go back to Chris'. She did offer to do my laundry, but there wasn't time. No, it was just one more little reminder that I've grown up, and now I'm a Houstonian no longer.
