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Location: Home.
Listening: "My Foolish Heart" by Bill Evans.

Packing. All of my life, I've been packing. I will be packing for the rest of my life. Gerbil on a wheel.

I never fathomed the sheer amount of crap that has clearly been lurking in my home for the last two years. The amount of trash bags that we have gone through has been truly astounding. Thankfully, the movers are bearing the brunt of the packing burden, but still. It's just shocking how books, scraps of paper, and cleaning supplies can build up when one isn't looking.

Yaga has given a good overall summary of our Memorial Day weekend. Lunch with friends at the Yard House was a happy end to my most recent stint in L.A.. Dan and Shanti, Grey Lurker and Gothcrumpet, Kyle and Flor, Kenny (hopping on an ankle sprained during volleyball yesterday--poor thing) and Jenn, Adam S., Nick, Coyote, Clandestine, and, of course, Austin, were all there to see us off. We received a lovely Minted Pomegranante candle from Clandestine (quoth she: "Since you're going to be caught between two worlds, I figured I'd give you something appropriate to that." Little does she know how appropriate. A dear friend of mine has a nickname for me that goes quite well with the gift.) and the audio book of Spalding Grey's Monster In A Box from Kenny and Jenn (perfect for that four-day drive ahead of us). The sun sparkled on the water in Rainbow Harbor, the food was, as always, delicious, and the company was wonderful. It all made for a very pleasant Long Beach memory (one of many). For snaps from the afternoon, check out the gallery that Yaga references in his journal.

We came home and snuggled on the bed, slipping into a three-hour nap from too much sun and just enough alcohol. The rest of the evening has been spent in a low-level frenzy of sorting, folding, and sneezing at all the dust the rearranging has kicked up. Well, sneezing for me at least. Yaga seems to be immune to all things allergic. Again, to quote Clandestine: "He's part dust bunny.".

This might be the last journal update for a while, as Yaga intends to dismantle the computer tomorrow morning. For the moment, MapQuesting and tarot card consulting (I found an old pack while sorting and taught Yaga how to lay Celtic Crosses last night) reign in 1260. Tomorrow morning is more packing and cleaning, packers come from 1-3 and then movers follow close on their heels. Wednesday morning, we set out for El Paso just after dawn in the new car. Thursday will be El Paso to Houston, where we hope to rendezvous with Scott and possibly Bret, and then on to Memphis to have dinner Friday night with my parents and my little brother (whom I haven't seen in almost two years). Saturday is Memphis to Pittsburgh with a stop along the way at my mother's family's ancestral digs in Glasgow, KY (where I'm literally related to two-thirds of the town) and lunch with my aunt and grandmother. We plan on pulling into Guru and Piscis' driveway mid to late evening on Saturday. They've also recently bought a new (used) car in blue--it's fate, I tell you.

This journey will be my third time across the Arizona-New Mexican desert and Texas and Peter's first--as well as his first time road-tripping through the Deep South. Pictures and journals will, of course, be forthcoming in the next few days. We've got the cables to hook the laptop into my new car's electrical connection (!) and we're armed with not only the digicam, but the SLR's as well.

We have the technology--and we're coming for you, America. Fear us.