this has been Talk Like A Pirate Day.

therefore: arr.

in which i try to reconstruct the lost entry from saturday night

fortunately, a lot of it was constructed in the first place from notes i'd made to myself while driving.

do not be alarmed. of course i can't write and drive at the same time. what i do is, see, i have a pen in the cup holder, and i have a mini-legal pad where i can reach it (along with my wallet so i could pay tolls. that sort of thing.) and then when i think if i don't write that down, i'll forget it by the time it matters, i put the notebook on my knee and grab the pen and scribble the note without ever taking my eyes off the road. it's quite possible that nobody else could ever decipher the words -- i sometimes have trouble myself -- but the fact of having written them down makes it easier for me to remember them later. so.

some things have changed since saturday, of course, so i'll do the reconstruct and the update at the same time. it is no longer Talk Like A Pirate Day, for example, so there is no need to begin this entry with "arr."

i am presently at my parents' house, having completed three days, now, in the Great Moving Multathlon (a word i made up the other night, which is something datlowen and i do -- not to say that other people don't do it; cmshaw and i agree, for instance, that those of us whose joints pop extravagantly every time we move should be called self-chiropracting, but that the verb should be autochiropract -- and by the way, datlowen, my dad was amused by pedipulate).

friday was the kickoff, really, with the excellent going-away party thrown by jgesteve with datlowen, cmshaw, darthrami, and mearagrrl. (i think that's everyone who was listed as a host -- i could be wrong, in which event, eep! sorry.) good times.

then saturday was the distance event. the current winners of the Best Friends A Girl Could Have honors -- kronemab, cmshaw, and datlowen (esti626 gets extra-honorable mention for being the first to arrive, and only had to split because the college friend unexpectedly got up early enough to come in on the first train -- why doesn't she have an LJ, by the way? i know precisely what handle she should use) -- helped me load the truck and finish packing (in that order!), and then off i went.

i sometimes wonder -- not what the hell i'm doing, as Smug Bastard asked me a couple of weeks ago, but whether it'll all be worth it. leaving a place (and the people there, of course, the main thing) where i've been so happy. there was a long time where what i wanted more than anything was to get out of DC. instead, i got my own place, and followed datlowen and jgesteve to the curling club -- and between those two things, everything turned around. i didn't feel like i was living in someone else's city anymore. so naturally, the first chance i got, i left for a year and a half. and then i came back, and i was happy, and now here i go again, further away and for a longer period of time.

wisdom.

anyway, i don't deal well with change, so when i got how i get, cmshaw recommended playing loud music on the drive as a means of catharsis. probably a good suggestion, only the thing is, i put the ol' iPod on shuffle by song, and for several hours nothing came up that was especially cathartic to sing along with, either in leaving-my-friends or other areas. but then about 40 miles from the ohio line i got "i hate myself for loving you" by joan jett and the blackhearts, so that was all right. (rest assured that i do not actually hate myself, etc. i don't hate him, either -- obviously -- and i don't actually even hate her. she's irrelevant, to be honest. i'm very opposite-of-misanthropic about the whole thing, really. pursuant on which, what is the opposite of misanthropic? it should be philanthropic, but it's not. but it's very satisfying to be flying down the road at 70 mph and yelling "you took my heart, and you took my pride away-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay-ay ...")

i used to listen to the radio all the time. when i was a freshman in high school, i had the walkman on all the time, and was as a consequence far better informed about popular music than i am now. i can remember writing letters that were peppered with notification of what song was playing every time it changed, as though the "current music" feature on LJ could tell you what had been the current music through the entire composition of the entry, instead of just what was playing when it was posted. with the iPod now i expect i'll regain some of that -- but even with the iPod where i chose almost everything on the playlist, stuff comes up and i have to look to see what it is. how am i supposed to get aware of new stuff? even on radio stations that play the same damn thing all the time, i mean to say, there's someone other than the listener choosing the content.

iPod:radio::LiveJournal:mailing lists.

[/utter geekery]

a few miles later -- mile post 32, as i was approaching a toll booth -- there was a big sign saying "HEAVY RAINS - POOLING WATER". urging caution, i assume. trouble was, the sky was completely clear; it had stopped raining in DC before i left, though it was still overcast and scary-windy (no kidding, for maybe 100 miles i was white-knuckled trying to remain in control of the truck in the, um, breeze), but the wind had died down not long after i hit pennsylvania, and by the time i was approaching the state line the sky was that brilliant blue you get when all the clouds have been sucked into the storm a little south of where you are. i don't know if the sign was left over from an earlier storm or anticipating the drifting-north of hurricane ivan, but it sure enough didn't make a ton of sense.

i'll tell you something about a sky like that, though: the sunset is gorgeous. the past ten years have made it clear to me that i'm a city girl, and probably also an east-coaster (i've never lived on the left, so i can't say for sure), but every time i drive to my parents' in good weather i'm reminded that there's something special about the midwest. there really is a different quality to the air and the light, when they're not all crowded up between buildings and hills and things; the sky really is bigger. the horizon unfolds in front of you, and when you have a perfectly clear sky and an uninterrupted horizon, the sunset is just something else. (i often wish i had a camera with me at such times, but of course a camera couldn't do it justice -- aside from which, who can take pictures while driving a car, to say nothing of a ten-foot truck, at 70 mph.)

a lot more stars visible, as well. it's an effort not to look at them instead of the road.

(that about does it for saturday. the original entry was definitely funnier, and i thought it was longer, but that's the substance of it, anyway. i do remember concluding with the admission that it had been less Talk Like A Pirate and more Talk Like datlowen. heh.)

sunday was the relay. my dad came with me, since he was free, and we drove to my brother and sister-in-law's place to give them the furniture -- and then turned around and drove home again. second long day in a row. not a lot else happened. had to save up energy for today.

monday: lifting. spent a little more than an hour unloading the truck and getting the stuff up my parents' driveway and into the garage. enlisted dad to help with TV, as cannot lift it by myself. (when we put it down he overbalanced and fell over. he's okay; fell correctly, rolled onto his shoulder, and only scraped his elbow a little bit. but still, scary. not fun. bad.) then spent a couple hours sorting things and hauling boxes up three flights of stairs to store them in various places where they won't be too intrusive. i have worn myself out today, and will certainly feel it tomorrow.

and tomorrow afternoon, back to DC to finish clearing out the old apartment. ellen_fremedon, what time does sanj have the elevator on saturday? this stuff has got to get out of my old place and into your new place as soon as we can get it there. (mrshamill, any chance we can borrow your van and buy you lunch?) there will be painting and vacuuming and lunch for the BFAGCH crowd, and i will leave again next sunday and not come back.

(oh -- and the last note from the drive on saturday says "cmshaw gift certificate -- oh, i bet i know what it's for." it occurred to me while i was driving. heh.)

in the meantime, i'll rip some more CDs.