07.18.07 - 11:06 am

so it happened. i moved. i moved nearly 18 days ago. and yet, here i am late on the detailed description of this important episode in my life. let me begin.

the move was devastating. i had some 36 hours to move a two bedroom apartment, 220 gallons of saltwater fish tank and companion breeding set up and travel some 85 miles in between working, child raising and on a paupers budget.

naturally the important things died first. no more breeding pair of clownfish. no more eggs. no more baby clownfish. out of the five i was moving, three perished. sweet.
i forfeited a tremendous amount of material possessions to a box left by the dumpster. old ipods. printers. cables. imac mouses and keyboards. halide reflectors and ballasts. clothes. toys. all viable things i was too distraught to dispose of at the local goodwill. so now they are hobo treasures. fine. good. i just needed to get it the fuck out of my life. my moving van had no more room. nor did my new apartment. what a relief it was, but as i shut the door to the uhaul...it was completely obvious that too much shit still remained.

two trips from portland to corvallis and corvallis to portland in two days.

trip one - david noe and a 17 foot uhaul. packed solid.
trip two - david noe and greg vs my entire fish tank investment into a 1996 dodge pickup.

after the fish were in buckets, the tanks disassembled and loaded into the back of the pick up, after father and greg had left for their party, i sat. defeated. i was completely drained of energy. i had no more desire to do this. i was tired of the fish, the work needed to maintain them and the fragility of their captivity. i was ready to just leave it all by the dumpster, and call it good. i cant remember ever feeling so overwhelmed. but it wasnt just the fish to blame. the extreme time frame i had to move all my stuff out and then drive it all for such a span of miles was just too much. i wasnt as prepared as i should have been. i didnt care to clean the carpets, nor the windows or the walls. i left the place in shambles. i didnt even care about my $300 deposit anymore. i just wanted to be moved, and done and out of corvallis. i was broken. the climax to my six years in corvallis was a shitty apartment in a shitty apartment complex teeming with shitty people.

following this, i then had unpacking to look forward to.

what once looked like a large and marvelous three bedroom apartment suddenly was nothing more than a storage container for hundreds of cardboard boxes and awkardly placed furniture. it was a rough several first days. which box to open first? this shelf needs to be organized before these boxes can be opened and its contents placed. but first this couch needs to be moved. but to move this couch, these boxes need to be emptied and put somewhere.

thank god for michael. the stranger i invited into our house the first night here. he moved mattresses for a living, in addition to being a pastor and crimefighter. his body was perfectly sculpted out of solid muscle. and he essentially unloaded my fully stocked uhaul completely on his own; sometimes with several boxes under his arms. heavy boxes. the kind that would take two mortal men of average strength to unload. im pretty sure he didnt even break a sweat. russell and anna were uncomfortable around him. nice guy though.

but now, some two weeks after all of that, my fish tanks are recovering from all of the death. the house is organized and in good standing. weve met neighbors. kara and laura. we watched buffalo 66 at their place last night in fact. and hung out with karas brother a few nights ago.

i love this place. i love that i can walk to safeway for food or beer whenever i feel like it. i love that i can get on the freeway and be in tualatin in 20 minutes. i can be at my moms in 20 minutes. i can be at my fathers in 20 minutes. i can be in downtown in 5 minutes. the neighbors all say hi. i dont have a yard, but i have a large asphalt parking space that can be used as one. i have three stories to my shared palace. russell commands the space downstairs, the main floor houses the kitchen, fish room and tv, and upstairs ashton and i utilize the shower and two bedrooms.

the shower still points at my chest. but its far less touchy when it comes to switching between scalding hot water and icy blasts of cold water. no longer am i hearing dudes yelling fuck you to each other. just a steady stream of police sirens after 9pm. as much as a blessing safeway is, its also a curse. an armada of delivery trucks arrive every morning between 5 and 9 am. then you have the 7 am guy with the blower. he takes his precious time cleaning that parking lot. and he has his jet turbine air blower set to maximum volume.

there you have it. a crude, hastily compiled expository on my experiences during the last two weeks. i love it here. i cant wait to make it permanent, at least for a few more years.