Friday, June 15, 2007

Packing

It's hard to anticipate everything I'll need for six weeks. Vacuum? Desk lamp? Deco art? I'm going to see Bryan again five days after he leaves me on Sunday so that makes our separation less stressful, but it's starting to hit me that I'm leaving my home too. I like my house; in fact, I'd say it's definitely home sweet home. Now Bryan gets to enjoy it all summer and I get to live in some random apartment in Virginia.

I don't mean to complain about everything. In fact, I'm pretty sure that when Bryan leaves on Sunday and I'm there with my books and my computer and my two new roommates that I'll be excited about pursuing my degree. It's just this build-up that's hard to take. Not to mention that I've had a stretch of bad days recently that has made my grand send-off more chaotic than I planned.

The problems are mostly tied to these five books I have to read for my science fiction class. Five little novels that my professor put on the list of things to read. The issue is that these five books are out of print. Now I've got five years of college under my belt, so I'm done the whole textbook purchasing thing before. The difference is that I'm used to showing up at the campus bookstore, finding my course, and seeing all the texts required for that course for sale. Hollins, at least during the summer, does not do that. Thus I, with a week before I left, realized that I couldn't wait to pick up these five books when I arrived at Hollins--I was going to need to get them myself. So I ordered them through various used book vendors on Amazon, paid the expedited shipping, and relaxed.

Until I was driving home from the gym on Thursday and remembered that I had done the whole 1-click purchasing thing at Amazon and they still have our old townhouse address listed as our main address. When I got home I looked at the e-mail confirmations and sure enough, the books were being sent to some stranger at Sunscape.

So I rushed over there in the hopes that the man or woman living there now would have either sent them back to the vendors or better yet have them stacked by his/her front door in anticipation of a postal worker or perhaps this Michele DeCamp character they were sent to in the first place. When I got there, of course, there were no cars in the parking spaces and no boxes. I looked at an address label in the trash (it was in plain sight :-)) and left her a note telling her how to reach me.

So Ms. Prasanna Thwar....where's the phone call? I called Amazon and they delivered the boxes to someone so what were you planning on doing with books like The Winds of Mars or The Keeper of the Isis Light? We're stopping by there again tomorrow on our way to Roanoke if we don't hear from her tonight. I hit up two Wake County libraries last night to get four out of five of the books. I'll have to read the Hollins library's reserve copy if I don't get my hands on the other one. All this stress for five books out of the 22 I have to read this summer.

And so it begins.... However, I'm going to enjoy my six-year wedding anniversary tomorrow. Apparently you're supposed to give iron and/or candy. I've managed to get my hands on both for Mr. DeCamp. Six years. It's funny when you reach the point where you forget when that person came into your life because most of your existence has been tied to him in some way. We've been married for six but we've known each other since he was in the seventh grade and I was in the eighth. I never believed in soul mates when I was younger, but I do believe that he and I are perfect for each other, and I know this six-week separation will be survivable because we are best friends who love each other very much. (On re-reading this, I apologize for the mushiness) And this is basically what it was like when I worked at Technician. Sort of. Except for the whole Virginia part. And the graduate school part. And the lack of writing news articles part.

But otherwise, it's the exact same.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

You told me once that you were always good at being a student; you "had the student thing down." Go show Hollins your stuff-- you'll impress them to no end, I'm sure.
But I know leaving is tough... best of luck with that and you're in my prayers (yeah, I know, that doesn't mean to you what it does to me, but quidquid, you are anyway.)

mayo said...

Could you be a novelist or what?
I know that blog is a true story but it was as interesting as if it were a chapter in a book. I guess it is a chapter in the book of your life which is totally interesting to read; I've recently found out. :>
Don't take just good care, take great care and I'll definately be thinking about you (and reading about you :>) while you are gone. I still want to send you a letter and I hope your husband sends you that care package!

mayo said...

it was supposed to say "take" before the -good care-. My bad. lol

mayo said...

oh wait it does. nevermind. hahaha sorry. This is the last comment I swear. duh mayo :>

Jenny said...

Wow- my little sis is going to grad school! =) I know you're going to miss Bryan, but at least you'll get to see each other during the weekend. Enjoy your part 1 of 3 six-week adventure and if you need me to break some kneecaps in Raleigh over a set of "borrowed" books, just let me know. =) Love ya! Jenny