Left and Right, Part I

Spring semester: day seventy-four

I'm not currently having much trouble getting rid of a lot of my stuff, apparently. Last night not only did one of the new GTAs in the department message me and offer to buy my old PlayStation, but I got an email from someone here in town who said she's coming by this afternoon to pick up the weight bench set and weights that I desperately needed to get rid of. That's very good, especially as it saves me the trouble of trying to get all of them out to the yard/driveway myself tomorrow morning for the yard sale, but it makes me happy that I'm going to actually be able to get rid of all of it. Hopefully. If said person doesn't flake on me, anyway.

Because friends have been "claiming" things, I've had to continually update the yard sale ad on Craigslist. This doesn't really bother me, as I want it to be as accurate as possible anyway. Not only that, but I've been adding things as well. Whenever I'm moving things around and looking for stuff to pack up, or cleaning out closets, I'm like "ooh, that would probably sell!" and I take it out, put a price sticker on it, and (if it's big enough or in-demand enough) I add it to the ad online. I estimate that it'll take at least an hour (if not longer) to move everything downstairs that I want to sell/get rid of, and at least another hour or so to set everything up tomorrow morning. I don't quite know yet how I will do all of the setup; it's not like I have card tables or anything to put things on. I do have one table on the balcony that -- if I can -- I'll probably take downstairs and try to sell off as well, and I can put some stuff on it. That table was left here by the last tenants (so, like, eight or nine years ago) and my landlord told me I could do whatever I wanted with it. I have some old bedsheets I can lay stuff out on in the yard or driveway, too, sheets that I specifically saved for that purpose.

The nice administrator lady on West campus told me that she and her husband are quite interested in buying my lawnmower from me; if they want it, one of them will have to come by early tomorrow morning, as I would imagine that's one of the first items that will go. I'm taking my old crock pot down there for her this morning, as she claimed that before I could officially put it on sale. I'll be glad to be rid of it, as it's nice and works well, but I don't need it. Daisy and I have a big stainless steel one on the wedding registry anyhow.

There are other things I'm surprised nobody's emailed me about to claim outright before the yard sale starts, such as the weed trimmer, charcoal grill, rocking chair, lamps, end tables, vacuum, or laser printer. I have two laser printers; the one I'm selling is an HP, and the toner cartridges for it are (not kidding) about $12 each. And it works really well -- it was given to me by some GTAs about two years ago who were moving out of their office, and it was their personal printer. I used it in my office until graduation last spring, and since then it's been in a box in the spare room.

The other one is my high-end Brother laser printer that I bought for about $100 or so and use all the time, so...yeah, that one's not getting sold.

I'm not too worried about being able to get rid of a lot of my stuff left and right; the few emails and messages I've gotten from people over the past few days tells me that people are interested. I mentioned before that I posted on the events group for Newton, and started a thread about the yard sale -- apparently many people aren't even bothering with the newspaper's ads for the city-wide sales, but they're instead posting on Craigslist (like me) and are checking there first. As always, there are a ton of yard/garage sales that will go un-advertised in the paper. When I worked at the paper, I'd look at it for the ads and the map, but that was also back in the day before Craigslist was a huge thing. Last year, as you may recall, it was cold/rainy/nasty on the yard sale day, and I went to one of the church sales and bought myself a three-dollar TV for the bedroom before coming home and going back to bed. The church sales were always the best ones anyway.

Anywho. I don't think I'll have problems or a lack of interest. I told my friends that if any of them wanted to come up and help out, I'd give them some free stuff. Especially if they brought beer. While I don't think anyone will, it couldn't hurt to ask. Everything must go and all that.

This morning, I'll leave the house in about twenty minutes to drive to West campus for the last time this semester. My 102 students take their final exam this morning, a process that should be pretty painless (yet still a chore) for most of them, and then I'll return home to get the weight bench set ready for pickup -- the person who emailed me said she'd come by around 2 or so. After that, I'll probably move what I can downstairs (depending on my energy levels), talk to Daisy if she's awake, and go back to bed sometime in the late afternoon/early evening hours so that I can wake up early tomorrow and finish getting things ready. As I told Daisy, it's not even about the money, really -- while the money is nice and will be very useful/otherwise necessary in the coming weeks and months, it's more about getting rid of the stuff I don't want or need so that I don't have to take it with me. I got more out of the comps books from my friend in the department (he gave me $60 altogether) than I expect to make from the entirety of the yard sale.

Also, just because Kansas hates me, it is 37 degrees this morning and I am, once again, fucking freezing. My allergies also went completely bugshit again this morning, and I had to blow my nose probably forty times (not an exaggeration). I took one of my allergy pills, and it seems to be helping, but still. On Monday and Tuesday it's supposed to be 94 and 96. Those aren't typos. So, in the course of a few days, it's a sixty-degree temperature swing? Because that makes sense. Thanks, Kansas.

And on that note, I leave you fine folks...