Progress

This week has been a good one. All the paperwork for R is submitted, and will hopefully be finished and ready in 6 weeks or so. Mine took 5 weeks, once the IND had all the documents. That puts us right on track for moving R and the dogs here soon after the new year, which is awesome! R has found a possible service that would take care of flying the dogs here for us, so we're hoping they aren't too expensive. That'd be way easier than moving them ourselves. The bank is crawling along with the short sale paperwork, but we can sign things from a distance if they don't hurry it up. I'm unconcerned with inconveniencing them.

On top of all that, my model's working again! Yay for that! A colleague directed me to where the overfull server was, so I was able to delete a bunch of stuff I don't need anymore. Tomorrow I can run some interesting tests, to look at the performance of a promising cloud scheme change. Then I just need to convince NCL to plot nicely for me, which may take some doing. It's well documented though, so I'm currently optimistic.

I'm very much looking forward to MM's visit tomorrow as well. So overall, even with getting rained on 4 times in 3 days, and biking through the scary Fog of No Visibility, this has been a very awesome week.

Time for a little math

Travel costs. Without the volcano, it should have been something like $1380. I'm currently working on a claim to my travel insurance, so I should be getting some of the difference back.

Wichita to NYC
Plane Tickets: $141
Luggage Fee: $155
Luggage cart at airport: $5
Cab Ride to hotel: $35
Hotel: $314

NYC to London
Cab Ride to airport: $90
Plane Tickets: $416
Luggage Fee: $160

London to Amsterdam
internet in airport: $15
phone to call travel insurance: $100
Bus ride to hotel: $6
Train ticket: $354
Cab ride: $116
hotel: $884

Cost to move one woman and about 180lbs of her stuff: $2791

At least I'm not in icy water

Houston Airport: Apr 13, 2PM

Traveling has gone surprisingly well thus far. I even got my ears to pop on descent into Houston!

The Wichita airport was amazing this morning. I was very tearful, because I'm leaving on an adventure and R, Nova, and Quasar aren't, and all the people I had to deal with were simply amazing. The check-in counter guys were quite impressed with my luggage! On my Wii Fit board, one suitcase was at 48 lbs and the other two were juuuuuuuust over 49 lbs. On the airport scale, they were all under 50 lbs, but one of them cheerfully sat at 49.8! So the Wii Fit weighing method worked out nicely, and I am totally the winner. The ticket-checking lady at the beginning of the security line asked if I was okay, and mentioned she always tears up when leaving her grandmother, whch made me feel a lot better. It was so nice of her to take a minute to sympathize. The scanner people were very nice too, and helped me put my laptop back in my very full carry on bag. They were a bit confused by my second battery, but my explanation that a new batter and external charger was cheaper than replacing the motherboard generated sympathy for frustarting computer problems, and some interest in external battery chargers. Security took me all of 5 minutes to get through, and actually made me feel slightly better. When's the last time that happened?

Knitting makes waiting for boarding much nicer. I found my gate, bought a soda, and knit two blanket rows, and then it was time to go. Much better than sitting watching the clock. The flight was fine, with flight attendents who obviously enjoy working with people, and spent a lot of time cracking jokes. I was on an Embraer, a puddle-jumper with only 3 rows of seats, so I had a window and an aisle at the same time. I love getting the single-row seat on little jets. We got stuck sitting on the tarmac for 2 rows of blanket (20 minutes) which was hot and made knitting wool seem a little silly. The flight was fine, although a little bumpy on ascent and descent.

The Houston airport is weird. I'm pretty sure it's been built in stages. We landed in terminal A, and it's hideous. No windows, just flourescent lights, ugly wall coverings in a sad dingy white. Now I'm in terminal E, following the clackity-est shuttle ride ever, and it's so much nicer. Big windows, some with interesting etched patterns, skylights, wide open spaces, and walls that look clean. It's like moving forward about 30 years in terms of design. It's a little warm, but I can live with that. I did want an excuse to wear my new socks though. I have socks and slippers with me, in case my flipflops are too cold in the air. Also, they didn't fit in any of the suitcases. While I ate lunch, I read “Physics of the Impossible” and learned that the word “robot” comes from an old eastern European play about automated workers, and was chosen because it means drudgery in Czech, and labor in Slavak.

Newark Airport: Apr 14, 6PM

First off, happy birthday to B and MM!

I am absurdly early at the airport, since they told me I should be at my gate by 8PM and I've been here for an hour. But I am so grateful to be here, that it's okay that I'm spending this lovely afternoon staring at hideous carpet.

My flight to NYC yesterday was fine, although rather bumpy towards the end. My seatmate was a very pleasant gentleman who was very interesting to talk to. We had a discussion of the intersection between art and science, and the damage that commercialism does to both, or something, and I knitted. He helped me get my luggage onto a cart, and walked with me to the taxi line so I wouldn't accidentally stumble upon a company that charges twice as much. He was very helpful, and made landing a lot easier than it would have been. Thanks random guy!

I woke up bright and early today, and found the consulate without any trouble. Although if more stores would put their address numbers on the building somewhere, that would be helpful. I got there super early, before the consulate even opened. So I had to leave again, and wandered around the area. I watched some ice skaters at Rockefeller Center, and then I noticed a tiny photography shop that advertised passport and visa photos. And I thought to myself, “Do I need one? I have no idea! Stupid not clear website!” Because I'm nervous enough about this whole visa process, I figured it wouldn't hurt to get some photos, which turned out to be entirely the correct decision. The first thing they ask you when you show up to “pick up” the visa you've been told is “ready” is ask to see the photo you brought to make sure it fits the guidelines.

Then they couldn't find me in their system. That was nerve-wracking.

I was apparently filed in a weird spot, probably because I have a weird status that's between student and knowledge worker. They found me though, and I filled out a short form and turned in my photo.

Now about those quotation marks above. “Your visa is ready, and you need to arrange with the New York consulate to pick it up” means different things to me and to the people who do the visa making. See, I read that and think that the visa is ready, and I just have to go get it. Right? The consulate even said I didn't need an appointment when I phoned them, I could just walk in. That's not what it means. It means that the Dutch government approves your visa, but the people at the consulate still have to sign off on it, and print it, and put it in your passport, and this usually takes 3 days, ok?

Panic.

I'm leaving tonight! Nobody told me that ready doesn't mean ready, and that pick up means drop off your photo and passport. THOSE ARE NOT THE SAME!!! I didn't scream though. I'm really very pleased with how calm I was until I got back to my hotel room. They said they'd try, but they couldn't guarantee they'd get it all done by closing time at 5pm, and could they have my cell phone number? The employees were fantastic. They were sympathetic, they were friendly, they were working on it before I got out the door.

Back at the hotel, I called R and came up with a back up plan. I could book another night in the hotel (which I did, since I didn't need the added stress of nowhere to go with 150lbs of baggage and 30 lbs of carry on) and book another flight out later. Studentuniverse still had spots on flights for the next several days, for under $500. We'd lose some money, but we do have the savings (from my severance and selling the car) and we can always earn more money. I ate, I showered, I knit blue lace, and I stared at my cell phone, willing it to ring. I chatted with Mom 2.0, which was calming, and didn't answer when Mom 1.0 called because she didn't need to stress out too.

When the credit card company, who apparently forgot I told them I'd be traveling, called about possible fraud, my fragile equilibrium was destroyed. An unknown number, asking for Ms. Myname? Has to be the consulate, only it wasn't. I called R after that, because I was all upset again, and he went to lunch so he could stay on the phone. When he got home, there was a message on the answering machine. I was all “maybe we got a house offer! Who else would leave a message?” No house offer, but it was the consulate, who couldn't reach my cell phone for some reason, even though I had perfectly clear reception. My visa was ready, and I could pick it up until 4:30pm! I looked at the clock: 3:09. I threw off my socks, found my flipflops, remembered my keycard (I locked myself out once last night) and left the hotel.

I didn't run to the consulate, because I can't run in flip-flops, but I did walk very very fast.

Back at the consulate, I walked up, said I was there to pick up a visa, told them my name, and I am now the holder of an MVV entry visa! Thank you New York consulate employees! You were very fast, and I am very grateful. Now we should maybe work on some translations.

At the hotel, I repacked my carry-ons, asked for luggage assisstance (ZOMG, I totally forgot to tip the guy. He got me a taxi too. Sorry about that, super-nice and very helpful hotel employee. You walked back into the hotel way too fast.) and checked out. Remember, I had asked to extend my stay another day, and it was about 3:45 (late check out is by 3 ($35), super late by 6 ($100 and something), after that you pay for the room) so I was prepared to have to pay for the second night. The front desk lady was awesome though, and not only didn't charge me the second night, she only added the $35 fee for the earlier late check out. Fantastic employees at the Manhatten Center Hotel!

Now I'm at the airport, and I can leave when I'm supposed to, and I can quit saying “it's just money” every few minutes, and everything is all better! I gave the taxi driver a very generous tip, because he helped me get my luggage up the curb, and because I'm became very very cheerful, perhaps giddy, once I had the visa in my hand. There's a British boy's choir here, and they're ADORABLE. They even gave an impromptu mini-concert, which I assume was an attempt by the handful of adults to keep a large group of boys busy while waiting for boarding. They're really good.

So good thing to know: always always always ask how long it will take, even if the wording totally implies it won't take more than half an hour. Learn from my experience, because it sucked.

Now I'm just waiting to board, and I am so excited to be started the last part of this very long moving process!

Note: I totally flew on a Boeing 777! That was pretty neat.

London: Apr 15, 5:30 PM

It was much more exciting when I wasn't stuck in an airport.

I'd like to point out that the Titantic sank on April 15th, and I'm glad that my problem is much smaller than that one. I'm not drowning, for one thing.

Of course a volcano in Iceland errupted just in time to screw up my flight. Anything departing by 11:30AM got out. My flight was supposed to depart at noon. I am so frustrated with this trip! I admit, I could totally see the funny side of this if I didn't have a migraine, but I do, and it screws up everything.

We got off the plane and were told that we had to collect our baggage, and then exit to the ticketing area (which is outside customs and security) to rebook. Which is fine, I don't want my luggage to get lost in London. However, they couldn't put the baggage onto the baggage claim until the gate for it's flight was released, which doesn't happen until departure time, EVEN IF THE FLIGHT IS CANCELED. I'm not sure why, but I resent it. I got to sit in the comfort-free baggage claim area for 4.5 hours this morning. On two hours of sleep, and did I mention the migraine?

I made a friend while waiting. This poor couple, they were planning a second honeymoon river cruise vacation, and they're going to miss at least half the cruise because we can't fly out of here. They're looking at just going back home. How much would that suck?

Finally got my luggage, using the delightful free luggage carts, went through the "nothing to claim" customs hall, and out to the ticketing area. There are so. many. people. waiting in line.

A ton of signs said to rebook using the airline's website, so rather than stand in a 5 hour line with a pounding head, I went on a quest for WiFi. Or rather, first I went on a quest to figure out what I was supposed to be doing, and eventually decided that I needed internet. I found it too, after asking about 6 people. However, because I didn't book through the airline website, I'd have to pay full price for a ticket, and for Saturday, the flight I'd take was about $1000, taking the exchange rate into account. Yeah. Then I remembered that I have travel insurance, and a volcanic eruption is exactly what it's for! Of course, my only contact info was by phone. While dejectedly walking down to the still huge line of people, I saw a pre-paid phone store, so I am now the owner of a UK phone. The travel insurance people are trying to book me a new flight, and just found me a hotel! I will always buy travel insurance from now on. I'm sitting in the airport, with coffee and a comfy seat now, and feeling better than before. Still frustrated, and my head still hurts, but less.

I talked to an airline employee because I wanted to know where the volcano was, and I told her that volcanic eruptions lower Earth's temperature, and that's neat. It was even relevant to our conversation, and she thought it was neat too. That's me, spreading nerdiness wherever I go.

And hey! The lovely travel insurance person just got me a flight! For Saturday. If I get a hotel reservation, I could leave the airport! And go to sleep! That would be excellent.

PS: Anyone else wish I could tell this story as well as Megan would have been able to?

Packing stuff up

Having spent the week listening to tedious on-hold music and trying to finish up my wedding scrapbook (only about 15 more photos to go!) I've now moved into the final packing up stages. Tomorrow will be devoted to laundry and balancing out the suitcases, and deciding if a third one is worth the hassle and extra charge. Today we spent an hour switching the cable account to R's name, and I'm going to pack my carry on later to see if the new bag is big enough. My usual carry-on bag isn't good for a laptop, so I picked up a laptop bag at Target. It looks like it'll hold everything I want in a carry-on, but I need to actually try it. It's surprisingly hard to find a bag that zips all the way shut instead of just having one of those magnetic closures. I like the zip up ones better for traveling. R is going through the DVD book and dividing them up, which feels really weird considering how recently I merged and re-alphabetized them. R is also going through the box we throw all the random electronics stuff in for showing the house to make sure I have all the cords and cables and chargers I need. I'm mostly being grumpy, because my new knitting needles STILL aren't here, and I'd really like them to arrive before I leave. They've been in town for over a week now, so I don't understand why they aren't here yet. Frustrating.

I'm really looking forward to getting to Delft, I'm just not very happy about the traveling I have to do to get there. I don't really like flying, and I'm looking at 2 days of flying and exhaustion, since most of my time in NYC will be spent either in line at the embassy or waiting in the airport.

MOVING!!!!!

My visa is finally ready, and my plans are progressing. I'll fly from KS to NYC on Apr. 13, spend the night there, head to the Dutch embassy bright and early on the 14th to pick up my visa, do something during the afternoon, and fly out to Amsterdam in the evening. What with a layover in England and the time change, I'll arrive in Amsterdam mid-afternoon on the 15th, where very thoughtful and generous E will pick me up! I won't have to navigate an unfamiliar place while exhausted from a rather long flight, which makes me happy.

Naturally, I now have a very long list of stuff to do, some of which we really should have thought of earlier. Like switching the utilities to R's name, a simple task I could have completed months ago. We thought of it a few days ago. Oops.

I've been spending the weekend trying on clothes, deciding what to keep, and boxing stuff up for Goodwill. Along with booking flights, figuring out that I don't need an appointment to get my visa (this took a couple phone calls), and figuring out everything that needs to be packed and done before I leave. My list of things to do over the weekend is about half complete, although replacing the bedroom ceiling fan will take up a fair chunk of tomorrow, and I probably need to reduce the number of shoes I'm taking again. Knitting has been very helpful in maintaining calm while I think everything through, and the lace for MM has progressed rather a lot. The dogs are getting microchipped on Monday, so that we won't have to deal with it when we're actually shipping them over, much later than now. So everything's all very exciting, and I'll be very busy over the next week and a half.

Open House

The open house today went well. Most of the people in the age bracket appropriate for this size of house LOVED my paint colors, although several elderly neighbors were rather taken aback. I hope they were only shocked by the orange wall in the basement, because if my blue and gray living room was too much, that's kind of sad. The realtor really liked how we staged what little stuff we have, which was nice to hear after all our hard work! Another realtor who came to see the house thinks a house-hunting client of his would like ours, and love the neighborhood, so we'll hopefully be showing again later this week.

In the past week, not only have we cleaned the house twice, we've also painted the front door white, painted a small angle wall gray, scrubbed the baseboards the dogs get muddy, washed, folded, and put away a month's worth of laundry (since I don't have to wear job appropriate attire, laundry is usually motivated by R running out of socks, and he has a lot of them), moved all the packed stuff into the van, organized the storage room, put the storage room door back up, fixed the guest room door, planted butterfly garden seeds and mulched the flower beds, and changed the dining room light switch. We didn't manage to get the bedroom ceiling fan up, because R slept wrong and strained a neck/shoulder muscle. He couldn't lift his arms above his head, making wiring near the ceiling impossible.

We spent most of our exiled time at the bookstore, where I overheard a conversation between a couple of 15-ish year olds. The boy was sad because some girl wasn't calling him, and the girl was recommending not stalking the not-calling girl. I really wanted to tell him "she's just not that into you, quit trying" because the situation sounded like the not-calling girl just didn't know how to say no. I didn't, though, because that would be a tad creepy. I imagine he'll figure it out.

My lovely blue lace knitting project is moving right along. Now that I understand the pattern, it's pretty fast work. I imagine it'll get tedious before the end. I've finished 3.5 of 14 pattern repeats, so I still have a fair amount left to do. According to my spreadsheet, I'm 30.38% done. I'm very happy with the clear beads, and glad I went with them instead of blue ones.

Something good that happened

I realized that I forgot to post this on Friday. My car is sold! Everything is done, and having that money (plus eliminating that debt!) is pretty reassuring, and very very awesome. However, I miss my little car. It was a good car, with excellent gas milage and enough space for the dogs in the back. Not that Nova ever stayed in the back. I was sad to see it go, but the new owner is super excited about it, and I'm thrilled to be this much closer to a car-free lifestyle. Not that I have anything against cars themselves, as a concept. New technology means we can shift away from burning oil to run them, and exclusively human powered transportation is not practical in a lot of places. I do, however, hate driving in traffic, paying for insurance, trying to park, being a designated driver, and paying for a machine that needs a fair amount of maintenance and depreciates in value very quickly anyway. Attending a university with amazing bus service made me appreciate being a passenger. Given a choice, I much prefer being able to review notes, play games on my DS, read, talk on the phone, or otherwise productively spend my commute time instead of paying attention to the road. The great thing about having a car is the freedom of movement, being able to go places easily and quickly, and at university I had that (for the most part) with the buses.

I also paid off my credit card, and am going to pay of R's as soon as we figure out a safe way to transfer money to that account. In another week, our only debt will be our fairly modest mortgage, and that's pretty awesome for a pair of 25 year olds!

Living Space

Making some progress on paperwork, finally. Thanks in huge part to my future roommate, E, who took care of figuring out exactly what was needed and filled out the forms so all I had to do was sign them! Also thanks to R, who did all the printing/scanning because my computer's acting up and it's really really cold in the basement. I now have somewhere to live, just as soon as I can move! It's a three bedroom apartment, which I'll be sharing with two roommates. E is currently there, and another woman who will be moving out in March, so we'll be roommate hunting once I get there (or, if my departure is delayed, possibly sooner) to keep the rent nice and low.

When people say the Dutch tend towards bureaucracy, they aren't kidding. There were two forms to fill out/sign, which E took care of. Typically, proof of ending a previous lease is needed, but since I own my house, I had to send my mortgage info and a letter explaining I was in the process of selling. They also needed a passport scan and proof of employment. But it's all done and dealt with, so that's pretty awesome.

It's going to be weird adjusting to having so much less space. R and I could probably go an entire weekend without seeing each other and without leaving our house, if we tried. I'm actually kind of excited about it, because our house here seems so empty without furniture, and we simply hadn't filled it up yet because life got expensive. My car was totaled, we had wedding expenses, then the whole roof mess, then layoffs. And since I don't buy stuff I don't love, just to have it, and there's no IKEA (or similar cheap modern furniture) nearby, we just didn't have stuff. Which was fine, because just the two of us certainly don't need a ton of stuff. In fact, I'm finding that I prefer owning less, and doing more, if that makes sense. Why buy a dining room set for $1000 when I have a kitchen table already? I could instead use that money to take a weekend trip with R, or shop at the farmer's market and get delicious local produce instead of shopping at a chain store with flavourless tomatoes, or get season tickets at a theatre, or pay for half a cruise vacation. Or even put it towards R's master's degree (if he ever decides what degree to go back for) or to keep in savings as a comforting slush fund, just in case. I get so much more out of anything except the dining room table, and I'm grateful I bought this much-too-large house because otherwise I wouldn't have learned that. Looking at Dutch real estate, initially I was all panicky. How will I ever live in such a small space? Then I did some math, and really, R and I only actually use about 800 sq ft of space. We use either the living room or the basement, but certainly not the whole basement room, which is ginormous, the kitchen (but only the cooking side, not really the breakfast nook) and the master suite. Really, our bedroom could be 20 sq ft smaller and we wouldn't even notice. I've also found that while I thought for sure I'd need "my own space, to be alone" that that isn't the case at all. Even if we're doing totally separate things and not talking, I prefer that R and I are in the same room. This was true even when I was working, and not spending all day hanging out by myself. I married him because I enjoy his company, after all! So now I'm looking forward to having less space and less stuff. I'm also looking forward to the challenge of making a small space work in terms of furnishing and decor, although that won't be until we can find a house-ish living space.

Much as I love my little car, I am thrilled to be shifting to a car-free lifestyle. Which will only be possible because the new town is totally walkable and bikable. And while we may buy a car once R has a job there, the prevalence of public transport combined with high gas prices makes me think that's unlikely.

Even the dogs don't use the whole backyard, and would be perfectly fine with much less space. Especially since I'm moving somewhere that will be much more fun for walks. The path behind my house is lovely, but it gets boring to go in the same loop all the time. My new neighborhood/city will be much more walkable.

I will admit, however, that I will absolutely miss my glorious backyard, my trees, and the massive potential for oodles of flowers and vegetables. My apartment does have a patio, so I might try some small-space container gardening this summer.

Crisis Averted

Apparently, the water just wanted to be difficult, and turned itself back on the next day.

Now I have a new problem. My marriage certificate came back to me today, because apparently the address wasn't specific enough for the office it needs to go to. You know, the address that I copied directly from the Iowa Secretary of State's website. So there's an entire week wasted, since I now need to re-address, re-send, and then wait for it to get back. However, they are willing to change the date on my contract to whenever I get there, since we don't have a lot of control of the paperwork pace. But now that I have somewhere to live, and the holidays are over, and my initial unemployment filing is almost up, I just want to get there and get started on the new job. I hate waiting for this sort of thing. The move will be stressful, the time change will be hell, and leaving the dogs (R too, of course, but I have plenty of practice at that) is going to suck. I want to get all that over with, and just get going! I'm like that with good-byes too. Whenever R or I dropped the other off at an airport, it was very "Okay, have a good flight, love you, hugs, bye" and that was it. Dragging it out just makes me feel worse. Once there's a plan, even if it won't be pleasant, I want to get it going. This even happens in smaller things, like cleaning the house. If we've decided to clean, I want to get it started and blast through it. R much prefers easing into the idea, then cleaning a room, taking a break, cleaning another room, taking a break again, and it took some getting used to. I hate dragging out boring, tedious, or otherwise unpleasant things. Being unemployed, for example.

Now that I think about it, this is probably why the weeks before I got my layoff notice were so so so stressful. I was pretty sure I was getting laid off, everybody else's optimism to the contrary, and rather than dreading it, I really wanted to get it over with. My last few weeks at work were actually a lot more pleasant, because I knew they were the end, I wasn't stressed about deadlines (what are they going to do if I don't meet them?) and I was much more able to focus on what I was doing.

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.

Sleep

So I've been tending to sleep really oddly lately. I attribute this to three things; stress, lack of effort, and lack of reason to get up in the morning.

I think the stress of being jobless and my natural inability to sleep if I'm not *really* tired started the problem, and it was compounded by being able to sleep in as long as I needed to. I've had intermittant trouble falling asleep since forever, I think. According to the internet, that's Initial Stage Insomnia and it can be brought about by a bunch of different things, including stress and anxiety. I do know that if I'm worried about something, ESPECIALLY if it's something I have no control over, I will think and think and think about it when I should be sleeping. This is frustrating when facing layoffs, say, or when jobless and looking at a broken economy and a very broken industry. I'm pretty sure almost everyone has occasional nights like that though, so I think was makes my problem insomnia is the second reason.

I seem to have a set amount of effort I need to use up between sleep cycles. This effort can be mental (intellectual might be a better word) or physical, but not emotional. In fact, the more exhausting my emotional state, the more likely I am to stay awake worrying at it. It's sort of like a piston doing work, actually. Given a certain amount of fuel (previous night's sleep) in the combustion chamber, the piston MUST move a certain distance, producing work, where the factors are the weight of the piston and the pressure of whatever's on the other side of it. It's like the mental effort is the work and physical effort is the outside pressure. So a lot of physical exertion will lower the amount of mental work I have to do, but can never totally substitute for it. I guess that makes emotional work equivalent to increasing the efficiency of the fuel burn, making the piston do more work. Unfortunately for me, job hunting requires little physical effort, and the intellectual effort of finding things is canceled out by the emotional work of believing you will find something. Housework requires minimal physical effort, but no mental exertion whatsoever. I think this lack of mental effort explains my current preference of nonfiction for light reading. Or creating elaborate spreadsheets. Or doing math for no reason other than entertaining myself. So I haven't been using up my sleep-fuel at my normal rate, leading to staying awake for longer periods of time between sleeping.

An obvious way to eneable myself to sleep would be to limit the amount of sleep I get, only partially fueling my engine. That's where the last issue comes to play. If I don't have anything to get up for, except to feel tired all day so I can fall asleep at a "reasonable" hour, I'm not going to. So I get totally refueled, only later in the day, so I fall asleep even later, and the cycle gets absurd pretty darn quickly. Eventually I hit an all-nighter, which lets me fall asleep at a normal hour, and I reset the weird sleep patterns. At this point, I'm wondering if just sleeping intuitively and ignoring what the clock says might be the best way to go. After all, there's nothing intrinsically better about being awake during the day and asleep at night. It made more sense pre-electricity, sure, but at this point, I'm not convinced it really matters.

If I'm really lucky, I'll be on Delft time when I fly over there, and then the effort of dealing with a new place, new people, and a new language plus moving and starting my new job should let me reset to a normal sleep schedule, with less jet lag than I'd otherwise experience. That would be kind of awesome, actually.

If physical effort were enough, I would have crashed at 8PM last night. R and I have moved the elliptical, two couches, and a queen sized mattress. We've also cleaned the kitchen, master bedroom, guest bedroom, and basement, and have made significant progress on packing up the office. And here it is, 6AM, and my eyes are a little dry but my mind is still bouncing around. I envy R so much right now. He decides it's time for bed, his head hits the pillow, and he's asleep. I have never experienced that. I can fall asleep immediately if I'm exhausted, or sick, but that's it. I can't just say "it's midnight, and to maintain a schedule similar to most people here I need to sleep now" and then fall asleep. I have to say "it's midnight, and today I learned how to program in BASIC, so I could write an app to analyze data, which I analyzed, and then I came home and did stuff and now I'm tired" before I can fall asleep.