Oh, look, I'm redoing my website. Inform the tabloids and keepers-of-records.
Naturally, absolutely everything will be broken for a while. You'll get used to it, if you aren't already.
Just now, I was going through my podcasts in iTunes looking for things to add to my "Today" playlist so I'd have something to listen to during work and my commute. Under the heading of a particular science podcast, I saw that the latest episode was about Saturn's moons and after a moment's pause, I decided against selecting it, saying, "Nah, I like Jupiter's moons."
Then, somewhere, I could hear the sound of any future children of mine being unborn.
I've been in Chicago for about 6 days now, and the weird fuzziness that seemed to surround reality has clarified and now I'm only slightly overwhelmed by everything.
I started my job on Monday, and it seems to be a rather good one. The office is near the northern boundary of what I'd consider downtown Chicago, and my apartment is at or below the southern one, so between home and work is about 10 square miles of urban goodness that, had I the time and were the weather more acclimate, I would be taking thirty thousand pictures of per day.
I still need a bunch of furniture for my place. My computer currently sits on a plastic folding table, and my TV is on the floor. Also, stupid little things like paper towels and oven sheets and various related sundries. These are all things that will have to wait for my first paycheck, as any money I might have once had was spent on the move or on coffee.
Everything I own that isn't too big to fit into a "soft loft" is packed away in a U-Haul trailer. I'm typing this on an old, half-broken laptop I've kept myself from getting rid of twice now, because one never knows when he'll need a computer so bad he'll settle for one where 30% of the screen doesn't even work.
Tomorrow morning I leave. The big move. To Chicago.
People keep asking if I'm nervous or excited, but the answer is that except for when people ask that question, I'm trying very hard not to think about how I feel, let alone feel anything. For the last few weeks I've had to distract myself with TV shows and movies constantly to keep my brain spinning. If I stop thinking about other stuff, I'll end up thinking about the fact that I'm moving to Chicago tomorrow. Like a shark, if I stop swimming I die.
It's gotten worse lately. I've found that only a few shows are both light and soothing enough to distract me from reality, so I've been watching Community and The Big Bang Theory almost non-stop for the past 3 days. Of course, the things I would watch them on are all packed away, so tonight is going to be a bear. I'll see what distractions Hulu can provide.
My room looks weird without a bed in it.
If you'll look about four inches upward at the top of this page, you'll probably notice that the header of this site is decorated with photos I've taken in Chicago. A different one shows every time you load a page.
People have wondered why I have pictures of Chicago up there and not, say, pictures of Detroit and its myriad suburbs where I've spent my whole life. There are two answers. The first is that I never take pictures of Detroit, perhaps because Detroit is ugly and depressing and I'd have no problem if it was sold to Canada. The second reason, the one I'm more likely to say out loud, is because I love Chicago and take any opportunity I can to pretend I live there.
In my bedroom, on either side of my television are two framed, vintage Chicago tourism posters I bought from Costco one day a few years ago when I had more money than I knew what to do with. Above the TV are two framed, black and white photos I took in Chicago during one of my many trips.
I like Chicago, alright? I've been to New York and Los Angeles, and your various other middling metropoli like Miami or Seattle. None of them hold a candle to Chicago in my book. Besides being generally gorgeous, Chicago seems to have the best attitude. Ask someone for directions in NYC or LA and you're likely to be treated as if you are physically robbing someone of their time, wringing it from their lives like brown water from a mop. In Chicago, everybody asks everybody for directions. People have asked me for directions while I've been visiting, and I've been able to help them because the city has such a simple downtown layout.
After I graduated from high school, I went on a trip to Chicago with a friend as my big "see the world" trip, and I've been clamoring to get back ever since. I took a trip there at least once a year thereafter, at first as vacations, but eventually for job interviews. I've been out there for numerous interviews now for various web development-related jobs, usually timed at the absolute coldest points in recorded history.
Finally, though, one of those interviews didn't end in disappointment and a spiraling bout of soul-crushing depression.
I got a job in Chicago!
So, naturally, I'm moving there. The job starts pretty soon, so I've had to pick out an apartment and set up utilities and everything from here. I'm getting a loft that's probably a bit nicer than I can afford, but since I have to get the place sight-unseen I'd rather err on the side of niceness so as not to get there and find out I was duped into renting a refrigerator box by some cleverly angled photos.
I've been having to distract myself a lot lately to keep myself from going crazy. My own apartment. My first place on my own. A job in a new city. Renter's insurance. Mindsplosion.
Since this is my first place, there's an annoyingly large number of things I have to get for myself. If you're alarmingly generous, here's an Amazon registry of some of the stuff I'm going to have to get myself.
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