I have moved. Well, mostly. As of Saturday, the place in Playa Del Rey is stripped bare, the shelves wiped clean, and the keys turned in. With the help of Sarah’s dad, we drove the two-car convoy up to San Francisco with no major incidents, feline or otherwise. The new place, which bears a strong resemblance to the old place, now has a new Ikea mattress, a new Ikea computer cabinet, and a bunch of clothes, minor kitchenware, and other crap that came up in a total of four carloads, plus the usual Target and Costco ventures. Tomorrow or the day after, we are supposed to get the big truckload of everything else, which will be great fun.

I got a new job. As per the normal drill, I won’t mention it here, but if you are curious, you can email me. It’s going to be an interesting venture, which means I might not post again for another six months. And it’s 45 minutes away, so even if it was banker’s hours, that’s a huge hit. But I am excited about it, so we’ll see.

Right before we left LA, I reached lifetime status at Weight Watchers. That means I stayed under my goal for long enough, and now I don’t have to pay. (I posted about this in LiveJournal.) I have not eaten as well since, because I have either been on the road or have not had a kitchen available to me. But I think I am still maintaining, and now need to get in the groove of eating correctly in the new office situation. I still don’t feel thin. And I am afraid to go buy new clothes, even though my current ones are hanging off of me.

There are two new phones in the family. Sarah got an iPhone, and I got a Samsung Blackjack 2, which is a Windows Mobile phone. They both have interesting features to me, but the 3G speed is a huge wonder to me. It’s strange to hold a tiny device that’s smaller than a box of cough drops that can download files twice as fast as my first DSL connection. I’m still working on using a Windows Mobile computer while syncing to a Mac, but I have that almost figured out with Missing Sync. I’m almost at the “so what do I do with it?” phase, and I will need to adjust my data hoarding accordingly. The iPhone is neat, and I like the Mac-centric interface, but I can’t type at all on the virtual keyboard. If it had a slide-out, it might be more viable for me. Oh well.

Time to go install more crap I don’t need on the phone. I have almost two weeks off until work starts, and it starts with me flying to Dallas for training. Maybe I should buy a memory card and fill it with ripped and shrunk DVDs for the trip.

Well, I am moving again. This time I will be going up to San Francisco, and in short order - with luck, we will be out of our LA place by the end of this month. Because we are transferring apartments within our current company’s system, it is going faster than usual, and there were no deposits or background checks or whatever else. I looked at places last week, found one, signed a piece of paper, and we are now underway.

My mission as of late is to further compress my life into fewer boxes and shelves. My office has six bookshelves, and my goal has been to eliminate the tallest one, which I got made for me when I lived in Astoria. It is falling apart, looks like hell, and is always in danger of falling over. I also would like to free up that space and reduce my bookcase footprint. A huge pile of books have gone to Amazon for resale, and a bunch more have been recycled or wait to be donated. I also moved a bunch of DVD box sets off of one shelf and into plastic tubs for storage in a closet. I don’t need immediate access to every single DVD I own, and although at one time I felt some need to have every spine displayed of every DVD in my collection, I’d now rather have every single thing hidden in a storage unit of some sort. With that shift, there are now no longer any books on that shelf, and it will go to the chipper soon.

I also have a bunch of “misc” boxes that have followed me across the country ten times over, at least since college. When I got to LA, I had this down to two printer paper boxes and six smaller plastic tubs. I managed to eliminate one of the paper boxes yesterday, which was a major triumph. One of the problems, aside from that I’m wasting entire days trying to eliminate half a cubic foot of storage, is the nostalgia aspect of the whole thing, and how hard it is for me to let go of some things that meant so much to me at one time.

Some of this isn’t hard. I have ten copies of every death metal zine that passed through my hands in 1993, and I really don’t give a shit about any of them anymore, so they all went to the recycler, unless I wrote something in them. I have a lot of zines and papers in which I had a review or short piece in a column, and it was easier for me to tear out that page and chuck the rest than it was to keep hauling around the whole thing. But there were other things. I found this shirt in a box, a polo shirt that I wore a lot in 1992, and I mentioned in Summer Rain frequently. I don’t know why I kept it, except that in 1999 when I was writing the book, it was easy to pull out this shirt and think of 1992. Now, I can pitch it. It’s hard to do, but sometimes keeping just the memory is better than keeping the associated hardware.

I also went through all of my photos yesterday, meaning that every single analog photo I’ve taken from 1982 to 2000 passed through my hands. There was a lot of low-hanging fruit to pitch, like pictures of blackness or a flash against a glass window. I eliminated doubles when I could. I threw out photos of people I never met in person. All of the blurry artistic stuff went in the garbage. All of these decisions were helped by the fact that I scanned in all of my negatives a year ago, and all of this old stuff was in iPhoto. I managed to remove about 25% of the space in my photo storage area, which is huge.

It was also weird. I am an overly nostalgic person sometimes, so to look at all of these photos from 1983 and 1988 and 1993 and 1996 made me feel weird. I had some severly negative feelings about my prom in 1989, but I found dozens of photos from it. In all of them, I looked the same, this deer-in-headlights look, like someone at a blackjack table who just bet too much and watched the dealer with a ten showing turn over an ace. I found pictures I took in 1983 with my Kodak 110 camera of the state Future Problem Solver’s competition, on the big giant metro campus of IU-Purdue at Fort Wayne. Twenty years later, I’d be standing on a beach in Hawaii, trying to shake a long plane ride out of my head, but at that moment, 90 minutes in a stationwagon was like a trip to the moon. And there’s a stack of pictures (and doubles) from a trip to Canada in 1988, my first, in which it looks like I spent the whole trip saying “wow, they have 7-Eleven in Canada! Let me take 100 pictures of it! I wonder if Geddy Lee ever shops here?”

Another task as of late is rating or re-rating thousands of songs in iTunes. I figure I have at least a couple of six-hour drives ahead of me, so it would be good to get some playlists and podcasts and new ratings in my iPod for that. So if you see anything weird in my playlist to the right, that’s why.

Back to work…

The ocean isn’t two miles away, as I previously thought. I went for a walk yesterday, heading west, and up this huge hill. At the top of it were all strangely shaped houses of the sort you’d only see on a shoreline, with impossibly-sized windows and turrets and none of the right angles you find on a straight-up ranch house in the suburbs. And just past that, the ocean. And it’s the full-on ocean, not a canal connected to a sound connected to an inlet that eventually dumps into a sea. I walked around a bit, trudged through the sand, watched the sailboats in the distance and the huge planes jetting off from LAX to all points west (i.e. Asia) It’s not a bad walk at all, although the hill part really taxes out my fucked up knee, but maybe doing it more will help.

In a couple of hours, I get into one of those big tin cans at LAX and head east, back to Denver, to rescue the furniture. This will be a weird trip - in today, back Wednesday night. The weird stuff has to do with driving a rental car into the space where I’d normally park a car; having to stay in a hotel for a night because all of my stuff will be boxed or shrinkwrapped; said hotel is less than a mile from my old place, and I used to pass it every day on my way to work. Basically all of the tourist in my own town stuff will be in effect. Not to mention that I will have but a few hours to somehow condense down my Denver experience and eat my last three or four meals at places I will probably never see again. (And in reality, all of those will probably end up at McDonald’s.)

I think the one thing that I will truly, truly miss is Coors Field and the Rockies. I was thinking about this last night, about how I am not one who has ever had some great belonging, especially one full of rituals. Some people have religion, and I tried that and it didn’t work out. But the closest I came to religion was getting to Coors Field an hour and a half before a game, watching the opposing team take batting practice, getting a hot dog, looking out at the field in front of me and the mountains in the distance, hearing the same soundtrack of crappy music they play before every game, hearing Reed Saunders read off the same safety information and where you can buy food and all of that other crap the PA announcers read before the game. I guess having Coors Field right next door was like having a major league ball park in my family room, where I could go down there any time I wanted and catch a game. So I’ll miss that, a lot. I can get stuck in traffic for two hours and go to a Dodgers game, but it won’t be the same. No matter how much you hate some place, there’s always one thing you miss. Seattle: mountains. New York: best subways ever. Elkhart: you always have a new car stereo, because yours gets stolen every month.

I went to a movie at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood on Saturday. We went out with four of Sarah’s old friends, and it’s really damn nice to finally have friends to go out with. (And one was a baseball guy who said we have to go to a game in Anaheim, so there you go.) We saw Jumper, which was forgettable, but it was hilarious to be down in Hollywood on a Saturday night. There was some kind of cheerleading contest that night, so there were all of these 14-year-old girls in cheerleader costumes running around, which was a pedo’s wet dream. There was also a very large hoochie mama contingent bussed in from Orange County or something, and all of the clubber types going to clubs in that area. And Grauman’s is completely over the top, with all of the handprints in concrete out front, and all of the hollywood stars in the sidewalk, and the people dressed up as various famous iconic stars. The vibe of the place was very Times Square, which means don’t act like a fucking tourist, but it was pretty overwhelming.

I finished the last episode of The Sopranos, and that has to be the stupidest ending ever for a TV series, aside from making the whole thing a dream of an autistic kid in a coma or whatever the hell. Bleh.

Gotta shower, eat lunch, pack, get to the airport. This will be a fun one.

We’re here, more or less. I forget where the story last left off, but we are in our new place in LA, but our furniture isn’t. My car and a carload of stuff has been waiting here, and then yesterday and today, we drove the other car, a carload of stuff, and the two cats here. I go back next Monday to orchestrate the full-pack movers and get the last couple of suitcases of stuff. In the meantime, no phone, no internet, no TV, and no place to sit down except the aerobed. (I did cop a slow wireless signal from the business center, though.)

The drive was long and extremely cramped, as every square inch of the car had something in it. The first day was about twelve hours; the I-70 run through the pass in the mountains, dropping into the nothingness of Utah and then the I-15 shot into Vegas. The two cats had very different approaches to the trip: the little one cowered in fear inside of her carrier, and stayed comatose the entire time. The big one started crying about five minutes into the trip, so I let her out and she greatly enjoyed watching the landscape roll by. Neither ate, drank, or used their litter pans, so thank someone for small miracles.

In Vegas, we stayed at a La Quinta, which allowed pets. It’s way the hell over on Paradise Rd, kinda-sorta near UNLV. We had a two-room suite, and the cats were fine and dandy once we got set up there. We ordered some really shitty food from the proxy room service thing and watched the Oscars. (After watching John Stewart host, it’s odd that I’d actually miss Billy Crystal’s saccharine schtick.) By the time that was over, we were both out for the night, and that was the extent of my Vegas trip.

Today was a quick drive, maybe five hours, but it still seemed like forever. We stopped in Baker to see the world’s tallest thermometer, but I was bummed to see it was just a tower with a bunch of digital signs on it - I was expecting a giant glass tube filled with mercury. Anyway, we got here, hauled everything upstairs, made a giant Costco run, and now we’re trying to unpack a bunch of luggage and gym bags filled with toiletries and clothes.

I got a new iPod, btw - the 60G classic, in black. Sarah gave it to me for Valentine’s day, but I did not get it until today because it went to the address here. I just synced it up, and that’s ready to roll. I did sell the Mac Mini anyway, and that money will probably go toward a new office chair, or something to make my new home office more habitable. You know, “if I buy this I might write more” stuff.

BTW I just got copies of a new book I am in, called Santi: Lives of Modern Saints. It also includes my pals John Sheppard, Erin O’Brien, Timothy Gager, Grant Bailie (all AITPL contributors) and more. And it comes with a CD, although I haven’t listened to that yet. Anyway, well worth the $25, and also I got a handful of free copies, so state your case or make your best trade offer and one could be yours.

Way too much to do. I think Verizon shows up tomorrow, I need to look into that, too.

Well, the Denver gig is up. We are moving again, by the end of this month, to the original Plan A city, which is Los Angeles. And I’m reluctant to talk about it at all, since the stock reaction of most people is similar to that if I told them I was building a machine in my back yard that would turn silly putty into platinum bars. But yeah, we are moving.

Sarah’s job has been less than stellar, working ten hours a day, seven days a week, and dealing with a lot of general lunacy. Then the firm lost their biggest client and laid off half the company. And those of you dot-com survivors can affirm that when half of your company gets laid off, it doesn’t mean your workplace will be just dandy from now on. It’s a lot more like being the band on the deck of the Titanic, except they didn’t have to deal with endless conference calls. Anyway, she talked to her old boss, who immediately found her a gig at their Los Angeles office. She had no real complaints about her old job, just that we were both sick of New York. And working for the biggest ad agency in the company means they don’t start selling off their office furniture when they lose an account.

As for me, I was done with work as of the 31st, last Thursday. I actually will be staying on as a part-time contractor, working remotely, but I won’t be going to meetings, dealing with politics, or driving an hour each way a day. My plan is to cut over to contracting part-time, and working as a developer. Since before christmas, I’ve done nothing but read Ruby on Rails books and work on a few simple projects that I hope to flesh out. I’ve been memorizing Ruby books, reading the Knuth books, reading the Gang of Four, and trying to learn every shortcut and trick tip in Eclipse.

But first, I have a huge marathon ahead of me. Three weeks from today, we turn in our keys and leave this apartment forever. And when you look at the place now, it’s pretty much in the 100% functional state. Sarah’s in Vegas for her family reunion this weekend, and I have been shredding papers like I worked for the Stasi in 1989. But no matter how many hours I put in, the place looks about the same. We do have the whole rockstar relocation setup, even more than last time, so the little elves will show up in our last week with their packing tape and semi trailer and haul everything west. But we still have to find a place. A week from today, I drive my car to LA solo, with the back and trunk filled with a redundant supply of clothes and toiletries and whatnot. Sarah flies there on that Friday, and we have a weekend to seal the deal on an apartment, then fly home. We then have to drive out in the Subaru, with two cats in tow (which will be an awesome time for all) and then reverse the procedure on the other end. Between now and then, I have an endless stream of appointments and errands: service cars, go to doctors, fill prescriptions, cancel things, sign up for things, and continue the onslaught of throwing out, giving away, and shredding up.

So, Denver. It has been an interesting year, and there are some things I will miss. I always like when I’m driving and I see the snow-capped mountains on the horizon. I will really miss baseball here, last summer at Coors Field and the incredible run to October the Rockies had. I will also miss walking a block to the park to see a game. I really do like sitting here in my office, looking out at the open area of LoDo, working on the computer and enjoying this apartment. This is one of the nicest apartments I’ve lived in, and everything actually works, which is new to me. Having grocery stores bigger than jesus and Super Ultra Giant Fucking Monster Target has been nice. And hey, best emergency room ever.

Denver has its issues that make it a “probably not forever” place. I didn’t have any altitude problems, but the dry air is a killer. I get so dehydrated, I wake up two or three times a night to get a drink, even if I take enough ambien to kill a horse. Allergies are worse, and most of the lifers here look like they were rode hard and put away wet. The botox people are taking a beating out here, because I see more than a fair share of ladies that resemble the crypt keeper. Yeah, they climb mountains and ski and all of that shit, but come on people, four words: SPF-50.

I always envisioned Denver as some kind of hip, high-tech mountain metropolis, and I guess it tries. There are some nice looking buildings and they try to be urban to an extent. But a lot of people think Colorado is the wild west. And when people think that in Elkhart, it’s idiotic, but here, you could drive into the mountains and shoot a bear with a .50 caliber sniper rifle. So there’s lots of camo, lots of country music, lots of fans of Larry the Cable Guy, and lots of people with pickup trucks that could fit my car and a cord of firewood in the bed.

So it’s really George Bush country up here. And while I don’t really give a shit about politics (especially with the group of geniuses jockeying for the big job later this year), it sets the mentality of the place. Just down the road in Colorado Springs, you’ll find Focus on the Family; down there and in the suburbs out here, you’ll see mega churches that are bigger than casinos in Vegas. The Promisekeepers also hail from Denver. There are lots of jesus fishes on cars, and you can ignore it all to an extent (which you can’t in Elkhart), but it’s like eating in a restaurant where something’s burning on the grill in back: it’s not your food, but it still bugs you.

I think the biggest case in point is the gay situation. I have friends who are gay, Sarah has friends who are gay, and we’re both used to being in New York, where a person being gay is about as unusual as a person wearing a jacket in October. So sometimes if I’m talking to someone, something might come up in conversation where I know someone who did this or went there or owned that, and when I start to talk about it, I find myself pronouning things, which is really bullshit. But if I told a person that I had thanksgiving dinner with two guys who happened to be life partners, I might get dragged off to a reeducation camp. On the other hand, in LA, if I told someone a friend was gay, they’d probably just say, “well, does he know anyone who can read my script.”

Everyone thinks that LA is the great devil, especially people in the Midwest, especially people with the “fuck that, New York is the greatest place ever” headtrip. But I like it. There’s always been some allure to California to me, something that always made me happy or make me think I was in some huge, mythical thing. I can’t say I’ve always dreamed and hoped of living there, but more than once in the last fifteen years, I’ve interviewed for jobs there and had my fingers crossed. Like I said, LA was our first choice last year, before the Denver thing came up. It will be nice to have the ocean, and water. We are aiming for West Hollywood, which isn’t on the water, but it’s close. (And no, West Hollywood is not the one with the hookers and smack dealers, that’s East Hollywood.) There are other niceties, like multiple airports that aren’t a million miles out of town (DEN), we get to see movies before anyone else (except maybe NYC), ethnic food other than just Mexican, and while there are always jesus people everywhere, they’re pretty drowned out by the people who really don’t give a shit.

We already have a network of people out there, too. Sarah lived there for almost a decade, and still has a lot of friends, both personal and in the biz (and both) and I have a couple of old pals out that way, too. Some of our NYC friends who would never visit Denver are in LA all the time, so we get to see those people too. We both have met absolutely nobody here, mostly because the only thing to do on a Saturday night in Denver is go to the mall and watch a movie, or maybe shop at Wal-Mart.

Bad stuff? It costs more, although compared to New York, it’s maybe a bit cheaper. You need a car; we have two. Traffic, but my I-25 drive for the last six months has not been a breeze, either. I don’t know what to do about baseball. Am I still a Rockies fan? I would love to go to all of their games at Dodger Stadium, but I’m afraid if I wear a Rockies shirt, I will be stabbed by a Mexican gang member. The Angels are there, but AL baseball sucks. Who knows, I thought the Rockies were a losing prospect when we moved here, and look what happened. Maybe when we move, the Dodgers will make it to the series. (And then maybe I can get Scott Boras to arrange a deal where I move to some other city with a shit team and get them to the series.)

So that’s my story. I’ll post more when I know it. And hopefully this cessation of salaried work will help me post more. I looked at my paper journal last night, and realized I hadn’t updated it since the day I started this job. Anyway, time to shred…