On the Bus

Written at 2:30am on the bus last night.

First of all, I’m pretty sure there is nothing more glorious for a person who no longer sleeps at night to take a red eye bus! Recently I’ve been watching episodes of Three’s Company, The Brady Bunch, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, or Roseanne at night, playing freecell, and, during commercials, reprimanding myself for doing something that couldn’t be more physically or psychologically useless. This is infinitely more stimulating!

BUUUUT today, I spent the whole day packing. ACTUALLY, I was KIIIND of packing yesterday. I ended up not sleeping again (surprise) and then I woke up at like 2 or 2:30pm and in my sleepy daze, decided to rush to visit Caroline at Temptations before she got off from work (it was very delicious). Then I got my boxes delivered at like... 3pm. Then I spent several hours trying to decide what movie I was going to watch while packing/I probably did other things but it’s hard to say. At around 8pm, I put in Juno and then started on my desk. It took nearly an entire trash bag (more like half... but let’s be dramatic) to empty the TRASH off of my desk (which is NOT where I keep my computer... I actually keep my computer UNDER my desk (on top of my other computer, which is broken...)). But after the trash was gone, you still couldn’t see the top of the desk.

It was fun starting to organize the desk stuff, but then Caroline decided to come over, and it was more fun talking to her. And then Matt Cobb came over too, so I completely abandoned the packing and instead watched videos of Britain’s Got Talent on youtube. Around 11pm Matt left (helpfully taking a lot of my kitchen stuff that I don’t need for the summer) and I decided to make a $1 frozen burrito, a cup-a-noodles, and an entire bunch of asparagus that I had in the refrigerator. And, to enjoy my food, I put on The Parent Trap, which I watched in it’s entirety without any further packing. Then I decided, after The Parent Trap, and I was going to watch Garden State (note that I KNOW this is me being a fool... but I’m not complaining... I’m just EXplaining).

Side note: Garden State is a really fun movie to watch. I don’t remember enjoying it in the past as much as I did last night. Although I remember thinking that Natalie Portman’s character was amazing, which I still do. Also, throughout the movie, I kept imagining John Krasinski playing the lead character, not because of my obsession (well.. likely a LITTLE because of my obsession... but not intentionally), but because he would probably actually do a great job. Then I felt bad because I guess I kind of type-casted him. And I decided that Zac Braff is good in it because he isn’t as charming or attractive as John Krasinski... and even if the movie was the exact same in tone and everything, it would be a completely different movie if the character was even a bit more innately charming and attractive. I also tried to think of John Krasinski playing all Zac Braff characters and wondered if he could pull of the character in Scrubs. I didn’t want to underestimate him again, so I just left it up in the air.

ANYWAY, at 4 or 5am I decided I should HONESTLY start packing. I almost put on The Birthday Girl, but I decided enough was enough with the movies. At 7am I’d packed 2 out of 4 boxes for the storage people who were coming between 2pm and 4pm. Then I decided to take a snooze.

I woke up at 11am, and finished packing the last 2 boxes. I finished a little after 12:30pm, which was lucky because then I got to eat with Chords at Temptations again. Delicious.

When I got back to my place at 2pm, I fell asleep until the storage people came. I have to say that they were so nice and incredibly swift. I highly recommend StoreUrDorm.com. Also, in addition to the boxes they gave me, I got bubble wrap and tape. It was wonderful. And they came right to my room and picked up the boxes. And I only ordered them like... 3 days before hand.

ANYWAY, after the storage people came, continued to snooze until 6:30pm when my mom called me to tell me that she was in NYC, at a show, and sitting DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF DAVID CROSS!!! I was SUPER jealous!! She also suggested that we take the train together from New York to home, but I was looking at all my stuff and decided I might just stay an extra day-- spread out the packing misery (not to be too pessimistic... but there is really no denying how un-fun it can be).

However, right after the conversation, I looked up how you can stay extra days and you had to have applied by May 8th... but... I wasn’t super shocked. So I just had to get moving. Basically, in the HUGE abyss of all my crap in my room, I picked out the stuff I wanted to keep, organized it, and left the rest (covering my WHOLE floor... I’m REALLY embarrassed) to be thrown away later.

Then I took my stuff, got a blue cart, and at 8pm, traveled from South to Cayla’s place passed Packards (sp?) Corner. She generously took some of my things and showed me some of her incredible art.

Then I took another portion of my things to give to Vanessa, where I’m staying, which is right across the street from Cayla’s. On my way back, I got some Uburger.

Then I returned my blue cart, got a vacuum, and returned to my room, where I started furiously putting crap in trash bags. Although, unfortunately, I had an unusually large amount of things that seemed terrible to throw away, but that I really couldn’t do anything with: a pyrex mixing bowl, the large-ish pot that Nathan gave me, my colander, some pasta, a can of tuna, a can of cream of mushroom soup, some band aids... I’m sure there is more. PLUS a LOOOOOT of books. I ended up putting them all in boxes and leaving them on the street. I hope someone takes them. I REALLY feel bad about the books though, because I really knew that I wasn’t going to be able to keep them and it would have been only a little extra effort to get them some place where they would be definitely have a better chance of being used again.

Also, at some point, I told my mom that I WOULD meet her in New York. AND we agreed that the best time to take the bus was the 2:15am bus that will arrive in NY at 9am. That made this entire extravaganza a little more crazy.

So I vacuumed, got rid of the trash (LOTS of useable things in there too... but not necessarily things that strangers would want), and then brought my movies, my guitar, and a fan over to Caroline and Wolf’s place.

When I got back, I was about ready to leave when I realized that I’d forgotten to put my jade plant anywhere. It was too late to ask anyone to take it, so I ended up hiding it in some grass. I think there is a 75% chance I’ll be able to retrieve it when I get back. I don’t think anyone will notice AND pick up a plant.

Just to mention some things that occurred to me while packing

1.If I could fill 4 boxes of things that I will not use at all during the summer, why do I have all that stuff in the first place?

2. Putting things like packing off until the last minute is weird because every decision is riding on the mood your in while your packing. For instance, today I decided that to save room, I’d throw away some of my huge amounts of cups. Basically, all the clean cups got packed into storage and whatever cups were left out, dirty or on the floor (abyss), were going to get thrown away by default because I wouldn’t have room for cups anywhere but in my storage boxes. However, I’ve been using one cup exclusively (despite the abundance) for at least several months. It obviously fell under the category of dirty or on the floor (being the former) and in most other moods, as I’m not insanely sentimental (and I have 2 of that same cup), I would have thrown it away. But for whatever reason, today I couldn’t bare to throw it away. And it’s especially interesting to me because sometimes when I want to do things irrationally like that-- like if I go to a store and use one dressing room and then I get something else and feel INCLINED to go to the same dressing room again-- if I notice the inclination, that doubly makes me want to do the opposite... so in that case I would, and often do, specifically try to use a different dressing room. So, I think it’s ESPECIALLY interesting that I wouldn’t throw this cup away because... under most circumstances, me not wanting to do it would make me want to do it more.

The point is that... what other decisions did I make in this mood that I would have changed in a different mood? Or that would have gotten several mood perspectives had I started packing days earlier and could change my mind? Like... I’m pretty sure it was my mood that determined that I only bring ONE SHIRT home for my 8 day trip. That probably wasn’t a great decision...

But it’s all in the past.

I am NOT sorry to babble on as I am on a 6+ hour trip. So continuing...

Predictably, I ended up getting to the bus station so early that I was on time for the 1am bus to NYC which would arrive at like... 6am or something. I decided it was best to not have to wake my mom and opted to stick with the 2:15am bus. I sat down and a little later this black lady with very long dreadlocks and a neat hat sat down and started knitting. At some point she started talking to me and she was VERY riveting. She was on her way to court because she was being sued for a car accident. She told me about how her mother makes a lot of money but won’t help pay for college but WILL help pay for thing for her niece, how she’s turning 39 in a few weeks, about this guy she’s friends with that she visits everywhere... including Brazil and perhaps Nigeria, about how she loves rap but the guys there are weird, about her concussion from the accident, about how she’s graduating college in June from a college in California with an associates in engineering, about twitter. It was an amazing conversation. I’m so glad that I met her... and especially that I met her at night when I have a better personality. We talked for like... 40 minutes and near the end she was telling me about how she’s friends with this guys mom and she explained that her and the mom “got along like...” and then she did the hand wavy thing that implied her and myself. I was so flattered that she liked me so much. Also, at some point, she opened her bag and all that was in it was yarn. I thought that was super cool!

When the bus came, she ended up asking the driver about where she needed to go and it wasn’t where she wanted to go. They ended up discussing it for a while and I couldn’t decide whether I should stay with her until she sorted it out, or if I should go because technically she’s a stranger. I stayed for a while, but then the driver got confused as to why I was just standing there so I left, only saying “good luck.” It was actually super sad. I hope everything works out for her.

Maybe I’ll use some of her in a future screenplay!