The boxless move

Well, Phase I of the Texas Twister’s move is complete. All her stuff is here—piles of shoes (as she likes to point out, she’s half-Filipino), the beakers, the practice violin made out of a yellow sponge and stick. The cats are adapting… Max has welcomed her by peeing on a pile of her clothes; Minnie seems to spend more time in her favourite hidey-hole, under the bed. (In an example of life imitating article, one of the first pieces I wrote for Click by Lavalife was on compatibility between pets and lovers; I feel like now I could write a book.) It doesn’t help that, this morning, the Twister, in the midst of brushing her teeth, approached Minnie, thus spooking the cat, who isn’t used to hairless giants approaching with toothpaste foaming at the mouth.

The whole move has me pondering past transitions. It also has me wondering why, at the ripe old age of still-younger-than-George-Clooney, I’ve never lived with a girlfriend up until now–but that’s for another entry, or my next therapy session.

I, like most sentient beings, hate moving; that’s one reason I stayed in the same one-bedroom hovel for 10 years. Imagine yours truly and two cats (same ones) in a 500+ sq. ft. apartment… and I was working out of my home, which means I was there ALL THE TIME. I still can’t believe my work station was a computer on the kitchen table, surrounded by piles of paper. I must have appeared insane to outside observers.

A good chunk of my 20s, “the grunge years” as I like to call them, were spent living out a lifestyle that suited the term… me and three other guys living like animals in a beat-up old house. We’d turned the basement into a practice space for our rock band…. There was a bedroom down there as well, and the guy who took up residence there painted it black… flat black. The toilet didn’t work, or it didn’t work very well, so he’d fill up big glass juice bottles with urine and bring them upstairs to dump out. He used to watch reruns of Dragnet, which he ordered through the mail.

We had some good parties there, though. Sigh.

When I couldn’t take it anymore, I moved in with two girls I met through a roommate wanted ad. Karen and Abi chose me as a roommate, apparently, because I had a VCR… or was it a stereo? Something like that. After living in a house with 3-4 guys, this was a welcome change, believe me. For one thing, these girls flushed.

And that was it, except for a few years ago, when J., my girlfriend at the time, moved in because she’d had a fight with her roommate.  But, because she was moving out East anyway in a month, that had a time limit on it, so I was able to prepare myself mentally for the psychological trauma of sharing my bathroom counter space.

So I guess my point is, this whole living-with-a-girlfriend is unexplored territory for yours truly. If we fight, where can we go? One of us in the living room, one in the bedroom? The nearest bar is several blocks away.

We already disagree on something—her method of moving which, frankly, I think is insane. For some reason, the Twister decided at some point that she was going to see if she could do a “boxless move.” What this means is, she’s been filling her numerous bags—a red Adidas gym bag, a couple of canvas totes, a big wicker basket—with her stuff, and transporting it thus. Call me old-fashioned, call me a traditionalist, but I’ve always thought boxes–sturdy, dependable, and easily transportable—was the way to go.

Anyway, she did achieve her goal—she brought over the last load last night. What she doesn’t realize, of course, is now we’re going to have to put most of it in boxes.