SATURDAY, 7 OCTOBER, 2000, PHILADELPHIA AMIDST TOWERS & COLUMNS OF BOXES

Ohhhhhh… I am not to be envied. Today is Pack Da Mammoth Lorry™ day. My week back in Philly has been excrutiating and nerve-wracking and sad and dull with packing and stacking boxes. Thanks to the Folks at Doobie’s, my (soon-to-be-erstwhile) local pub, who outfitted your Marquis with Yuengling Lager boxes and Herr’s Potato chip boxes. What won’t the new neighbours in New Orleans think when they see me unpacking pretty much nothing but case after case of lager and potato chips? “The housewarming will never end,” I may explain as I lift a box of chips. The new neighbours may think it strange that a box o’ chips causes a strained look as my knees buckle from the weight of it, but that’s a Y.P., not an M.P. Hi. How are you. I’m a fucking wreck. Haven’t had a proper night’s sleep all week due to stress and anxiety about the physical move itself. How did I accumulate to much ca-rrrrap!? Damn my dear old grandmother for dying and leaving me all this furniture! This morning I went to pick up “Da Lorry.” (It’s not just a truck, it’s a godamned lorry for being 24' long.) It’s frightening to first start driving something as large as your house, especially around squirrely, tiny, fucked up Center City Phila streets. As I approached my house I began panicking — but good! “Where the fuck am I going to park this beast?” (for there is nothing but on-street parallel parking — ha-ha, ‘parallel parking’ a 24 footer. Ha-ha. Quelle blague.) Because I am charmed and aristocratic and the luckiest boy in the world, just as I pulled up to the spot I wished I could have had because it’s as close to my house as can be, the people who had parked so badly taking up three spaces were just pulling out. I have never been so glad to see such a shit parking job. I manoeuvred Da Lorry into the spot and lemme tell ya, that bitch is not moving until the moment I pull out of town; laws, no. Just ran some broken glasses to my optometrist to get new lenses in them — lenses are good in glasses, I’ve found. “Marquis!” barked Dana, the überperky and giggly eye-lady whom I suspect has a little crushipooh on yours truly. “How are the glasses workin’ out?” referring to my other pair of prescription sunglasses I had made a couple months ago. I’m so doped up on Kava Kava for anxiety and Ibuprofin 800 for the splitting migrane that I was thrown for a loop. Some inner voice said, “Small talk. Dana requires pleasant chitchat.” I could not process this server-side request however and so blinked bovinely at her genuine smile which seemed to be filling the whole room the longer I stared at it. “Hi, uh, Dana. They’re … well, they’re on my face. I mean, uhhh, they’re working. Or, umm, what I mean is, I can see, n’ stuff … wait, what was the question?” Feeling like a tit. Dana’s impervious smile faltered somewhat as my hands went up to my frazzled “Shelly Duvall Running Around the Overlook Hotel With A Knife In Her Hand” ponytail and yanked my hair hard to send some good old fashioned physical pain into the electrolytes, hoping that would shock the system back into functioning again. So yah, that’s what today is like. I’m going to upload this, then begin loading things into the truck. It’s proving very difficult to find someone to help me move a piano today. Hmm, I was certain I had slavish friends in Philly who lived and breathed to hear my next command. Perhaps I was flattering myself? …meanwhile, 3,000 miles away in San Francisco, we have Melusine up to similar happy-fun-time antics and briefly reporting about it here. Godspeed to ya, Melusine! See ya soon in Looz-yann, dowlin’!