Just For Fancy Musings of a self-proclaimed Fancy-Pants.

So, my genius brother puzzle-pieced all of my furniture and boxes and bags into a solid 5′ x8′ x 16′ block — not more than a half inch of space in there anywhere that might allow for shifting or banging in transit. My photos really don’t do justice to it. My mattress was last to go in on top of the last layer, meaning a hotel for that (Tuesday) and the following nights, to which we all looked forward if only for some serious air conditioning.

(I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned yet that, after weeks of the mildest summer I experienced in my whole time in LA, the weather had finally decided to kick into full gear that final week of July, and that the three of us had spent the last four days packing and lifting heavy objects my un-air-conditioned apartment (or more correctly, apartment-with-air-conditioning-too-weak-&-too-expensive-to-actually-use) while fat plops of sweat rolled down our faces and arms and bellies.)

We ended up at a “B&B” (I’ll explain those quotation marks in a minute) three blocks from the apartment — right on Fairfax in a house I had been passing literally every day for 8 years on my way to work. Without getting too ranty, I’ll just say that the Cinema Suites on Fairfax Ave was a disappointment so shocking that I don’t think we really understood how bad it was it until several days after we left. These Trip Advisor reviews pretty much say it all. In short, there was no air conditioning, a shared bathroom (unspecified in their online brochure), and the next day — no breakfast. So it was a B, not a B&B. And yes we stayed the second night there too, but was purely out of fatigue and lack of options.

ANYWAY… so brother’s off on his flight, I have a nice (but wistful) lunch with my old coworkers, and my mom valiantly stays behind in the sweltering apartment to do the last minute touch-uppy stuff like whiping the counters, vacuuming, checking closets to make sure nothing got left behind. After that, we drove down to my closest friends’ house for a home-cooked dinner and some last lovin’ before we hit the road. It was a beautiful last night, marred only by knowing that these two wonderful people and their gorgeous babies won’t be just down the road from me anymore.

Well, that, and the thought of returning to the B.

But the next day: ON THE ROAD!

As remembered from two weeks and several gin & tonics distant…

So, here I sit in my parents’ kitchen in sunny Red Bank, NJ where it’s not the heat but the soul-crushing humidity that is giving me second thoughts about having given up my life in arid LA. The POD with all of my belongings is supposed to be delivered to its storage facility a bit south of here today, and yesterday I heard (unofficially) that the MFA program is still over capacity for this semester (ie hard cheese for me), but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s begin at the beginning.

Several months ago — longer ago than most people realize, because I kept it (perhaps selfishly) to myself for a long time — I made the decision to move back to my hometown in NJ after eight years in Los Angeles. There were a lot of factors present in my decision, upper-most being that I had finally had enough of living so far from my family, the considerably contraction of my LA social circle in the last year, and a pervasive and growing sense that it was time to move on. And then I heard about a brand new graduate program in Interaction Design, and there was my excuse to do it.

So those are the whys. The real hows began in earnest a few weeks ago with me putting up some craigslist ads to lighten my load of quite a bit of furniture, and most of my gorgeous plants, and renting a POD to transport the rest of my stuff back east. It all went along smoothly enough; packing up went smoothly thanks to the help of my mom and brother (who flew out especially to help me, because they’re awesome); it was hotter than blazes and it took 5 days, but thanks to mom’s tireless organization, and brother’s truly uncanny talent for fitting boxes and furniture and irregularly-shaped odds and ends together neatly (Tetris-HERO), it got done, and brother flew back to NJ, and mom and I prepared to drive my little Hyundai across the continent.

It’s an interesting thing to see the contents of a 2BR apartment fitted into roughly 700 cubic feet of space.

More later…

So, this will be brief, since it’s late and I have to be up early, but wanted to at least acknowledge the fact that I am, as I type this, in the midst of one of the largest life changes I’ve ever put myself through. I’m writing from a hotel room in Grand Junction, CO after 6 days of non-stop packing (and sweating) and driving (and sweating) and realizing (as I sweat) that this is what the fire feels like after the relative comfort of the frying pan…

Last night was Las Vegas, tonight it’s Grand Junction, tomorrow we’ll be with friends in Denver, and then I’m not sure what the itinerary looks like. Whatever gets us back to NJ as quickly as possible works best for me.

More later, and photos!

Finally put a page together for the big stuff I need to sell: http://www.justforfancy.com/YardSale/. I’m especially concerned about getting my plants into new situations before I leave, so if you (or someone you know) is interested (and local), let me know!

And with that done, I am going to do nothing else for the rest of the weekend!

It’s been gorgeous, weather-wise, in Los Angeles this weekend, which makes my extended leave-taking a little bitter-sweet. If only the June-Gloom had infiltrated July too, it would have been a bit easier to kiss this city goodbye. But as it is, the promise of sunny+75 has been fulfilled to the letter lately, and last night was the clearest 4th of July fireworks show the Marina/Playa del Rey areas have had in a couple of years. A bit chilly, but the breeze kept the marine layer offshore, so the only thing to obscure the fireworks was their own drifting smoke.

All in all, it’s been a lovely weekend, only marred by occasional bouts of homesickness — both for my NJ home, which is never so alive as on the 4th of July, and for LA, my home for the last 8 years, and the one I’m about to leave. I am very much of two hearts, two minds right now. I’m forsaking the company of my best friends to return to the fold of my family. I could be about to give up (if only temporarily) my independence in order to follow my dream. I’m shedding the comfort and security of the known for something unknown but promising… I’m hopeful and nostalgic, excited and frightened, glad and sad all at once.