Left to unpack: five boxes of clothes. Thirty-six boxes of books. Four tall boxes of kitchen stuff. Office files. Various components of the scholarly apparatus.
Either missing or still packed in some mis-labeled box by those puckishly humorous movers: my drill, which is a surprisingly inconvenient thing to be without when one moves. Two lampshades. Various cables (USB, power, Firewire, CAT-5) for the computer.
Right now, all my efforts at home are wholly and hugely material, moving boxes around and unpacking them and such. None of my books are up on shelves, and my desk isn’t yet in a workable arrangement: right now, it feels like there’s very little of the life of the mind for me in my off-the-clock time. By contrast, all my activity at The Job (which is a genuinely 8-to-4 experience) is on the intellectual side, aside from the odd helicopter ride or five-hour hike around the Revolutionary War era campus fortifications.
It’s not a split I particularly like. So: today, it’s kitchen stuff and books and the scholarly apparatus, grocery shopping, laundry, and if I’m good and work hard and well, my reward will be that I get to take my stereo out of boxes and put it together. My location — blocked from the north by Storm King mountain and NYC too far to the south — makes it so that the heavy pop rotation MTV affiliate radio station is the only one I can receive clearly, and I so totally miss NPR.
*cough*
Here’s a good radio station if you get your broadband going: kexp.org. I think you’ll like it. Is local NPR online? Even in Spokane we get it online, so I’m guessing West Point and environs must as well. If not, kpbx.org. Good luck settling in. I guess that means the contractors are gone. I wish ours would finish and leave for good, rather than just disappearing for days at a time.
Maybe you’ll be finished by Christmas! 😉
I once had a friend named Mike who took a teaching position at West Point, bought a house, moved his cats in and was never heard from again. Legend has it that he was abducted by a group know as “the contractors,” who roam the land (that’s why they disappear for days on end, Brad) in search of homeowners in a fix. “Finished by Christmas,” Shelly? Oh, I hope not. Nels? That cough. I’m concerned. Are you having work done on your house and kicking up dust? Be careful. That’s all I’m saying.