Boston.
The low down on my move. I already typed three quarters of
this up once and in greater detail. Mozilla crashed when I
clicked "Post." Death to Mozilla today.
Friday, June 22 in Ottawa:
M. O. V. I. N. G. bullshit followed by lots of cleaning.
Find out the original E.T.A. for my shipment of Monday or
Tuesday is no longer correct. It's Thursday now. Bastards.
Wondering whether I can crash at a friends or should by an
air mattress when I get to Boston.
Saturday, June 23 in Ottawa:
Continued cleaning, followed by slacking, followed by
irritation at waffling, indecisive friends, followed by
heavy drinking of Golden Glow until three am. Retired to my
lame ass old bed fearful of the hangover that was sure to
kick in come morning/afternoon.
Sunday, June 24, in Ottawa:
At 6am, the superintendent of my building came by wanting to
inspect the apartment. Still drunk, I turn very beligerent
and tell him to get the fuck out of my home. He signs a
piece of paper saying everything looks fine and that I
should just leave the keys under the kitchen sink when I
leave. Whatever. I go back to sleep after ingesting roughly
a gallon of water and two Ibuprofen and a bunch of Cheerios.
Shortly before noon, my pal Cory wakes me up by calling to
see if I can stop the record store he works at later in the
day to hang out. I promise to do so and then take a shower.
After showering I throw out the old mattress and box spring
followed by all the old linens, pillows, and other sundry
items that remained in the apartment. Everytime I took
something out to the dumpster the previous thing I'd taken,
unless it was a bag of trash, was missing. There are some
truly efficient dumpster divers in Ottawa. Those of you who
are rabidly patriotic Canadians will smile and say something
like, "Of course! They're Canadian!" while the rest of use
just shake our heads at your "socialized medicine." More
slacking, dinner, and then headed
off to see Tomb Raider with Peter, Lee, and a pair of Lee's
friends. It sucked. Then crashed at Peter's place.
Monday, June 25 begins in Ottawa:
Up at 8:00am to get ready to go to the airport. We sit
around and watch the first half of the X-Men movie(because
ours brains aren't working yet) before I actually get in the
shower and leave. I accidentally leave my nearly empty
keyring and razor at Pete's. Go me. Uneventful waiting and
flight to Boston.
Monday, June 25 in Boston:
Leave the airport for the work. Drop my shit off at the new
desk. My desk is in a corner, quite a ways from any one else
and with no neighbours. I don't take this as a slight, but
rather a compliment to my complete disregard for corporate
policy and procedure governing how I should behave at work.
I'm in
the process of constructing a shower curtain doorway thingy
and a roof. After that, the keg fridge! I then proceed to
retrieve my copy of the apartment lease and the keys to said
apartment. Goes without incident. Go to the apartment, turn
the air conditioning back on because it's hot as hell out,
and then head back to the office. Make a bunch of calls, pay
a bunch of bills online and otherwise take care of random
items. Pick up a shower curtain and a bath mat on the way
home. Go out to dinner with Joe and then hang out with he
and Jacob the Neurotic Little Monkey at a coffee shop. Go
home and go to sleep. Fortunately my landlord left a foam
mattress in the apartment for me to sleep on. Nice guy.
Tuesday, June 26 in Boston:
Work. Get a burrito for dinner and run into Jacob and Joe on
their way back from watching Tomb Raider. Go out with Jacob
to be amused, entertained, and marginally frightened by his
world view. Met Tom the Super Jew again. He's fun. Went home
and went to sleep instead of drinking since I needed to get
various things done fairly early in the morning.
Wednesday, June 27 in Boston:
Work. Called the movers to find out why I haven't heard from
the driver yet. Get some calls back a few hours later. Seems
like the driver has changed the delivery date to June 8
without bothering to mention it to anyone. He wants to
deliver my stuff two weeks after pickup. A road distance of
roughly 450 miles is going to take 14+ days to deliver. I am
obviously not a happy camper. Have a 3:00pm to 6:00pm
meeting. At 4:15pm I get a call from the driver of my
shipment saying he's waiting at my place. "What the fuck?",
that's not what they said 3 hours ago. I leave the meeting,
head home in a too expensive, too slow, and sadly clueless
taxi only to discover no truck. I do find the phone guy,
who's there to re-punch my pairs into the patch panel in the
basement. He does his shit and, HAPPINESS!, I have a working
phone jack. Mover doesn't show so I check my messages.
There's a message from the mover while I was in the taxi
stating that he had meant to call another person who's shit
he is delivering now. BASTARD! Back to work for the ass end
of the meeting. Go out for dinner at the Diesel Cafe a few
blocks from my place. Am amazed and pleased that I am not,
apparently, living in super-straight-yuppie-ville. Half of
Davis Square seems to be run by dykes. Good. Got some ice
cream and then go home to call various people and tell them
of my experiences in Boston to date.
Opinions to date:
- The T isn't half bad.
- The nearest grocery store is 2.5 miles away.
- The Bostonian accent is awfully irritating.
- Working in an office environment is kind of odd after
not doing for nearly two years.
- I can't find soy milk in a store. This is irritating.
- I want my new/used bike sooner than next week.
- Boston has a fair number of cute young women considering
there's something like three quarters of a million students
in the greater metro area when school is in session.
- I really miss my bed.
- I really, really miss my cooking gear.
- I really, really, really miss my ferrets.
- Canadians do actually seem to be nicer, friendlier
people. Fucked up.
Word to the wise: Never, ever, ever use a
national/international moving company, boys and girls.