In Place, Part III

Spring semester: day seventy

I received a phone call a few minutes ago from my landlord's wife. This isn't exactly that odd, as she's usually the one who does the checking-in with people when something must be done or if they have any questions about anything -- she's the operations, and her husband is the worker/cleaner/etc.

Her husband is also the mayor of this city, which makes her the mayor's wife, but that's beside the point for the sake to this discussion.

Anyway. She called because she'd gotten the reference calls from our new place in Omaha and wanted to make sure that I'd give my 30 days' notice for here (which, of course, has to be written). I told her that said written notice was in the mail with the rent check for the month of May, which went out on Saturday -- which means they'll get it today or tomorrow. She once more praised me on how good I am about everything and how I've stayed on top of everything on this place over the years (and I have, of course, when it comes to any matters like this), and she asked about the wedding and all of the timeframes for the move -- because she's genuinely interested in my life, not just interested in when I'll be moving out. She's always been very sweet and very nice like that. Both of them have, honestly, over the almost five years I've lived here.

I told her all of the details, including the dates of when my semester ends and when I'm picking up the truck, doing the moving, and dropping it off and the like, and she wished me/us well. I told her if she had any other questions or needed anything else to call or email me and I'd be happy to help. I would imagine they'll get the letter and check today -- she told me the mail doesn't usually arrive there until around 4PM (it's about the same here on most days) and that she "should've just had two more hours' worth of patience" before calling, which I found sweet and funny.

I am, once more, feeling very lucky that I've been able to have this sort of interaction with my landlord and his wife over the time I've lived here -- they are genuinely nice people, they help out as much as possible when asked, and they don't bother you when it's not necessary. Even though I don't own this house, for the past five years it's almost felt like I do because of that.

Make no mistake -- I will miss this house. I will miss it a lot. I will miss living in this nice, quiet little town where nothing really happens, as well. I've never actually lived in a big city like Omaha before. I've lived in many smaller cities, yes, both out here in the midwest and back home, but never somewhere as large and populous as Omaha. Even when I lived in the Kansas City area, it was just the area -- not within the city itself. Once I'm in Omaha and married, settled down and comfortable, I'll have to get used to having people constantly around me again in all directions...something that I haven't had to get used to for five years. While I've lived in apartments before, I haven't done it in a very, very long time. Here, well, this is a house. In a mostly quiet neighborhood, with few people out and about at most times. Here, I have a garage which I can put my car into if necessary when it storms or snows. Here, I don't have to worry about listening to podcasts or music without headphones, because, well...nobody is around to hear it and/or complain about it anyway. Here, I can come and go as I please, at all hours of day or night, without having to wonder if I'm going to wake up the neighbors or bother them in any way. Here, the cats can tear ass back and forth through the house at 3AM without me wondering if it's going to wake up people downstairs below them. I mean, a lot is going to change.

I look at it this way: if the new apartment isn't a great place or we don't like the building's policies, rules, or what-have-you, we can pack up again and go in a year. I told Daisy that as soon as we're both financially stable enough to do so, I want to get us a house -- whether that's a rented house again or whether we actually buy a place. I'd much rather buy a house so that we don't have to live under someone else's roof, under someone else's rules, whether those rules are livable or otherwise. There's also the whole "hey, we're getting married and will probably be popping out a kid or two" thing that we'll need extra space for as well. I plan to start looking for said houses within the first two or three months after we're married. In a dual-income household, we could afford a decent home, even if those incomes aren't that high.

So that's what my day has involved thus far, though (admittedly) I've only been awake for about three hours or so. It's very dark, cloudy, and windy...and the temperature is about twenty degrees cooler than it has been (as the weather predicted) so my allergies have once again gone nuts. It looks like we could get a storm or some heavy rain at basically any time, and the Weather Channel hasn't ruled that out -- it's supposed to rain almost all day tomorrow, too, and be even cooler outside than it is today. That means I'll more than likely have to break out the hoodie and pants/socks/shoes again, which believe me, I'm sick of doing. It shouldn't be so chilly and nasty that I have to wear pants and jackets in late April/early May.

Then again, remember that last year it snowed during the last week of classes in May, so...

Ahem. Anyway. I can't wear anything heavier than that, of course, because I packed all of it up days, if not weeks ago, when it was in the mid-80s every day. Even on Saturday -- two days ago -- it was 88.

I put up the yard sale ad on Craigslist this morning and am having a few people come up from the department/around town come up to pick up some things I offered them this evening; it'll totally save me some time and I might get a little money out of the stuff the people are picking up tonight (even though I told them it wasn't necessary because they were things I just needed to "go away"). In the meantime, Daisy is going furniture shopping  this afternoon to pick out a couch and/or chair for the new place. Daisy also has drastically different aesthetic likes and dislikes compared to me when it comes to picking furniture, too, so I'm a bit nervous about what she finds and/or gets.

Okay, "a bit nervous" may be an understatement. To put it bluntly, she loves some of the most ungodly ugly and uncomfortable looking, "new style" furniture, and for me, I am really all about the basics, old-school style, and efficiency/utilitarianism of the furniture I want and like -- basic couches with three cushions and high arms, basic chairs that may not be especially pretty to look at, but will be comfortable enough and inexpensive. It's all going to be covered with cat hair (and probably cat vomit) eventually anyway.

I realize this comes from a lifetime of living with second-and-third-hand furniture and having a poverty background, as well as a bachelor's mentality. I told Daisy that whatever couch she gets, I want to be able to lay across it and be able to watch TV and/or sleep without having my feet bunched up or hanging off the end. I want it to have arms so that I can have somewhere to rest my head, shoulders, and neck -- which I don't have on the (broken) futon in the living room now. Aside from that, as long as it isn't ugly or unwieldy, I'm pretty much fine with it. Oh, and inexpensive. It should ideally be inexpensive as well, since we be poor.

So...yeah. I don't know what she'll pick. She sent me some pictures, and the first one I loved and told her to get it (it was a couch and loveseat set for less than $600 total) annnnnd then she told me she wanted to keep looking, and sent me some other pictures of some hideous things that I would never want in our house no matter how "comfy" she thinks they are in-store.

Yes, even for things that are so far off my radar that normally I couldn't care less about them, if my opinion is asked on them I immediately become really twitchy and/or stubborn/contrary. Go figure. The best solution, at least for the furniture, would probably be to leave me out of the selection/opinion process entirely, because if she just gets something I'll have to be forced to live with it regardless, whether I like it or not. And that's a lot easier for me to do than continually irritating her by saying I think 90% of her selections are ugly or not utilitarian enough, when really they're not Brandon enough because I didn't pick those things myself.

I'm usually not this much of a control freak, really.

I desperately want to shower and go back to bed more than anything else this afternoon; I didn't sleep well last night/this morning because I had indigestion and heartburn/acid reflux that kept me awake or kept waking me up. I no longer have the iron stomach I once had, apparently, and eating pizza an hour or so before bed is generally a bad idea these days. I had to get up and drink a huge glass of water just to kick it back down and dilute the acid somewhat in order to be able to go back to sleep; if I'd gone upstairs to get antacid tablets I would've been wide awake and unable to go back to sleep (at 7-8AM or so) when I so needed it. Almost every day between now and the move is going to be on some sort of schedule, some sort of timeframe where I can't just sleep and get up when I want/need to, but when I have to or can. For those of you who know me well, you know that I hate that sort of thing.

I have but four actual days left of my semester -- tomorrow, Thursday, next Tuesday, and whatever day my 011 students' final exam is on. It seems like a relatively small amount of work and working time, but it's really not -- that doesn't count all of the grading I have to do in the meantime that will take hours, doesn't count the grade calculations or meeting with my finals grading partners (yes, plural, because I teach two different classes with two different finals at two different times/levels), and doesn't count the whole "cleaning out my office on campus" scenario either...cleaning it out so that I can bring stuff home that, again, I have no place for. All of it is stressful and makes me feel like I'm being pulled in fifteen different directions at once.

Yet, even now, things are slowly falling into place, piece by piece, every day. I accomplish a small task toward the larger whole every day; I put another little puzzle piece into its slot. Last night, for example, I looked up how to change/turn off my utilities, and it doesn't appear to be that hard for any of them. Tonight I'll get rid of some of the stuff in storage that I need to get rid of, and tomorrow I'll do the same with some of my books. Regardless of whether I like what she picks or not, Daisy will be picking out our furniture. And I do have a fair amount that's already packed, and will hope to get rid of a lot of other stuff and make some money at this weekend's yard sale. So yes, things are falling into place.

But I still wish it were all just done and over with.