Packing

So, further updates? Well, I got my visa about four weeks ago (it only took them about two weeks to process, which was awesome), and I got back from the coast house a week ago, and ever since then I've been spending 95% of my time in a warm pink state of denial. During the other five percent, I have the sudden impression that my well-trained life has slipped its leash and is escaping down the street, with me running after it shouting desperately "No, wait, come back! I was just kidding! Can we talk about this?" and then I sit there in a cold sweat for about 15 minutes.

Anyway, I leave in less than two weeks, and I am in bad shape. I still do not own a winter coat (well, I technically do, but it doesn't fit all that well and is too short, but I never cared because, hello, I spent last year doing that thing where I dash coatless from my car to a building, and the four years before that in Southern California.) I also have no suitcase (David took both the big ones that used to be mine and left me the little gray one we use for week-long trips) and no clothes. Well, I do have clothes. I just don't intend to take them with me.

Here's the thing with the clothes. Three different people have told me on three separate occasions that I need to clean up my act and stop dressing like I rolled out of bed and pulled a pair of jeans off the floor (perceptive, you guys) and my dad put the final nail in the coffin when he asked "What's wrong with your clothes? You're wearing the same outfit I am." And indeed I was. None of my clothes fit anyway because of the aforementioned running shrinkage, and I really can't put off replacing them any longer, even though, it will probably not surprise you to learn, I hate clothes shopping. My friend NephthysWrath has offered to come along, which is good, because she has discounts, and because I don't trust anyone else to tell me that the top I'm trying on looks peculiar on me. My problem is that I have no idea what the heck my body looks like anymore - sometimes I look in the mirror and see a normal woman, sometimes I appear to myself to be six feet wide - and no matter what kind of a day I am having, every time I step into a dressing room, I invariably think "Good lord, I look like a manatee that's been squeezed in the middle," and from that point on I couldn't tell you if anything I'm trying on fits correctly or not. (I think it's the overhead flourescent lights.) NephthysWrath is one of the only people in the world I trust to tell me if my bra strap is showing or if I should really try that in a larger size, so she gets to come.

So, once I have solved the coat, clothing, and luggage issues, there are about a squillion other things I still need to deal with because I've been carefully ignoring them all summer. I have to transfer software onto my laptop because I have to go back to making do with only one computer, and I have cleverly divided all my software between the computers I use now (why? because I am a moron, that's why.) I have to locate things in the mass of boxes I had shipped back from California last year and stuffed in the garage. I have to figure out how to bring movies along with me, because I CANNOT BE WITHOUT MOVIES, ARE YOU CRAZY? (I actually have this mostly figured out, I just cannot share details here. It's taking forever, that's the problem.)

The worst part of all this is that I should be a pro at all this by now, what with going to school on the opposite coast and all. The problem is, I only lived out of suitcases for the first year, and after that I just did what every other out-of-stater did, and either had an apartment or put all my stuff in storage for the summer. I didn't have to worry about what I would do if I forgot my router or alarm clock or whatever because everything was already where it needed to be. It's been a long time since I had to remember stupid stuff like nail clippers. I'm already mostly resigned to the fact that I'm going to forget my retainer or something and have to Skype home and ask for it. It's a pain because I don't want to buy anything there until I decide if I'm staying over there or coming home after I get the Master's degree, so I can't just say, "Well, I'll be here for a while, might as well buy my own *insert item here*," as I did in California; I have to determine as accurately as possible what I need and bring it. I haven't been able to find a helpful packing list online, and every time I sit down to make my own, it gets so long and scary after a few minutes that I give up. Right now, my strategy is "piles of actual items all over the bedroom floor."

Oooh, and that part where I have to select all the books I can't get from the library or Project Gutenberg, but cannot possibly live without? Not going so well. The pile had reached about 25, none of which I was willing to put back, so I had to put them all back and start over. I'm thinking the thing to do is grab some of them as I'm leaving for the airport, because when I premeditate these things I eventually end up with 75% of the books I own.

So, there you are. Further updates as things occur.