Well, with worldwide destruction as a certain alternative, do I really have a choice?

Awesome: Today's mail contained my long-delayed delivery of Pacific Rim: Man, Machines & Monsters (2013), the accompanying art book to the film. I ordered it in July. I had to keep reordering it as Barnes & Noble kept informing me the book was not actually in print, despite the release date clearly on the order. I think it sold out its initial print run. Possibly its second. It is now in the same cardboard box as Mark Valentine's The Collected Connoisseur (2010) and Anne Ursu's Breadcrumbs (2011), my birthday presents from ashlyme and rushthatspeaks respectively, along with my birthday card from 4nt1g0n3.

Complicating factor: That box needs to be filled with other books and stacked downstairs with all the boxes from derspatchel's room because the movers are coming at nine in the morning. Then I need to pack all the kitchen equipment we've been using for the last month and three-quarters. Then I need to make sure all of my clothes are out of my dresser because while I moved them in drawers, I am not sure how professional movers feel about that sort of thing. And I did not do all of this earlier because I spent the entire evening buying the things we will need immediately in the new apartment tomorrow and doing laundry at my parents' house where the washing machine is neither in a basement nor disintegrating through the kitchen floor. (I don't have anything against the basement in the new place, it was just a luxury. I have a lot of things against the washing machine at Hall Ave.)

I will consider this move a success if I sleep tonight.

The best thing we can do is to make wherever we're lost in look as much like home as we can

Well, that was a success.

I slept a little under three hours, including the half-hour nap between eleven and eleven-thirty. At which time I had not expected to be in a position to keel over onto derspatchel's bed at Hall Ave., but Wednesday morning is street-cleaning day is Somerville. I did not know because I do not have a car. Rob did not remember because he hasn't had a car in ten years. Between the hours of eight and twelve, no vehicles are allowed on the street. Moving vans included. They showed up at ten of nine, came upstairs to look at our stuff, went downstairs to start loading it, got yelled at by a meter maid, and drove away. Here's the happy ending, though: they came back a few minutes after noon and moved all of our stuff to the new address in less than half the time they'd originally estimated. We still have some assorted boxes, fragile objects, and foodstuffs to move, but not boxes of books, not desks and chairs, not futons. Not Doppel-Abbie, who is now surveying the living room.

We won't have internet until Friday at the earliest, because Comcast can't send out a technician until Tuesday; the best they can do for us before then is stick a modem in the mail. (This is even a thing?) Until then, I expect to be checking e-mail and LJ etc. at distant intervals in coffeeshops or other people's houses. And mostly using it to work on my job, since I will really need to remain employed if I want to meet Comcast's asking price. (We had hoped just to switch over Rob's RCN account, but the new street isn't wired for it. WHY IS THE WORLD NOT FULL OF FREE INTERNET I ASK YOU.) That reminds me that my next project after moving is to find a better job than the one I have now, but first I need to get through the cleaning/unpacking/breathing stage and incidentally this concert. Come hear me sing two short German art songs on Sunday. They're very different from one another and I am desperately praying I'll be able to sleep before then.

The website doesn't reflect it yet, but I have been sent photographic evidence that my remembrance of Dr. Fiveash is now in print in this week's Lexington Colonial Times as part of a full-page spread in his memory. The whole thing is titled "Ave atque Vale," which is correct. Catullus ghosts everyone. I read that poem first with Dr. Fiveash, too.

I really hope Tanglefoot gets off the ground, because that is some of the funniest physical comedy I have ever seen on a page. Of course I'd read the adventures of Izzy Perizene. "His talents include creditor evasion, landlord-dodging, fast talk and slow dancing." Go on, twist my arm.

We have an apartment. And we are living in it. Slightly provisionally at the moment, but nonetheless. I have switched my keys from their paperclip to my keyring and we've thrown out our first trash (a terrifyingly cat-damaged bolster formerly on top of the window seat, which opens rather deeply; I have named it Mr. Spinalzo) in the place. We'll sleep there tonight and if street noise wakes us in the morning, it'll be different street noise.

And we're calling it the Mystery Shack. For reasons. But Rob will tell you about that later.