Wednesday afternoon while I was talking to my (former) landlord it finally hit me that I really was leaving in two days and it was time to stop zoning out watching episodes of the Office on iTunes and get to work.
I spent the entire day Thursday packing up, throwing crap away, and inviting friends over to take home things they wanted. I took both cats to their new homes, collected a check from the woman who bought my piano, waited an hour at the bank to get a new debit card, and drove Tiffany insane with my moods swinging from tears, to avoidance, to being pissed off and overwhelmed with everything that had to happen to get me out of town on time.
Thank God for Tiffany. She was with me the entire day. It wasn’t until Friday that I realized how much she did that day. We turned an apartment full of furniture into this:
So Friday my Mom and I dropped her dog off at the kennel, and waited for the salvage yard to come pick up my car (perhaps you recall that the engine fell out of it a month or so ago). They were an hour late or so, and my we decided just to give the damn thing to Richard, the maintenance man at the apartments across the street. Thursday he made several trips to my apartment and took loads of my unwanted furniture, clothes, and kitchen supplies over to the families who live in his complex. I thought it was a good way to get rid off all this stuff, and perhaps I will be repaid with furniture karma when I get to Brooklyn and find a place.
We drove the rest of the day to New Orleans, where I was surprised by my sister, she and my Mom had been in cahoots on getting her here to NO. I was pleased, but so shocked when I saw her that I responded in such a strange way.
All in all, I feel so strange right now because I haven’t yet moved in anywhere. It hasn’t really sunk in that I am not going back to Houston. In moments I know it, but mostly it feels like I am just on vacation. Maybe when my Mom drops me off at Koinonia it will become more real. Really, I would like for it to. Such limbo I am in.
I haven’t forgotten about the second half of the Ray Hill interview. I will decide what to do with that soon. When the panic erupted in my last couple of days in Houston, I decided I needed to wait and put that next show up when I have time. Maybe I will just put it up in its raw form. Who knows.
As a side note, New Orleans gives me the creeps. I have been mostly in the tourist areas since I have been here, but the whole drinking, smoking, partying culture really just reminds me of my early twenties in a way that I don’t really want to revisit. People are extremely friendly here, but that smell of bars…just walking by them, the stale liquor and cigarette smoke smell reminds me of a really disgusting part of my life. I don’t wanna be one of those sober people, but that is just how it is. That, and people walking around with plastic cups full of warm beer. ugh.
p.s. can someone correct my French?
Dave Calderbank
Hey Mike! Correct your French… Hmm, what you wrote translates as “epics about koinonia”. I don’t think this is an epic or epics, mainly ’cause you mention your mom. That doesn’t sound very heroic now does it 🙂 Contes de koinonia = Stories about koinonia.
Dave Calderbank
Oh, now you’ve changed it to “the epic about Koinonia part 1” Good, this is too short, we need more parts.
mikeypod
my sister-in-law is french, she helped me out!
will the next parts be 2ère, 3ère etc.?
Dave Calderbank
No. part 2 would be 2ème, 3ème etc. pretty much all the way up to 100. For instance 21 is vingt et un, 21st is vingt et unième. but there could be some weird exceptions, it’s french!
mikeypod
ya! thanks dave!
Andy C
Catching up on you just to find you are now a moving target. Moving is good. Burning the couch is good. People nest and create far far too many anchors that need destroying from time to time and from all ash we create nourished futures.
Keep kicking ass, and good karma will surely follow.
-a
bicyclemark
Was just listening to your last podcast, wanted to wish you a good journey. It is going to be great. Please stop worrying about what is left behind.. you can always go back and visit.. relive it through photos.. etc. No more tears… must move forward!
mikeypod
thanks bm! i just arrived in americus, i move into the farm tomorrow. There is already some action to follow while i am up there, I will write about it soon.