After staying put for almost two years, I decided it was time to move again. The Washington, DC, area looked good — better climate, a lot of friends from college. Younger population.
The larger paycheck helped too.
Packing Up, Week of March 21
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My bookshelf, which doubled as the staging area for things that needed to be packed.
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...and the pile of boxes in front of it.
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The couch didn't escape unscathed, either. Good thing I spent most of my time in the computer chair.
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The shelves that used to house my signed baseball and my old 7Up bottles.
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It's hard to see, but the drawers under my desk are already wrapped up. My "office" has also been taken down, leaving only the computer. (Guess what got packed up last.)
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The hall closet. I needed the chair to get the stuff I'd stored on the top shelf. I hate being short...
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After I got a box packed, I put it in the bedroom. Here's part of it.
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That was the stuff, like clean clothes, that was staying with me instead of going on the truck.
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More of the mass of boxes. Each time I move, I always say to myself, "when did I collect all this crap?!" And each time I move, I realize that some of it has just gone with me each time.
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The big boxes and the bedside table/dresser.
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My beat-up old bike, fresh out of storage. I gave it away after getting here once I found out it would cost me about half as much to repair as it would to buy a new bike.
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Getting close to zero-hour; even the computer's been packed.
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Now I don't even have the computer chair to sit on.
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Supplies for The Cleaning. I think I may have left that bottlecap remover stuck to the fridge. Dammit.
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More supplies for the final clean-up.
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The bedroom, getting even fuller.
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The pile, from the inside. If I had any more stuff it would have gotten dangerous to try to walk around in the middle of the night.
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...It also would have covered the window before too much longer.
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The dresser, now wrapped up, and even more stuff. How I fit it all into that apartment, I don't know.
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The now-bare closet.
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Yep, really empty. Now that I'm writing this, I have no idea why I took those pictures. Maybe so I'd be able to verify that I'd emptied the closets? 'Cause it would have been so hard to just look.
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The now-empty hall closet.
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Almost-empty bathroom, and some fat guy with a camera.
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Look, Ma! No mold!
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The entryway closet, also empty. So everything I had was either in a box or sitting out to be packed at that point.
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Yep, still empty.
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The bedroom, ready to go.
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My old mattress, also ready to go.
Unpacking, March 29-April 2
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Getting everything unpacked; the TV had to go first so the cable guy could work his magic.
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I have no idea what's on the side of that box, but I assume I took that picture for a reason.
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Looking into the dining room. Can't you tell?
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My poor, abused bike. Its fate was my fault, really. Too much neglect over the years.
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"Christ, I think that pile actually grew while it was on the truck!"
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The futon was a casualty of the move; I shouldn't have piled stuff on top of it in the truck. But I was able to fix it up.
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The living room's original configuration, with lots of wasted space.
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After reorganizing I freed up the floorspace in the living room, but not much anywhere else. Baby steps, baby steps.
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The desk, in its present home.
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Getting the entertainment center set up; I left out the VCR this time since I now have a DVR.
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Still lots of work to be done.
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The entryway was still kind of gummed up too. Made it kind of interesting getting to work in the morning.
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Still trying to get set up. Note that there are boxes everywhere, the futon's still busted, and yet the computer's on.
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Looking at these pictures three months later, I'm not sure I was unpacking so much as I was just moving boxes around to make myself feel better.
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But I did get some unpacking done. Those two piles used to be five boxes tall.