Let me tell you a little bit about the past two or three days. I’m not even sure anymore. It’s all really just blended into a soupy unit of time, primarily because I’ve been awake for the majority of it.
Monday I was awakened by a swift kick to the hind from reality. The weekend was full of fun and celebration and cookouts and goodbyes, and I was a bit preoccupied by making the most of my last weekend in Raleigh to focus on a few things that should be of slightly higher importance… such as that whole cross-country tour thing I’m embarking on, or that whole moving thing I had to do by Tuesday.
So, Monday. I wake up slightly apprehensive about the amount of work I have ahead of me, but assure myself that it’s doable.
Moving out shouldn’t be a big deal. It usually takes a few hours, and I’ve spent multiple days organizing and cleaning and throwing things away that I don’t need. And I’m only taking a couple of suitcases to Cali, and shipping the few other things I need. I can just throw everything into boxes and store them somewhere else until I’m ready to ship them, then throw away the rest. No biggie.
So of course, I get off to a slow start. I go to Helio’s to meet this person, and Third Place to meet that person, and get caught up in 50 conversations with people I see along the way. I arrive back to the house around 7:00 p.m., ready to start packing. I don’t mind staying up most of the night… it’s just being proactive to make sure I get out by early tomorrow. I also have people saying they’re coming by to pick through some of my stuff, so that’s even LESS I have to pack. This should be no sweat.
Active packing & cleaning begins at 8:00 p.m.
Here are my tweets from throughout the night. I don’t remember the majority of them (I was totally sober during this process, mind you):
helenadagmar: Still packing. Must be completely moved out by tomorrow afternoon. Won’t be sleeping tonight. Read my blog. http://is.gd/1iLcX
9:45 PM Jun 29th
[2 AM: I ran by Blue Martini to pick up some free Redbull, and drop off my first big carload to my friend Erin's house (Erin is out of town and loaning me her home til Friday).]
[3:30 AM: I then grabbed my last Cookout tray ever (good riddance) and headed back to my house to continue the cleaning/packing process.]
helenadagmar: Still packing & cleaning after an all-nighter. Officially homeless in a few hours!
4:47 AM Jun 30th
6 AM: I take my second car-load to Erin’s. Everything is really beautiful in the morning. The weather was perfect… glowing with twilight and approximately 73 degrees. Thinking I should get up and enjoy this more often. Also thinking I should perhaps stop defining 9:30 AM as “early.”
helenadagmar: Too hot. Cold shower = logical. Realized too late I already packed & moved my towels out of the apt. Hooray for moveout day & paper towels.
10:46 AM Jun 30th
[This is where things get hazy. I've been moving for 15 hours at this point.]
helenadagmar: I have been moving things out of my apt. since 9 p.m. last night. 17 hours. Straight. Of moving.
12:46 PM Jun 30th
[I am becoming completely delusional. My brother arrives around 2, but can only help for an hour. My apartment is full of furniture for sale, none of which has sold. I am not sure where I'm going to put it, let alone how to move it out of my apartment. Must find solution immediately.]
helenadagmar: FREE FURNITURE FOR PICK UP BY 4pm TODAY! http://is.gd/1jluM
1:30 PM Jun 30th
[Craigslist is a godsend. All furniture was claimed and taken within 30 minutes.]
Active packing & cleaning process ends at 6:00 p.m. The next day.
TWENTY. TWO. HOURS.
I actively moved boxes and belongings for twenty-two hours.
Never. Again.
helenadagmar: after 22 hours of moving, im finally homeless. hooray?
10:13 PM Jun 30th
My friend Erin was kind enough to loan me her home while she was away in Hawaii, so I’ve spent a couple of days camping out and getting things organized. Today she arrived back in town, so I packed up my things one last time and headed to Chapel Hill to give baby Raph to my brother.
For all of you who have not had the privilege of meeting my precious baby Raphael, he is the giant yeti cat who I adopted in September of last year. We have been best bros ever since.
As much as I love Raph, he can be a fucking demon. Particularly when traveling. That said, there is no way in hell that I would bring Raphael on tour with me.
I will show you an excerpt of my previous attempts at traveling with Raphael to put things in perspective:
[October 2008]
Road trip to New Bern with Raphael:
I let him out of his cage, thinking it would be rough for him to stay in a crate for two hours. Raphael proceeds to spend the rest of the car ride climbing on and around the entirety of the car as well of my body puncturing everything in sight with its claws, screaming incessantly, and shitting in my passenger seat.
Road trip back to Raleigh:
Having learned my lesson, I keep Raphael in the crate with the intention of a relatively peaceful car ride back. Not even twenty minutes into the drive, Raphael shits in the crate.
Great. I get to spend the next hour and a half with a screaming cat rolling around in his own shit.
Next thing I know, the cat has reached out of a hole in the side of the crate, and pulls my scarf completely inside. Even better.
The cat is freaking the fuck out. Clawing frantically at the sides of the crate, ripping holes, continuing to scream as it rolls around with my scarf and his fecal matter.
I look over, and the cat has managed to break his head through the top of the crate and through a handle hole. A hole that is smaller than his neck. I’m driving 70 miles an hour as my cat is trying to continue screaming while suffocating himself. I manage to break the handle in half to free his head, but he manages to completely fuck up the top of the crate and continues to try to push his way out. I have no choice but to pull over.
After looking for ways to securely tie the crate back together, and failing, I am left with no choice but to let my shitstained cat roam the car freely for the next hour and a half. This is a nightmare. I let him out, wipe his feet off with a piece of my clean laundry, and the for the remaining hour and a half of the ride he sat beside me, still screaming incessantly.
No more road trips for Raphael.
So, yeah. There’s no way I am taking him across the country. But fear not, baby Raph and I will be reunited soon. I’m flying him across in a couple of months once I’m all settled in my proper San Francisco abode. Kane will take care of him in the meantime.
Anyway, saying bye to Raphael, not to mention my brother, then the other 50 people I ran into in Raleigh today, has left me a bit emotionally drained, as I left Raleigh for the last time today. I’ve refused to make goodbyes any more than casual, in order to prevent me from vomiting and crying all over everyone I say farewell to, but the emotion finally set in today. I suppose it needed to happen at some point.
So I am currently taking a short hiatus in eastern NC, getting my thoughts and life together and starting to make preparations for this tour, which will be happening extremely soon… counting down the days soon. I keep saying I am going to fill you in on the details, but I want to ration them out slowly as they are finalized.
For now, I will leave you with some tidbits:
TOUR PARTICIPANTS: Me & Tim Lytvinenko (www.timlytvinenko.com, www.newtim.com).
The lovely Logan has been offered a production position for the XX Merge Music Festival (I am way jealous), so he is no longer joining us on tour. He’d be silly to turn that down, and I am super excited for him. We hope to kidnap him at some point on our trek, hopefully in western Washington.
TOUR ROUTE (it’s subject to change as the tour progresses and we get distracted by fun things on the road):
That is your ration for now. END!
you make me miss Raleigh =(
Helena, you have a beautiful blog and even more beautiful photographs. Have a safe trip and know that Raleigh will miss your talents more than you will miss us. I can’t wait to read your updates from the road in the coming weeks. Have fun in Cali and good luck in grad school.
damn. it looks like i missed the going-away shenanigans. i must have gotten too caught up in catching flies with my hands & putting them in filled-but-not-frozen ice trays.
summer fun. all right.
have a safe trip, helena. but remember that everything isn’t what you think it may be. a pedestrian crossing sign looks just like a dead end one in the dark. there’s a metaphor in there somewhere, but i’m not spelling it out. i’m not qualified: i got kicked out of the bee in the first round; they took away my plastic name holder lariat & everything. but the slip of paper inside with my name written on it? that’s me. no one can take that away.
so i took it out & ran like a motherfucker. too bad the name smeared off from the sweat.
what i’m saying is have fun.
-hot pocket
postscript — ‘sup?
Gut!