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Monday, August 15, 2005

Moving Day

From dawn until dusk yesterday my roommate and I packed up every one of our belongings and moved them 13 blocks north. We filled boxes and bags and rubber totes and folded down the seats in my car and strapped things to the bed of his truck and moved moved moved.

And now there is cardboard covering the kitchen floor of the new apartment because the landlords are still painting, but that’s OK because the landlords’ son, who is doing the work… Well, we don’t mind his presence. And the kitchen appliances are in the dining room and all our belongings are piled in the living room and sun room.

I know the place is old (1907 to be exact) because the intricate tile work on the front stoop and the stained glass window, with its dark green trees framing a golden-hued sky, and the scrollwork on the built-in buffet and the built-in mirrors and the claw-foot tub and the granite bathroom are too intricate and time-consuming and expensive for today’s rush of Build it Fast and Start Earning Rent.

And the possibilities are endless and scary and I make Jason — the roommate — promise that no creative decisions will be made without my presence and can we please, please, please forget that vinyl tablecloth ever existed? I don’t care that your mom made it for you.

What are we going to do with the sunroom? Jason asks.

What do you mean what are we going to do with it? We’re going to nap in the breezes that flow through the open windows and we’re going to watch the theater on the street pass us by and we’re going to grow beautiful plants in the sunlight and we’re going to (hopefully) close the double doors and have amazing makeout sessions.

And the questions: Which way should my bed be turned? How will I decorate these tall, tall walls in my bedroom? Where are my shoes? What key opens the garage? How do we turn on this light?

DAMMIT How does this shower work?

When I sleep the noises are unfamiliar and strange. The difference between 13 blocks and one floor down is incredible and I think, Oh I bet Jason is going insane because he is used to Duluth and the quiet homogeneity of south Minneapolis and here there are people talking and crickets chirping and cars zooming and I’ve never lived on the first floor so I wake up at 2 and think someone is cutting a window screen to steal our stuff and I carefully walk the perimeter of the apartment in my underwear and bare feet and check to make sure all the screens are intact.

But the neighbors are all friendly and mixed in age and race and I like that. They walk by and introduce themselves as we move, which seems very unlike Minnesota, and when they ask if we’re moving in and we say yes, they say good.

And today my legs — the only part of my body that could be considered muscular — today they are stiff and sore. And so I’ll sit at my desk at work and coast on a scooter whenever I have to cross the office and will go home as soon as possible to make order out of the chaos and and put dishes in the new (and beautiful) kitchen and make sure the vinyl tablecloth hasn’t reappeared and probably compromise and allow a ceramic figurine of a rooster in the kitchen as long as he doesn’t hang that quilt patch on the wall. I don’t care that it’s made out of your grandpa’s old ties. Put it in your room.

Posted by Aaron on August 15, 2005 9:56 AM