Reset

Have you ever wanted to just press the reset button? I think I'm about to do just that. Going back to California is something M and I have been so looking forward to, but we were a bit worried about being able to find a decent apartment. We wanted one in the same old neighborhood we left, because we loved where it was located. We wanted a place that was gated and had onsite laundry, and two bedrooms, and good for walking Radley. We've been looking and our little neighborhood is kinda full. We did the westsiderentals.com thing (which you have to pay for) and not much was there either, and the last time I used them they had tons of offerings. Craigslist was a bust. With M not having a job and my job not starting for a few months, we were afraid it would be tough to even get an apartment. My credit isn't as bad as it used to be, but it's not exactly healthy. So we decided hey why not call the old landlord and see if he has any units available in the coming months.

He did, but he didn't want to wait until October 1st to rent it to us, so.....we're leaving early! That's right, instead of being broke in sweltering, humid, lawyer-laden Philadelphia, we're going to go be broke in Long Beach. It might be sweltering, it may have a kind of sooty dust that leaves an oily film all over everything in your apartment, but it's home! We're paying our first month's rent Sept 1st. Not sure if we can get out of here before then, but hopefully by the first week of Sept, I'll be back in baby's arms...

2 Bedrooms, you guys! And apartment upgrades of all kinds apparently, as my landlord claims to have installed ceiling fans, re-tiled the kitchen and bath, and recarpeted. All this for less than we were paying before we left. Is this some kind of miracle? Some kind of sign of good things to come?

It damn well better be. I'm so happy I could cry.

This means good things for the Sweet Lady Shop, as October is a big month for me. I'll be posting up new products, revamping the website, and doing some sort of anniversary thing, since it's been over a year since I opened up shop. And the shop will finally have a craft room to call its own. Some people get a second bedroom for guests, some get it for a future baby, mine's for the shop!

Wow. I need to go get boxes. How many do you think it will take if I have 700 books? Yeah, I did an inventory. Frightening, isn't it?

Housewarming Party in late September. I'm pretty sure there will be cocktails.

Constant Craving

Ok, so I owe you all an explanation. I've been blogging a lot less than I used to. And I don't post pictures of my meals with recipes anymore. And I don't do any baking to speak of. I haven't had the time or the energy. I've had bouts of really sad times balanced by good but busy and productive times. I'm working on posting more. I'm working on lots of things.

I am super proud of myself for my most recent accomplishment. My dissertation is in the hands of a good editor, and I'm turning it in in a couple of weeks for printing. But it's done. No extra work needed. That, in an of itself is a big effing deal. I get that. I do.

And I got to go home! I missed it much more than I realized. It was nice to see my family and friends, and even nicer to have something to celebrate while I was there. Seeing my friends and the old hood was pretty cool too.

While I don't want this blog to be a "pity me" blog, it bears mentioning that the day after I got back,  instead of ushering in a few weeks of rest and relaxation, my job situation really tanked.

Remember how I work at Wolfram & Hart, the evil law firm? And remember how they had me doing horrible foreclosure hotline stuff, where I'd have to talk to people who were losing their homes and tell them that they had to pay huge sums of money within a week or their house will be sold? Well that stuff sucked and was shitty. Also apparently a lot of it wasn't too legal. My firm is being sued in a class action lawsuit (along with our clients, big giant banks). This has resulted in a massive amount of layoffs.

My friends at work started to disappear. The week I got back, they started laying off people in batches of 15. Then they slowed down. Then I got transferred again. This time, to a department that handles out-of-state cases. Then they started laying off people again. Important people. People needed to get things done. People who have worked there for 15 years. People who were in the middle of celebrating their birthday. Yeah, that's right, one guy got fired ON his birthday. It hasn't been a month since I went out to LA for my defense and yet a huge amount of people at my firm are gone and each day has been incredibly stressful. Every time the phone rings, we jump because it might be HR asking for a private meeting. Even some of the demon lawyers are gone! Demon on demon crime, you guys! It's a crap shoot each day that I'll have a job. Which means an apartment and medical insurance and CABLE TV.

Anyway, I have been a stress ball each day all day! If I don't have a job, we're screwed. M. hasn't found decent employment, we've got a dwindling savings, and none of my teaching applications have yielded much in the way of even one adjunct class. I can't even get any kind of academic adjacent job.


I've tried to love Philly. I love parts of it a lot. But a year should be enough time to get a spot teaching one class as an adjunct with a PhD. And if M. can't get a decent job after applying for over 300 positions (ranging from full time benefited to hourly retail), then I think we have to reassess our long term plans. The major reason we came was to have a better financial future.

We're thinking of moving back to Long Beach. We've done some soul searching about it. M wanted to move back 6 months ago, but I thought we owed it to ourselves to give it one year. Now that the dissertation is done, I feel like I can finally think clearly about what I need and what I love to do.

Until I finished, I felt like it would take forever. I felt like I'd never be done. I was running in place for a long time. Doing whatever I could to avoid the work that needed to get done.  And now that the work is done and I'm actually proud of it, I feel like a million bucks. And Wolfram & Hart is destroying this million bucks feeling. They are tearing into tiny tiny pieces and crushing each piece.

I've got a very possible job situation happening in January 2012. A good one. One with possibilities for the future. One that would make it very easy to move back to Long Beach. I think it's happening. And I think I'm happy at the prospect. Some people would look at this Philly thing as a failed experiment. But I look at it as my last chance to do a big crazy move, to experience totally new things, to understand myself better.

I want to not be stressed out all the time. It's really messing with my mind and my body. And I want my husband to be happy. And this war of ovarian aggression will one day end. I want to be on the winning side of that one. Sigh. I've given up on the need to be a homeowner. I've looked at enough awful mortgages and ruined lives at Wolfram & Hart to never ever sign a mortgage. Not until I've got real stability and a hefty savings. And I've started to be OK with that. I can have a rental house someday. And I can take good care of it like it was my own until things get better.

So this was an apology (for being gone), an explanation (for why I've been gone), and an indication of what's coming.

Wish me some luck already, damn!

Garage Sales are the Devil

Among the many things that are totally horrific about moving is the garage sale. Garage sales are great ways to get rid of things you have decided are useless and actually charge for them. Plus one point for garage sales. But they also introduce you to the weirdest people in your neighborhood, minus 10 points. It also requires you to get up at the crack of dawn on a Saturday. I should not see 6 am on a Saturday unless there is a road trip planned. Even then, we don't talk to each other, M. and I just go to the gas station, get orange juice, coffee, and snacks and wait until we're functional to speak. Minus another 5 points.

We started setting up at 6:30, and a nosy neighbor informed us as we were setting up that the city doesn't allow us to actually sell anything until 7am. She then proceeded to ask questions about stuff that she had no intention of buying. Thanks Mrs. Kravitz, geez. One woman tried on a coat of mine and asked if it had become too small for me, which was rude, but I guess she wanted to know why I was selling it. Still. A $5 coat that was never worn does not require a conversation. Buy it or don't lady! M's shoes were a big hit, though everyone was surprised that they were only one size. We had a desk out there and someone asked if we had a chair to go with it. Like, hello, this isn't a store, it's a garage sale. Also, I don't have several sizes of feet, so I pretty much am only gonna offer the one size.

Some people were nice, though, one lady practically sold our stuff to another person she described it so nicely! M. got rid of a lot of skate shoes, and a big heavy dictionary left for greener pastures. What actually ended up selling today was the odds and ends, clothes, and kitchen storage. My bookcases are currently back in the garage, along with a stupid huge desk and a TV storage thingy from back when people (us) had big tube televisions. Ugh. I think we're going to have to post craigslist ads for them.

Anybody need a big desk? Billy bookcases? Tv storage? Close-out prices!

As a special bonus, one of the big items for sale got knocked over by a random gust of wind, hitting my neighbor's car and denting the passenger door. So even though we made a couple hundred bucks, I'm sure that will go toward some kind of deductible for our insurance so that she can get it fixed. Sigh.

Worse tragedies have afflicted people, it's true, but I really hope we don't have to do this again.

We had a lot of Ikea furniture that we just didn't feel was worth it to move across the country. I don't know what it is about this move, but I'm much more willing to give up stuff and slim down our belongings. I guess because it's no longer a matter of filling up my car a bunch of times going between the old and new apartment. All of it has to go at once. Do 10 copies of that article I use for teaching really need to make their way across the Rockies? Is that set of ramekins as necessary as the other set of ramekins I have? I mean, how many people are gonna need ramekins at any dinner party I throw in the future? Why do I have three different kinds of padlocks? I apparently will never need to buy paper clips as long as I live. I have thousands!

It's starting to get real though, this big move. We have already contacted a realtor in Philadelphia to help us find apartments. She gets paid by the various landlords, so all we have to pay is a $50 credit-check fee and she'll organize a weekend of searching in early May. Pretty sweet! We have narrowed down our search to the Queen Village/Bella Vista/Hawthorne areas of downtown Philadelphia. I am doing a lot of work and writing, so I haven't done my usual round of intense research of the area, but I can't wait to find out about our possible future neighborhood! All I know so far is it's the area where Pat's and Geno's cheesesteak restaurants are and that the world's largest pinata is housed nearby.

How do people get through a long distance move? I'm expecting a breakdown sometime in May, around when the dissertation needs to be done and my students are begging me for higher grades.

Moving Day: 1 of 159

If you've ever lent me anything and you'd like to see it back, you should probably ask for it now. I've started packing for our big move in June. I know, who packs this far in advance, right? Well, given the convergence of events happening between February and June, I decided slow and steady was the best approach. I'll be doing a lot of writing, becoming the feral creature I knew I always would. I've got a semester to prepare for, though I am hoping to do minimal preparation given that it's my last semester and I'm teaching the Pop Culture class, which won't change from last semeter. I am also putting together applications for teaching gigs, which is a lot of work for probably very little reward, but at least I'll be getting my name out there.

The next couple of weeks of vacation will be dissertation heavy, but I will be packing a little bit each day. Mostly books. I started packing up kitchen things that I can live without, and today was about deciding which books will make the cut. I have reduced my necessary-have-to-have-around books to one Billy bookshelf. One shelf! Our goal during this vacation time was to do all the culling. We've gone through closets and separated out the things we want to sell or donate. That way, when crunch time happens, we can shove things in boxes without wondering whether or not they are important. At some point during moving, you just start randomly throwing things in boxes and tossing out stuff just because it doesn't fit.

I hate packing. I hate moving! The last time we did this was a July 4th weekend four years ago. The first weekend where temperatures got to 100 degrees and neither apartment had air conditioning. Nobody was available to help us move, so we basically had to do it ourselves. We had no money, but we rented a small U-Haul truck and filled it three times. Our landlord couldn't get the previous tenant out as quickly as he wanted, so the carpet was still wet from the cleaning service, and the caulking in the tub was not yet dry. But we were in. We used a bucket filled with ice and water to soak our feet and keep cool, and my dear future husband went out and got us Taco Bell tacos. We vowed then and there that we would never move without movers again. We, it had been decided, were "too old for this shit."

Yeah well, times change. Bank accounts dwindle. Basically, we're planning this move on a shoe string budget. We plan on selling a lot of stuff, mostly furniture. Any money we make from those little craigslist sales will go toward our cross-country trip. A trip of Motel 6s across this great land, because they take pets and we'll have both an angry kitty and a happy, but stir-crazy dog. We hope to rent a couple of those pods that you pack yourself and then they get picked up and shipped to your destination. Hopefully, we'll have friends and family in Philly who can help us unload!

Any tips for long distance moves would be nice. How did you go about getting jobs? What kind of moving service did you use? How many miles were you able to drive each day? Comment here, or email me!

New Chapter

Those of you who are my Facebook friends got the news yesterday, but I thought I'd tell the rest of you today. M and I have decided to move to Philadelphia when he's done with his art degree in June!

What prompted this move? Well, a lot of things.

Before what people are calling the "economic crisis" (but really should be called the Second Great Depression), we were pretty set on living in Long Beach forever. Then we watched housing prices go up and up until a two bedroom bungalow in our neighborhood (with no backyard to speak of) was almost $900k. M got laid off, I got a 10% pay cut. It started to look gloomy here in southern California.

I know that in my field, budget cuts here will have repercussions lasting well into the next decade. Academic departments whose budgets got slashed will be cautious about adding new positions. And those that are already in tenure-track positions nearing retirement will be less likely to do so because their pensions were affected by the crisis as well. It's a nation-wide problem, of course, but many people know that California was hit very hard. So we started thinking.

I have considerable student loan debt. We want to have a family one day. We'd prefer to have a house or condo that we can call our own in the next 5 years. That's going to be very tough here. We needed some place where there is a big concentration of universities and colleges, a decent publishing industry (M plans on putting his graphic design degree to use in publishing layout and design), and the real possibility of home ownership. Also, we wanted to have a decent support system. I think we could go it alone if we really wanted to, but both of us would be much happier if we moved somewhere we already had some friends. So Philadelphia seemed to me to be the logical choice. I brought it up to M and he'd already been thinking about it.

We'd have the big city we've always wanted to settle down in, the support structure of friends and family, and probably the biggest concentration of universities and colleges in a big city in the country. I'm not saying I'll get a tenure-track position there, but I'll at least be able to adjunct or work in other capacities on a campus.

We've been researching the situation in Philly for a few weeks. How much it costs to live there, what home ownership is like, how much it would cost to relocate. When we realized that we were totally in love with the idea, we decided to tell the parents. My mom first, since we're leaving here. She completely understood why we needed to move and what prompted it. She said she is sad that we're leaving, but knowing we'll be around M's family makes it something she can completely get behind. I think her exact words were, "because I don't trust any strangers to watch your babies. If it isn't going to be me, the only other people I'd trust would be R and J (Ms parents)." We called them last night, at the end of their Rosh Hashana dinner, so that the whole family could hear the news at once. Of course everyone's delighted.

So we're totally doing it! I'm gonna miss you California. And these next 8 months are going to be filled with visiting places I thought I couldn't live without, and places I should have seen (Griffith Observatory, I'm looking at you), people I'm going to miss. But I'm actually looking forward to wearing scarves and coats (I have cute ones I never wear). Having seasons. Living in the oldest big city in the country. Walking instead of driving. Being close to some friends I don't see too often. White Chrismukkahs. Fireflies.

I can't wait.