Notes on a Move

I am the tired version of Cooter Brown.

My apartment looks like a Garage Sale Bomb went off. Lots of crapnel all over the place. Couldn't be more tired if I was being interrogated at Gitmo at this point.

I was in a bad mood 'cause my back is sore as Marlon Brando's pack mule.

I have a rash or some something that includes breaking out all over my chest, stomach and shaved head that can only have come from napping on my new/old World's Ugliest Free Couch. I'm colorblind and I still find it without any aesthetic value. Evidently it does have some value where the CDC is concerned, though, judging by the map of the Old World that now covers me from noggin to navel.

The transition is a bit different than I expected, although I'm not quite sure what I expected. I don't know where anything goes. Or where it's supposed to go. Or where it should go. If I don't figure it out soon, it'll all just have to go.

It is bittersweet, though. I miss Gert and Noodle and the Lads.

As the title of this ‘blog’ states; Some Things I Know and Some Things I Don’t…

I liberally employ the ellipse as a tool to best illustrate the pauses that occur so often in my daily speech— Sometimes it’s the result of the habit I picked up from letting David Letterman educate my sensibilities past the Late Local News; other times it’s for the presumptive effect that may allow you to think while you’re looking at (and possibly thinking in your not-outside voice) dot-dot-dot…(see there it was again).

Since The Big Move which occurred around the Ides of May, I have found out several Things I Know and Several (more) Things I Don’t…here are the majority of those Things…

I Miss Living With Gertrude. And Noodle. And The Lads. And Manolo (the fish) Desperately.

Sure, if any one of us looks around and makes an honest effort of estimating or itemizing what they may (or may not) like to change about their current situation (whether with or without a co-habitant, roommate, spouse, etc.) we might, at any given time, on any given day, be able to generate a cathartic list that may (or may not) express ALL the things that we could change if said current situation were to , in fact, be altered by the eventual or immediate absence of whomever may be filling the Void as a co-habitant, roommate, spouse, etc.(…) You, the reader, may have done this dozens of times in the past (or maybe even today); I’ll readily (albeit, somewhat sheepishly) admit, that I had made such (a) list(s) before the Ides of May. Even after the News of the Great MortgageVictory, reached my shores, I made a newer, updated, version of such List; and just like the past (make believe) lists, I sat and daydreamed how different things would be…in about 6 weeks. Mind you, I deliberately said/typed different, not better. At first, there are the obvious projected differences…being able to walk around in (or out of) your drawers (if you so choose) [that’s underwear for anyone wondering or needing a reminder this originates from the 47th State], trying a new dishwasher detergent, just to see if the commercial is right, and getting to see what the Sound of Silence holds…
Well, I’m here to tell you, kids, it’s deafening!
There are far too many things to list in context of this (or of us), but, it’s hard to explain the missing of a heartbeat, the white noise, the positive/negative space, the order, the chaos, the routine, the comfort of living with the Best Friend You’ll Ever Be Lucky Enough to Have, without spiraling into a ‘Poor Me’ sounding lament, or an 80’s Power Ballad.

That fear now aside (and with all apologies to Cinderella), I’m in the stages of you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.

Please understand that there’s not one single part of me that begrudges the opportunity that Gertrude has and was able to embrace, or the result of the difficult decision making process that she endured. I couldn’t have imagined a scenario working out more in her favor, all things considered (save an incredibly large sack of unmarked bills falling on our former front porch), than she now has before her.

I just didn’t plan very well for this day; emotionally, I mean.

I can feel myself welling up to a point that I will not be able to make sense soon (let alone fulfill the intro to the post promising a list of several items relevant to the theme), so, I will try to sum up my lack of synchronicity with the new Patio-less 63rd Street Living Cubicle Life like this…Life, in all it’s Glory and with all it’s Challenges, is all in the details.

My life is no more richer for being able to buy any one specific brand of toilet paper or margarine, or the so-called ‘freedom’ to walk around in various states of undress, or any other newfound changes I’ve experienced in this transition; in fact, in a black and white, red or blue world, between the choice of happy or unhappy, for the moment, I have to punch the chad corresponding with unhappy (whether or not that means anything or not to Pat Buchanan).

Regardless of the Immediate Necessity or Eventual Benefit of the Changes Occurring Around the Ides of May, left to my own devices, given my druthers, I’d be back on the Patio with Gertrude in a second.