I will be moving on Wednesday the 28th (29th? Whatever day that is.) The landlord is coming by Monday morning to look at the place and see whether I get any deposit back. I've known this for ages. Now, it's Sunday morning, 3:00am, and instead of an empty apartment with a few boxes sitting around, waiting to be dragged off: Everything is still here. Including the mess. I spent most of today hauling trash out of the place, stealing it from all the nooks and crannies that had thoughtfully beenholding it for me. I think that somewhere, in some star-trek alternate universe, a society has created a wormhole, and they dump all of their trash into my closet. I swear, I don't own half of these things. I can't do it. I cannot move a couch and a table out of this apartment, to somewhere useful, without a vehicle of some sort. I don't have any friends left in town. A few acquaintances, but, well, that's why I'm leaving. Fuck this place. There will be no media empire started in Fort-Fucking-Nowhere. Neither the revolution. So my formal notice of failure: I have failed to do the things I want to do. I always imagined that I would follow my dreams, as trite as it sounds. My ideal life involves Me, a car, The Girl, and a laptop. And not much else. Always have company, always have solitude, always have work, always have freedom from. Perfect. Instead: Stuck. A houseful of things I don't want, but can't seem to get rid of. The car died a year ago, and I'm reliving that awful high-school catch-22: no move w/o car, no car w/o (different, higher-paying) job, no such job in this town. The Girl (that Platonic ideal, that composite of everything-I-want and just-what-I-need which is neither, but comfortable and right, all the same: The Partner) is either undiscovered as yet, or 1500 miles away, or both. But the main problem, really, is that I will not be able to get this house cleaned within the next 30 hours. Especially since I am being forced into attendance of some "going away party." (Not for me, but for my future roommate, one of "Those People Who Everyone Loves." I've been invited twice, now, by people who didn't know that we were leaving together. Will I be any happier there, where I have no job, and no place to live? Slip into the anonymity that is homelessness? Get a fast food job and grow old lying about the "good old days" that never existed? Hold me, Mr. Mark Thomas, Sir. I'm scared. And. My house is dirty & full.

give it to random people you don't know. "you want a table? come with me." it's easy to get attached to random stuff. or have lots of stuff you don't need. as spoken by person who keeps about 60 pounds of sewing supplies that she doesn't use under her bed. anyone need a tabletop ribbon loom?

ask the landlord to come on tuesday skip the party put the things you really need in boxes and leave the rest on the curb [how are you leaving town without a car?] walk around outside, look up, breathe deeply [don't ask strangers, of course i'm just assuming that you don't know each other- especially by your formal tone, to hold you cause you're scared]

light the place on fire and head to mexico.

A common method of furniture disposal here is to make a big sign that says Free Stuff!! and pile the furnature in an eye-catching fashion on the lawn. Then someone else will be stuck with it. Or get a U-Haul truck. It does take a damn long time to get moved out of a place. I hate that. It seems like it should be such a snap. Just box it up, clean, and go... but you start finding all that shit you didn't know you had, and your boxes fill up but your place doesn't get empty, and your morale drops... I wish you luck. Let us know how it turns out.

Well, days later, slightly cleaner. I actually considered doing it Nate's way. For a few minutes. I can't afford a uhaul. A friend and I are moving in her car. The car will hold: All of my 15 articles of clothing, some of her clothes, some blankets, my computer, and her sewing machine. Between the two of us, we will have ~$1500 when we leave; A Uhaul would eat up $700 of that. All of the smaller stuff that we can't fit in the car will be shipped to my brother, who has promised me (very kindly) to hold the packages until we get an address, then ship them to me. I did get one break, though: The landlord won't do the walk-through until Thursday, after I am out of town; I could conceivably just leave everything there and not get my deposit back, and a bad rental reference. So I have two more days to worry about the fact that I still can't get any of the furniture out of my house. I like the "leave it on the curb" idea, too. Sounds almost like Guerrilla suburbanism. Your mission, Mr. Phelps, if you choose to accept it: Leave one couch, one mattress / box spring set, and a full kitchen set on the mayor's lawn. You have until dawn, Wednesday. You must tote these highly volatile items by hand. This sorabji will explode in 30 seconds. bleh. I really don't care about much of this stuff. I have divided my books into two sets of three boxes each: those I will keep, and those I will donate to the library. So much of it I'm just not sure what to do with: broken VCRs, hundreds of bits of busted-up computers in various states of (dis)repair, photographs from high school and writing from college. Greeting cards and unused gifts; coat hangers, salt shakers, wire statues. Denny's mugs and moth-eaten blankets, and 30 different, empty alcohol bottles. A flashing light from a train track (they're bigger than they look.) I think I shall most miss my computer chair. It's incredibly comfortable, in nasty orange plaid. right. back to cleaning. Today was my last full day at the office, too. I've been there for two years now. Longest job I've ever held... first real job in what appears to be my chosen career. madness.

Microwaveable pork rinds are nasty.EWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!

leave your furniture in a highschool parking lot during the night. someone'll adopt it. pork anything is nasty.

pork everything. pork is the meat of the future.

You should have thought about this in advance and announced you were sending "mail art" to everybody. speaking of mail art, it's nearly december....

fahk. workingonit.

does anyone here live in reno?

sheila's about 100 or so miles south.

i'm about 4.5 hours south west of reno.

Okay, guys. I love you all. I'm gonna pack up the computer, now. I think. So I may not have any more sorabjiing for X amount of time, until we find a place to live. MAybe 3 days, maybe 3 weeks. Not a clue. feel free to pile my email box, of course. Thanks for everything. Sorabjites rock. Bell_jar, I'll try to get hold of you before I take off. See y'all in Portland!

hey tom, do you know Jared in Portland?

i dare you to try to get to sheila's place. you'd have a better chance of finding the lost native tribes of peru.

gimme an address and i could find it.

i'm sworn to secrecy. i even know what psb stands for.

I could never leave my books behind. Pigs are the organ donors of the future. Couldn't you strap that comfy chair on top of the car?A good computer chair is hard to give up.And it sounds like its in a quite complementary color,that matches with nothing.I suspect that chair would be difficult to duplicate. Good luck Tom.Anxious to hear about your adventures in route :)

I didn't leave many of my books behind, it was heavy and utterly worth it. A lot our books were shared and I left them with Joe, but those that were mine--are mine utterly, and most of them are hear. I'm reading a new Murakami novel, "A Wild Sheep Chase." Excellent, it is.

isn't that a great book? i've been looking for other stuff by him lately, but haven't seen anything.

"The Elephant Vanishes" "Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World" "East of the Sun" "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles" "Dance, Dance, Dance" "Norweigan Wood"

there's a story by him in issue 4, I think, of mcsweeney's. the one that's a box full of seprarately bound books.

the shit has finally hit the fan. a year of intricate deception, in which I played a starring role, has finally come to light. it's weird to have to face up to a lot of bad stuff that happened long ago. I knew there would be repercussions, and, well, here they are! I think I'll get off pretty clean, though I did have a big, long cryfest last night. I'm done being a bad person, by the way.

so..... you wanna dish....or should we just nod and say "hang in there kitty"

Hang in there kitty. As long as the repercussions are less nasty than being dragged by your feet across a room filled with starving wolverines, it shouldn't be too bad, eh?

You still have us.We'll always love you.

Hang in there, kitty. Czarina's right.

back in february, march, april, june, august I had an affair of sorts with a guy who had a live-in girlfriend (whom I don't know well). he recently told her. we share some friends. it's kind of messy. I'll see her this weekend. I'm hoping there won't be a scene. but just in case, I'll wear something slutty and red, like in the birthday party scene in "gone with the wind."

thanks, you guys, so much. on the bus today I thought, well, it will never seem as bad as it does this week. two years from now, it won't matter at all.