If only I could report on something other than the mundane! I would so like to share some deep personal insight. Some profound philosophical thought. Some meaningful analysis of current affairs. Some evidence of critical thinking. Perhaps even something bizarrely irreverent and/or outrageously funny.
Ah, but I’m sorry: my life is mostly focused on an ambitious to-do list that seems to govern my existence.
Foremost on my mind is making this next major transition happen.
It was exactly a year ago that I posted an entry entitled The Cardboard Jungle. I was living in Portland and about to make a move from the house I’d inhabited for two years. My dwelling was a maze of moving boxes as I was preparing to depart the city. Even though it was mid-June, and I needed to be out of the house by the end of the month, I was still unsure, at the time, where I was going. As it turned out, I interviewed for and accepted a temporary position here in Roseburg , and this is where I’ve been for about 11 months now.
However, it’s time to move on. Again.
I’m needing to entirely change my life. Yet again.
As you know, I’m headed to the Bay Area of California. I’ve accepted a new job down there and given notice on my Roseburg place. I’ll be packing up the truck on June 29. However, it’s total déjà vu as I’m living, once more, in a sea of cardboard. I started the packing process this weekend by retrieving my healthy stockpile of flattened boxes from storage and distributing them strategically around my current abode. I know I’ll basically be living out of boxes and suitcases for a couple of months now. Which I really, really hate.
There’s just something about walking into an apartment that is in total disarray and smells of musty cardboard that is quite off-putting to me. Once the boxes appear, the living space ceases to offer any kind of sense of comfort. I feel like I’m homeless and camping out in a garage. Which I sorta am.
This whole situation creates a familiar sense of anxiety because even though I’ve made my moving plans, I really don’t know where I’m going: I don’t have a destination address yet! And I won’t be able to start apartment hunting until next week. My plans are to drive down to San Rafael this weekend and start looking around on Monday morning. Well, they physical part of looking anyway. I’ve made daily visits to Craigslist and, by now, am quite familiar with the virtual apartment-hunt. I’m very eager, though, to check out these places in person and put my money down on something. I want to be able to have a picture in my head of where, exactly, I’m next going to call home.
Now, speaking of driving there…
One of the things on my totally unmanageable to-do list, associated with accepting a new job and anticipating a move, was to get a new car. My trusty 1999 Subaru Forester, my entirely-reliable vehicle for the last 8 years, was showing, at 110,000 miles, some signs of aging. And I wanted a new one. Well, not necessarily a new Forester, but a new vehicle. (More than likely a new, small SUV.)
So, nine days ago, right after I finalized the job offer, I went car shopping. (Only after I took some time to do a little research, though: I signed up for access to the new- and used-car reports at ConsumerReports.org.) I had discovered that the Toyota RAV4 is currently the most highly-rated small SUV. The Honda CRV is also right up there. The Forester, my old and trusted friend, is still satisfactorily rated, but no longer quite at the top.
So I went shopping thinking that I might end up with a RAV4 this time. I wanted to drive one of the more-gutsy V6 models (with the same gas mileage as a four cylinder) but the Eugene dealership did not have one available when I was there. (I did drive a Prius for the first time and learned a little bit about hybrids, though.) Then I went down the street to drive a fairly-snazzy CRV. Finally, I took a spin in a 2007 L. L. Bean Edition Subaru Forester. And I was hooked all over again. I loved the leather interior, the power seats with lumbar support, and the familiar feel. So, I ended up making a deal for a new one. There wasn’t a red-colored one at my dealership, however, so I had to wait a couple of days while they had one shipped down from Olympia , WA . This particular car had a Sirius satellite radio already installed, and it only took me another day to decide to activate a subscription for myself. And, while thinking about navigating the unfamiliar territory of the North Bay region, it took just a couple more days after that to decide that I wanted a GPS as well. So, this last weekend, I went to Circuit City and purchased a Garmin nüvi 350 for the new vehicle, a portable “personal travel assistant” that tells me where I am, plots out my route, and tells me where to go. Literally. Constantly.
So, as of right now, I have three days left at my current place of employment. I go home to utter chaos every night. I am scheduled to drive down to the Bay Area this weekend. And I will continue, as best I can, to make steady progress on my overwhelming list of tasks as I face this next big transition.
My hope is a better life awaits me in California than the one Oregon has offered me in recent times. With a new job, new car, new car toys, and soon a new place to live…I’m ready!
(Keep breathing, TechnoMonk…)