“Does everybody have a moving buddy?”

I didn’t get much sleep last night. Actually when you don’t go to bed until 5:30 a.m. you suppose to say “I didn’t get much sleep this morning.” And perhaps worse than being ‘can’t-keep-my-eyes-open-and-stop-mumbling-and-drooling-all-over-myself’ tired is being ‘my-whole-body-aches-and-I-can’t-stop-fidgiting-or-pay-attention-to-anything’ tired. But my foray into the break of both dawn and my sanity was not the result of some sort of video game marathon or the ridiculous sacrifice of my hibernation period for the company of a girl. No, I was packing from 10 o’clock (which just happened to be when I finished hangin’ out with some girls and a video gaming stint.) until I laid down to sleep…or rather, to nap.

“Milt, we're gonna need to go ahead and move you downstairs into storage B. We have some new people coming in, and we need all the space we can get. So if you could go ahead and pack up your stuff and move it down there, that would be terrific, OK?”

The weird thing is that I’m only moving to the other side of the block. Its all part of the same “Square,” just a different building in the complex. It’s like moving from Provo to Orem. Technically you are moving, you have to pack everything up, transport it to the new locale, and then reassemble your life. Oddly enough, regardless of where you move to, the processes is still the same. The only real difference is that when you are just moving across town (or the apartment complex) it’s not nearly as exotic or enthralling as moving to a new state, region, or latitude. No, it’s all the hassle, half the fun. Wait, isn’t that what they say about life after graduation?

“Chas? What's going on?”
“We got locked out of our apartment.”
“Well, did you call a locksmith?”
“Uh huh.”
“Well, I don't understand. Did you pack your bags BEFORE you got locked out?”

To make matters worse, I have to give up my key and have everything out of my apartment by the 13th. This also happens to be the day I am flying to Portland. So what could be cooler than going home for the weekend? Uprooting your home and all of your earthly possessions and have them stuck in a transitory limbo at almost the exact moment you go home for the weekend. That’d be RAD! Fortunately, my roommate Dan is going to let me store my stuff in an extra room over the weekend til I get back. (I’m really glad I made friends with him and we didn’t try to poison each other’s Gatorade). It’s a $50 fee if your stuff is not out of the apartment when they check you out. So if they look in the room and ask “Who’s stuff is that?” We’ll just tell them…it’s Horatio’s.

“Actually, I'm telekinetic. I can move things with my mind.”

And it takes a fair amount of both time and effort to shove your earthly belongings in duffel bags, stack them in plastic boxes purchased from Wal-mart, and then cram the odds and ends that neither stack nor fold in garbage bags. I swear I spend a third of my time just mentally sorting through a proper execution of Operation Pack-rat. I try to keep some organization to it; clean clothes go in this duffel bag, dirty in that duffel bag, articles of debatable cleanliness in the garbage bag. Electronics and random toys of childhood delight in this box, Movies and books you still plan on reading in that box, and this box I will dedicate to my every growing collection of theme based Legos. And by theme based, I mean Star Wars. You never realize how much crap you have until you have to pack it up. And then you never realize how little you own until you see it all packed and stacked; piles of your life.

“Absolutely. My answer is I don't have the first damn clue. Maybe he was an early riser and liked to pack in the morning. And maybe he didn't have any friends. I'm an educated man, but I'm afraid I can't speak intelligently about the travel habits of William Santiago.”

So tonight, before my final departure from Jamestown 38, I’ll sleep on my bed one last time. Kind of sad I guess. Sad, because I never really sleep in my bed so it will actually be a foreign experience. Maybe I won’t sleep there. I already packed my sheets. I have to check out and I can’t yet check in. In a way I guess I’m sort of a nomad this weekend. A simple barbaric wanderer…with a gameboy.

“Moving buddy? You can't be serious.”