My Life in Boxes, Again + Oberlin Run-in of the Week

Time for a semi-long, semi-reflective entry again, it seems.

I love the night. There's something really peaceful to me about night time, after the sun's gone down and the stores have shut down and the people have gone to sleep and I no longer have a to-do list hanging over me...there's just something lovely about it. Music sounds better; books are more capable of enveloping me in their worlds; my journal entries are more thoughtful; incense smells better; tea is downright fantastic...I just feel at peace.

I've been on such an early schedule kick here that I haven't capitalized much on night times. It's happening tonight, though, due to a crazy busy schedule this week - covering several extra shifts at work for people since flu season has hit Seattle, as well as midterms for many people in school...as well as securing the new apartment, putting in epically long training runs for the marathon, and trying to cram in some nice social time, too. Having a full day planned for tomorrow too (walk to work + early a.m. Keen clinic + late morning hike with coworkers + afternoon/evening Move-In-to-the-New-Place, Phase I), packing tonight has been imperative.

So after an 8-hour work day and a long, luxurious dinner with some old family friends of Seyeon's (sushi appetizers + fresh halibut + delectable Indian dishes + white wine + tea and sorbet for dessert = yum!), I've spent tonight packing for what feels like the twentieth time in the last few years. (After having consulted my memory for a more specific number, I've come up with "14" for number of times I've moved in 5 years - so 20 wasn't so far off the mark after all...hmm.) Coupled with the night time, the whole packing process (naturally, right?) is putting me in a deeply reflective mood.


This again?
First of all, I still can't believe how much junk I have. You'd think that after so many moves in so little time, I'd have all my stuff pared down to a sparse few essentials. And yet packing still feels like a bit of a nightmare every time I do it. Assuming all goes well with the new place, it will be such a huge relief to just be settled for a while - get rid of all the crap I've dragged from place to place to place and never apparently used, and begin acquiring real furniture and artwork and kitchen utensils, rather than using cardboard boxes as night stands and posters to decorate my walls and mooching other people's cheese graters. I'm thrilled!

Move-In-to-the-New-Place, Phase II will happen later in the week, when Alan gets back into town, and we can go claim the rest of the stuff in the storage unit (furniture, yay!) and probably at that point, if not earlier, my beloved kitty cat Chloe! Chloe's been staying with my friend Kyle down in Olympia all this time - both of whom, notably, I visited earlier this week. Had a blast hanging out in downtown Olympia with him and his friend Katie, sampling Northwest microbrews, cooking a bunch of late-night yummy food and catching up for lost time.

At work today, one of my coworkers grabbed me in the back stockroom and was like, "Hey, there's some guy out there who's moving to Ohio and is shopping for winter boots...you want to handle this one?" Turns out the guy was a freshman at Oberlin, at home in Seattle on fall break, and shopping to prep for his first Ohio winter. It was fun to chat with an Obie for awhile, and help him buy the boots I should have gotten four years ago, rather than braving through four of those seasons with sub-par footwear.

More soon, including pictures - of the moving process and also hopefully what's apt to be an awesome, albeit rainy, hike with coworkers tomorrow!