Thursday, June 26, 2003
 

I got movers booked this morning. ::whew:: I hate arranging stuff like that. Anyway, it's done now. The move is officially scheduled for Monday afternoon (the 30th). I'm saving some money on this because they charge a flat fee by furniture category. So all 8 of my bookcases, plus my huge (and awfully spiffy, if I do say so myself) desk and my large rolly-chair, plus my obscenely heavy file cabinets, fall under the heading of "office furniture." They have no idea what they're getting into. To be fair, I did warn the woman on the phone that I have an obscene number of books (I didn't mention the precise number of bookcases), but I don't think she took me seriously. Their pain, my gain.

I've moved a lot of books already and will probably try to get some more over there over the weekend, just to free up some boxes. And I'm definitely moving the fragile stuff (my glass pigs, my mirrorball, dishes, pictures, my paltry DVD collection, Alice, etc.) myself, just 'cuz I'm paranoid like that. And I don't want to have to pay for any more time than I have to.

Last night, JM (who's in and out of the city this summer, owing to a teaching gig that takes her around the state) and I took advantage of a Papa John's pizza deal and rented a movie. She likes all things sweet and sentimental, warm and fuzzy. If you've spent much time at all talking to me or reading this blog, you know that warm fuzzies don't fly with me. We can agree better on TV shows; for example, we watch CSI and Without a Trace together every Thursday. Movies, however, proved a problem. I suggested The Ring; she suggested Maid in Manhattan. After pacing the Blockbuster new releases for awhile, we opted for The Hot Chick. How that decision was reached is beyond me. Without question, it was one of the stupidest movies I've ever seen. However, it was stupid enough (and, I think, self-aware enough about that stupidity) to be funny. JM proved her talents as a scriptwriter by repeatedly (correctly) guessing the upcoming dialogue.

She had to get to bed early because she had a 200-mile drive awaiting her in the morning, so I returned the DVD to Blockbuster (can we still call it "the video store," in the age of DVD?) and got a card of my own, something I'd never bothered to do. I then went kid-in-the-candy store and got The Ring, Igby Goes Down, and East is East. I turned out all the lights last night and settled down with The Ring, which I found insufficiently frightening. I liked the "mystery" element, but it just left me unsatisfied. It wasn't scary enough, for one thing, and I think a lot more could have been done with the various psychological elements. Oh, well. It was still worth watching. I'm really looking forward to Igby Goes Down, and I've wanted to see East is East since 1999.

In today's geeky news, I'm enjoying indexing. The professor's book is interesting and well-written; she has a really engaging style, and I'm enjoying the subject matter. On a technical level, indexing is a job tailor-made for obsessive types like myself. On my first read-through, I'm just indexing proper names, and I'll save concepts for the second reading (once I see which ones are going to be thematically important enough to put in the index). So, let's see: I like to shelve library books, index books, and put my CDs in chronological order. That makes me one happenin' party gal!

Right.

Requisite Alice News: I have a bunch of grocery paper bags (just say NO to plastic) sitting in the floor, waiting to be filled with packables. Alice thinks that they're part of the gigantic cat gym in my living room: paper bags, tissue paper, bubble wrap, boxes upon boxes. She's going to be disappointed, I think, once the move is over. She's parading around on the back of the armchair right now, after spending some quality time pacing on the back of the futon.

I take that back; she's somehow made it to the top of a box-tower that's probably 4 1/2 feet high. She's sitting on the top box of books. Hah, got a picture! Never fear; the box-tower is sturdy.

I think that's enough excitement for one day.

Elvisette philosophized at 7:02 PM