MOVING AND SHIT

Hello!





And welcome to Bedlam.

Yes, I know, these pictures look like manifestations of mental illness, or at least sloth--slovenly, sick, slutty, smutty, snotty, spooky, squamous sloth--it looks like crazy people live here. It looks like bad, bad parents are doing a bad, bad job of keeping shit together. Of keeping things nice 'n' tidy 'n' neat, of infusing the little ones with an example of HOW LIFE SHOULD BE LIVED! OF BRAINWASHING THEM INTO TYPE A PEOPLE!

Or--might I posit?--it looks like we don't have no freaking space. No space for toys 'n' shit, no space for cords 'n' shit, no space for toilet paper 'n' shit. And sometimes, when the toilets don't flush properly, which is often, because they're dinky, we don't have no space for shit 'n' shit! And then someone has to go find the plunger, because Malko likes to play with it, and when we find it in the linen closet/pantry it just kind of ruins our day.

So it's a good thing we're moving. Yes, we're moving! A friend knew a friend who had a house whose prospective tenants fell through, and we checked it out, and it's, like, too good to be freaking true. It's close to our current place, which means Lula will be able to continue going to her school, it has four FOUR FOUR bedrooms, a fireplace, two "living spaces," a big garage, a laundry room, two bathrooms, one of which has two TWO TWO sinks (which, frankly, means more cleaning, but still), a deck DECK DECK, and the best part, the very best part, a yard YARD YARD.

By which I mean a real yard. One that two kids, two dogs, a cat, a rabbit, four chickens, and a goat can play in happily. What's that, you say? Chickens? Goat? Yes. I did say "chickens" and "goat." Yes...yes...why yes--we will be turning this house into a barn! Yes...yes, of course I also checked Craigslist for a horse! Actually, I found two of them! They're just $375 apiece. They come as a pair! What? "Space"? What do you mean--we have FOUR BEDROOMS!!! HELLLLOOO! Did you not hear anything I said??? Well, what did you think we were going to do with all that space--fill it with toys? Pots and pans? Cords? No, all that shit's going under the deck, where it belongs. Also: we won't be using the dryer (makes a great storage unit).

By the way: have I told you about my surefire preparing-for-guests technique? The one that involves a horrendously messy kitchen and freakishly early guests? Just throw all the dirty dishes in the oven. Cupboards work too--just don't let the guests open them when they're, like, looking for a glass. Quickly shoo them away, tell them to play with the livestock in the back yard. While they're there, they can pick up shit. With all those critters, there's sure to be a lot lying around.

On a not-so-jokey note, we've been really lucky to be able to live in the present house. When we got to Austin last January, we were essentially homeless, and having A Sort of Small But Otherwise Perfectly Acceptable Place was hugely helpful. We got to live next door to friends (even "God"--sorry, inside joke with "Anonymous/Grand Prout"), we've been close to downtown and Lula's school, and though our other neighbors were visited by a SWAT team and probably have been cooking meth/storing dead bodies all along, they never murdered us in the middle of the night! Yay, neighbors! We love you! And hope to never see you again.

So that's it, folks! Moving on, once again. Weird to be picking up the same boxes we filled with all our stuff last year in California, pre-Costa Rica, the same boxes that made their way here, all rumpled and...friendly-looking, this summer. Something tells me I'll have a hard time throwing these boxes away, once we're settled in the new place: they've been through a lot, and--it's silly--they mean a lot to me. Saying goodbye to them might be strange.

But, on a lighter note, it WON'T be strange or hard to say goodbye to this fan in our current stairway:

-THE DECAPITATING FAN-