commencement

i guess i am going to new york. i thought i had let go of my little commencement stage fantasy, but apparenty not. i booked a flight ($220.50 out of minneapolis) for may 13 and i am going to spend 5 nostalgic days, wandering the streets of manhattan, reminiscing the fine days of a life supported exclusively by financial aid and big ugly loans, wondering why the hell i don't still live there and why the hell i don't still support myself with big fat loan checks.

perfect girlfriend. lovely new home. successful completion of degree. impromptu trip to NY.

how great is my life?

moving

i'm packing and moving. for a long time i was reading and writing. then i was working and paying. then i was reading and writing again. now i am packing and moving. again. everyone hates moving and if you say you don't then you are either a big fat liar or i don't think i can relate to you in a friendly kind of way. packing sucks ass. there are only a handful of good things that can possibly come of it. and i am talking about a toddler's hand... not a grown-up hand. one good thing is that it's a great opportunity to get rid of a lot of shit you definitely don't need. in a break-up move, you can simply leave some of it behind. by accident, of course. but in a total move, complete with tub-scrubbing and carpet cleaning, you have to do something with all of your shit. and if you don't want to take it with you... it's dumpster time.

the other good thing about packing to move is that you have to reach waaaaaay to the back of your closets where you put the stuff that has no practical use but gets "stored" everywhere you live because you have to keep it. i have a lot of crap in the "have to keep it" category. and the only time i ever "use" anything in this category is when i am moving and i find it again. then i make whomever is present suffer through a saunter down memory lane. "... and here is the water bottle that my entire volleyball team signed when my team went 33-0 in my junior year... and this is my mom's majorette uniform... and here is the picture of my grandfather that hung on the wall in my parents' house while i was growing up..." they love it.

the miserable thing about the storage crap is that if it truly must be saved, it tends to get passed along. like the giant plastic bag full of unopened panty hose i found in my closet tonight. there are no less than 24 packages, still sealed, of control top panty hose in a wide array of hues. these were an acquisition. they can't just be thrown away because they are new, but my mom retired and moved out of her house. she moved into a life with no need for panty hose of any kind and a home with significantly less storage space. so as she was cleaning out her dresser drawers and happened upon a stack of unused hose, she thought it best that they be passed along to a more suitable home. i guess she determined that mine was the appropriate home for said hosiery.

i have not worn hose of any kind since high school. that would be 15 years ago. and anything with a "control top" can go straight to hell as far as i am concerned. and yet, i have 24 pairs of these elastic nightmares in my possession at all times. i own them. they are, i suppose, insured along with all the other shit i own, intentionally or not.

why can't i just throw them away? but more importantly, why the hell did she have so god damn many of these ass traps? please help me. how many times can i really move them before it starts to meet some kind of criterion in the dsm-iv? i swear, i do not have hoarding behaviors. i never have. i keep sentimental objects and that is normal. but this.... i don't know what to do about this. she left them in my custody, assuming they would be safe and put to good use. anyone want some girdlehose?