15 December 2009

In which apathy turns to motivation, somehow

Now that the house is (mostly) clean, and all the stuff is (mostly) sorted, and after the chaotic two weeks that resulted in this state; I cannot get motivated. Part of it is uncertainty; there are a lot of details regarding this move that can't be dealt with until all my immigration paperwork is done. I have no power or responsibility in the paperwork, as the university is taking care of it. This means that I have no deadlines, and no idea what stage it's at or how much longer it's likely to take. I tentatively have somewhere to live when I move, assuming I can move in January. Added to that is the uncertainty that we can't know when the house is going to sell. Hopefully very very soon, but it's the wrong time of year, and the economy isn't helping. We should have put it on the market as soon as I got laid off, I guess, but selling in the summer would have had it's own large list of problems.

Selling the car is my current anxiety. We need to be rid of it, as soon after the holidays as possible, so that we don't have to keep paying insurance on it. I'm barely driving it anywhere these days, and insuring a car that's just sitting in the garage seems pretty absurd. I have gotten response on the car, though, and the craigslist ad has only been up for a day, so that's looking a little more promising.

Mostly I think I'm exhausted. This past year and a half hasn't been what it was supposed to be at all. Buying a house shouldn't involve 6 months of potential lawsuits because the seller is a jerk. Starting a career shouldn't involve nonstop worrying about layoffs. My old car shouldn't have been totaled, and the first year of marriage shouldn't be this unhappy. Luckily, R and I deal well with adversity, so all this insanity hasn't damaged our relationship. I do feel cheated, though, of the "honeymoon" phase most of my recently married friends seemed to enjoy. We didn't get any time to simply enjoy being us, because within a month of R moving here, the car was totaled and we were dealing with the $6k debt left to us by the seller, and by the time all that was taken care of, my company was up to layoff round number 4, and I was feeling constantly doomed. I planned 4 separate honeymoons, and we didn't get to take any of them, because bad stuff kept happening.

At the same time, it feel ridiculous to complain, because my bad stuff is so middle-class American. I haven't ever worried about putting food on the table, or having to drop my dogs at a shelter, or wondering if I can run the heat today. I don't have to worry about local violence, or running out of water, or whether the people I care about will survive the winter. I'm moving across the ocean for an amazing opportunity (and also health care! and public transportation! and no more expectation of putting in unpaid overtime!) to further my education, broaden my career opportunities, experience living in a different culture from my own, and to travel. A lot of travel. I totally wouldn't have this opportunity if I hadn't been laid off, so I hope it's worth all the stress.

It was also nice to be able to sit down and think about where I really want my life to go. Without this past year, I don't think I'd be so sure that going back to school is absolutely what I want to do. It took several months of applying to all sorts of jobs and schools before I figured it out, and my experience as an industry engineer was certainly very helpful in that. I liked industry, but I love studenthood. I realize I can't be a student forever, since I'm not the child of multi-millionaires, but I do appreciate that at least for the next 4 years, I can be a student again.

Assuming I can get everything ready in time. I think I'll go vacuum the car.

04 December 2009

Selling the House

I hate moving. Passionately. I don't usually waste a lot of energy on anger and hatred, for a couple reasons. I really don't like feeling angry. It's exhausting, it's uncomfortable, and I just don't like it. Some people get a (competitive? energizing? useful?) boost from anger, but I just get worn out. I can feel my brain working differently when I'm angry*. I grew up in a very non-angry household. There were no parent-teenager screaming matches. If my parents have ever had a fight beyond mild disagreement I certainly don't know about it. I am curious as to whether this is genetically influenced. On top of that, I'm highly trained in a field where anger doesn't really make sense. How do you get angry at a mass of air moving how it moves, even if that movement is different from your prediction? The laws of physics are consistent, and I think that's what makes anger so alien to my work. If you spend your day dealing with people, or animals, or plants, or electronics, you will get frustrated by inconsistency more than anything else, I think. Why did the client have to change what they wanted right before the deadline, why are the plants over here fine but those ones dead, and why does this application run on every computer except mine? I don't have that problem. Gravity's always there, and so is friction. Momentum is conserved, as long as the system is closed. Etc.

But anyway. I do hate moving. A lot. I really like the process of going through everything and getting rid of stuff, which I associate with moving, but which most people call "organizing the closet" or perhaps "spring cleaning." I haven't lived in once place for long enough recently for either of those activities. But the actual packing is horrible. Getting the entire house showable is worse. Housekeeping is not one of my strengths, because it is boring, repetitive, boring, never-ending, boring, not rewarding, and did I mention boring enough yet? I can happily cut lovely large pieces of fabric into little pieces and sew them back together, or loop yarn around itself for hours. These processes can be tedious, and repetitive, and even boring. Sometimes they are spectacularly frustrating. There are three big differences between quilting (or knitting, or sewing, or even gardening) and cleaning for me. The first is that I can multitask better. I can't watch tv while cleaning the first or second floors of my house, I can't listen to music while vaccuuming because I barely tolerate the vaccum's noise level, and I certainly can't enjoy lovely weather while cleaning. The second is the materials. I get a great deal of sensory happiness out of pretty fabric, soft yarn, and good soil. I do not get this out of cleaning chemicals or rubber gloves. Cleansers aren't pretty, they aren't soft, or crumbly, or fun, and they don't smell good. My third reason is the reward. If I'm quilting or sewing or knitting, I get to watch a project grow from bits of fabric or a ball of yarn into something tangible. I end up with a quilt, or a purse, or a scarf. And then the project is over, and I feel like I've accomplished something. If I'm gardening, I watch seeds, dirt, and water turn into food. I can see a bed of flowers turn into a butterfly haven, or eat tomatoes straight off the vine. I don't know that this falls into accomplishment, exactly, but it's immensely satisfying. And looking at all my lovely canned tomatoes makes me pretty happy. You don't get rewarded like this when cleaning. By the time the kitchen is sparkling (as sparkling as those hideous old countertops can get, that is) it's time to make another meal. Quasar can shed new hair onto the clean floor when I'm still vacuuming that room. The puppy toys and video game controllers stay in their bins for almost enough time to vacuum the basement. Papers get filed just in time for the mail to arrive with new bills, and you can't ever get rid of all the dust. My ugly entrance tile is just as ugly clean as it is dirty, and the bathroom countertops look dirty even when they're clean. I never get the relaxing feeling of amazing, spotless, and perfect surroundings. All the cleaning is like my own personal heck (not as bad as a hell, certainly, but not neutral either) and I get to hang out in it while trying to pack.

Packing is pretty interesting. See, I can't get an apartment until my work visa paperwork is done. I've found a temporary roommate situation that looks good, and is inexpensive, and would let me get to know a couple people while looking around the city for a more permanent abode. The things I'll have to take if I'm moving into a third bedroom of an inhabited apartment are different from what I'll need if living by myself. Then there's figuring out what R needs here before he moves, and what to do if we need the same stuff. Plus the issue of suitcase space and weight. What will fit? How do I tell without packing it all? Is it worth it to pack my clothes now to figure it out? What will I want sent to me first? Does it all fit in one box? Why do we have so many books, and how can I think of leaving them behind?!?!?!? How can I leave my scrapbooks, but how can I take them? This kind of moving is very complicated, and trying to pack everything up or get rid of it while cleaning the entire house is horrible. We spent hours tonight that should have resulted in a clean second floor doing laundry, putting new sheets on the bed, moving boxes from upstairs to downstairs, vacuuming the ceiling (it made a very visible difference, and we aren't crazy, I promise) and sorting through jewelry to get it off the counter. One shouldn't leave one's jewelry out when strangers are walking through the house.

I feel like we're getting nowhere fast, but we keep doing things that have to be done in order to have the house walk-through ready. It's tedious, boring, frustrating, and I hate it.

*Remember, my career path is very thinking-intensive. When explaining my former job to the non-technologically-inclined, I summarized with "I'm paid to think." I'm very sensitive to (perceived) changes in how my brain is working. I once gave up caffeine, got over the physical addiciton, and realized that I don't like how my thinking feels without it. My brain works better when caffeinated, unless it is also very very very sleep-deprived. If no caffeine is walking though ankle-deep mud, then caffeine is like walking over pavement. Everything is sharper, quicker, and easier. Exhaustion is more like trudging through dense fog, and anger is like trying to decide which way to go. I don't like it when my brain works awkwardly. This, combined with my very high natural alcohol tolerance, is why I've never been beyond slightly buzzed. It is probably also why I have zero desire to ever try out other consciousness changing substances.