My Life in Boxes

When I decided that I would be moving to Albuquerque, I was delighted at the prospect of relocating without having to relocate all of my junk. It's kind of like a fresh start, albeit a temporary one... and I don't plan to bring a whole lot with me.

My new apartment is just a block away from Tamarind and it is furnished. This means I don't need a car and I don't need to haul down a bed or dressers or whatever. My landlord told me just to bring my computer and clothes, but I'm thinking I may need a little more than that.

Since I didn't plan to bring my car, I needed a way to get my few things down to Albuquerque. Out of curiosity, I checked into UHaul rates. But the $800 rental cost and the fact that I didn't have that much stuff quickly nixed that idea. Since I work at a UPS Store and get a great deal on shipping, it seemed like the best bet would be to simply ship my things down so that they would arrive at the same time as me. Of course, this would prove easier said than done.

I'd originally planned to ship my bike down to ABQ, but a little bit of frustration, a lack of bike mechanical-know-how-itness, and an inability to get my pedals off convinced me otherwise. We have a bike box that we use at the UPS Store and I got my bike almost apart enough to get it in there. But then the pedals happened and I gave up. Sure, I could take it to a bike shop and have them do the job for me, but after the cost of that, shipping it, and the likelihood that I'd have trouble putting it back together, it just wasn't worth it. Instead, I'm going to look for a cheap temporary bike when I get there. Problem solved.

My next obstacle was my hockey gear. Yes, there is hockey in Albuquerque and I'm taking my gear with me so that I can take full advantage of their awesome co-ed recreational leagues. It's kind of like that game where you are going to be stuck on a desert island and you can only bring one thing with you. I just can't imagine being anywhere without my hockey stuff on hand. Of course, packing my gear presented it's own challenges. Originally I'd just wanted to stuff my gear into a box and then check my sticks with the airline. But the sticks are too long to go without incurring an extra handling fee. So plan B was to pack all of the hockey gear and sticks into one giant box. I completed this task at work yesterday and ended up with a box that is bigger than I am.



In addition to the giant box of hockey gear (and other miscellaneous items), I have one box that is full of clothes, another box that has outerwear, DVDs, and books, a box containing my iMac computer, and a final box that has most of my art supplies, a few framed photos, and the one print that I will be bringing with me to Albuquerque. This is my younger brother, in sintra-cut printed on handmade paper. Among other things, it's a little reminder to myself that things could always be worse.



Since I'm going to be working in Lithography this year, I thought maybe I should take down my Ben Edwards Ramble print from Tandem Press.



I spent countless hours sponging for this 54-color marvel and was lucky enough to get one from the yearly student lottery at Tandem. But it's probably better off under my couch. Carrie likes to joke that she's going to hang it up while I'm away... with pushpins.

Everything else is just going in a big old suitcase, which hopefully will not be lost by Southwest Airlines between here and Albuquerque. We leave early Saturday morning, are renting a car for the week, and once we get settled in, we're going to hang out and see what Albuquerque has to offer.