Trading Suburbia for...Urbia?

So in about three days I'll have moved out of this apartment, where I've spent the first two years of my Binghamtonian life (well, I've spent it in this complex...four months of last year were spent over in the other apartment because of this one's flood damage), to live downtown. Tonight after trivia (we had an eight-person team, which we called Large Marge Sent Us), Joe and Andrea came with me to the new place because I had two boxes of books and a fold-out bookshelf to put in the new room as long as I was in that part of town, but it was a little late at night to be going there by myself.

It didn't really hit me that I was making a noticeable change until Joe said, "Wow, you really are downtown, aren't you?" when I pointed out my apartment - my street's just off of Main. The area's fine and everything, it's just...very downtown, as he said.

And it didn't really hit me, until the three of us were in it, how small my new room is. To give it its due, I believe it's bigger than the one I had in Bartlett Hall my junior year at Alfred (good thing, huh?). A little bigger. It's hard to tell because the square footage is distributed differently.

So I'm leaving the niceness that is Vestal - the easy access to school, the way my apartment complex seems full and private at the same time, the parking lot just for us tenants, the quiet and pretty neighborhoods nearby - for Binghamton proper, where what I gain in hardwood floors and better rent and good housemates, I do lose in things like ideal-to-near-ideal parking and the ability to severely procrastinate yet still make it to class on time (or at least mostly on time). (Not significantly affected: my drives to church, where I only gain a couple minutes' time advantage, and to Wegmans, which only takes a minute or two longer than before.)

And I have to say, I'm a little nervous. And sad. The new place is older - I like how fresh and clean everything is in this complex right now. I liked being a student, even if I often disliked my classes themselves. And I'm a little nervous about what my parents will think of the apartment - I wish Ben and Natasha would be there already (they don't move in 'til a couple weeks from now - Kelly'll be there, but not 'til the weekend or a little later, whereas my dad's coming Wednesday or Thursday to bring in a bed), since they could answer questions better than I could, and because occupied houses always seem nicer than empty-but-for-me ones. Even living with those friends seems like a big step - simultaneously more and less cozy than where and how my life is now.

Unexpectedly, I almost wish I could go back to Syracuse and live with my parents, which is the exact opposite of what I've wanted for the past three years.

But here's how my adult life begins - in Binghamton, which feels like so unlikely, so superficially-unimpressive a place to make a home. Yet here I am, with the whole often-beautiful world I've been given here around me: Joe and Andrea; Carrie, Ife, and Matthias (and Micah for now); Natasha and Jihye; Charles and Jackie; Sam and Scott; my fantastic church; InterVarsity-Binghamton; my good teaching job and good bosses; my students. Bible study, trivia, IV, and all the friendship I can hold, especially here in summer.

Alfred's still where I've long wanted to be. But Binghamton's seemed, for some time, like where I should be. And here I am. And this is now. And this is me.

On the Previous Entry

Yikes. Aren't you glad I eventually got back to sleep and may even have gotten all the way to six hours' worth?

Yeah. Me, too.

So Jessica's coming back through town; she and Andrea and I are planning to cook dinner together. I'm off to start some dinner rolls as my contribution. Ahh, leavened goodness!

I May Never Fully Catch Up on Sleep Again

I've been fighting that thing where I'm so tired that I nap, and then I can't fall asleep at night because I've napped. So on Wednesday night I finally went to bed early, but then I woke up at four in the ruddy morning out of a nightmare and never got back to sleep.

Tonight I got fewer than three hours before all the pulled neck/back/shoulder/arm muscles I've accumulated over the course of the week (I started with just one, but I've been sleeping in funny positions [not on purpose] and spending too long stretched in weird ways at work) woke me up and have made going back to sleep, shall we say, difficult. So I am here, icing myself down with a bag of frozen corn (I hope it's mine - I suppose it might be Sujin's); waiting for my ibuprofen to kick in; feeling like Sujin and her boyfriend(?), who're still awake and have recently cooked and eaten stuff, keep even odder hours than I do; and wondering what it will profit me to sit here whining.

Could I put on clothes thick enough but not overheating, wouldn't it be nice to have a whole bed made of squishy icepacks? I wonder whether I'd dream of Antarctica.

I Could Have Used One of These My Senior Year of Undergrad

http://www.phdcomics.com/store/mojostore.php?_=view&ProductID=13448

(One of Binghamton's campus newspapers sometimes runs PhD on the comics page. It's a funny strip...but depressing. Depressing because it's sometimes true.)

Though, y'know, another thing I dislike(d) about grad school was that it's forced me to refer to Alfred in conversation as "undergrad," which feels somehow like I'm belittling it.

Anydangway, tonight I finally went to the public library in Endicott (something I've been meaning to do) because it occurred to me that I'm not entirely sure whether I typically get charged for interlibrary loans or not (I feel like I have been in the past but don't seem to've been this last time), and it seemed dumb to pay twenty-five cents, or whatever, for the paltry amount of gasoline that it would take the George F. Johnson employees to get Season 2 of Jeeves & Wooster over to Vestal Public, where I usually claim ILLs. Not that driving that distance doesn't cost about that much, probably, but clearly it's the principle of the thing. Also, I wanted to go geocaching while I was out.

Thus it was that tonight I perused the GFJ's pleasant collection, was gratified to learn that a Four-County Library System card (which I have) is finally acceptable for taking out materials at the Broome County Public Library downtown (which, until this past winter, it wasn't, and BCPL wouldn't give me a card for their place because none of the proofs-of-residence I could easily get hold of were good enough for them), admired the prettiness of Park Street in Endicott, and discovered the niceness of its veterans' memorial near sunset (I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I only went there because of a geocache I tried and failed to find at the site, but upon looking over the memorial, I was glad to've come and felt suitably solemn).

I also stopped by the local K-Mart to get something; it's as sad an establishment as ever, really. Still, I'll always have a sympathetic place in my heart for K-Mart because my dad has always loved it so much (when we lived in Rochester, he went there all the time). I'll also always be grateful to it for two reasons: 1) it's not Wal-Mart and therefore at least probably doesn't pressure its workers to put in illegal unpaid overtime (at least not its domestic ones...I suppose I can't speak for the others); 2) it wasn't Caldor. Caldor was a discount-store chain (now gone) that my dad temporarily loved, during my youth, maybe even more than K-Mart, but which I found horrendous. I forget what I hated so much about it (since it's not like I was a brand snob or anything), but it was a huge relief to me when Caldor closed and we were at least back to K-Mart for everything. (A quick Google search, however, seems to mostly turn up nostalgia for Caldor; there don't seem to be many people whose memories of it are as bitter as mine. Make of that what you will.)

Oh, and I found two geocaches. But neither of them were in Endicott.

Incidentally, yes, I did say I was watching Jeeves & Wooster. I'm not usually one for lots of DVDing, but it's pretty much my new favorite time-waster. It's probably Reverend Anne's fault: she loves P.G. Wodehouse, so last week, a bit bored, I decided to try reading some. A few quick Project Gutenberg downloads later, I was acquainting myself with a few Jeeves stories and, I think, thinking something along the lines of, "This stuff cries out to be performed, and I know it has been, and with Stephen Fry as Jeeves, no less - I should watch." So I got Season 1 out of the library system and went through the three episodes in about a day. Besides being very well done (with A&E putting it on, how could it not be?) and very funny despite being so formulaic (entire premise: Bertie Wooster, irresponsible rich young man, lands and/or finds himself in sticky situations. Reginald Jeeves, his valet, cleverly and deadpannedly remedies them), the series also boasts one of the best instrumental themes I've heard in a very long time.

If I were like Abby or Jo, I'd come up with a clever ending instead of just saying "that's all for now." Ah, well, it's late and I'm fuzzy-headed. So that's all for now.

Why I Need a Team

So last night no one else showed up to trivia and I played by myself (one-person teams are allowed) under the team name "Where is Everybody?" I was rather hoping to do better than thirty-five points out of a possible hundred (well, usually it's a possible hundred - I think last night, because the guy who runs it did several bonus questions, it was more like a hundred twenty), all of which I lost during the final round because I muffed a question on, of all things, poets.

This was a lot more interesting a story in my head than in real life. So I'll add this one: there's apparently a wooden case of some sort that sticks out of the wall near the storage closet at church. Attempting to take a few bags of stuff to said closet, I walked right into the corner of said case - didn't even see it coming. My forehead still hurts at the corner.

Also, my room is a big mess again/still (I'm not sure whether it really actually ceased to be last time).

So, clearly, I have life totally under control right now. You know it.

And Now, A Word from Our Sponsor, G.K. Chesterton

How's this for an opening paragraph?

I cannot understand the people who take literature seriously; but I can love them, and I do. Out of my love I warn them to keep clear of this book. It is a collection of crude and shapeless papers upon current or rather flying subjects; and they must be published pretty much as they stand. They were written, as a rule, at the last moment; they were handed in the moment before it was too late, and I do not think that our commonwealth would have been shaken to its foundations if they had been handed in the moment after. They must go out now, with all their imperfections on their head, or rather on mine; for their vices are too vital to be improved with a blue pencil, or with anything I can think of, except dynamite.

-All Things Considered

Pretty Cool

I don't know who the LA Times knows - apparently everybody - but the curious can read interviews with bunches of Harry Potter actors here. I suppose this would seem less cool to me if I regularly read interviews they do, but, as I don't, they seem interesting. I've only read Emma Watson and Rupert Grint's so far, as I've other things I'd like to do this morning, but I'm definitely coming back to these later. You can, too, if you'd like.

In Which I Come Clean - At Least at Heart. My Intestines Are Another Story.

Sorry this blog's been so quiet. Things have been kind of weird because I've been sick a lot - the quick-and-dirty explanation is, my digestion (or, well, at least the large-intestine section thereof) spontaneously decided to get way slow and inefficient, or something like that, right after graduation, so now I get intestinal pain if I'm not on over-the-counter stuff for it pretty much all the time. The doctor's office gave me a CT scan to see if I had any obstructions or what have you, but they didn't find anything - which is mostly good news, except in the sense that that means right now I don't know what it really is. (Actually, here's the part of the CT scan experience that's most worth telling about: they make you drink a lot of barium sulfate, which is a contrast dye, beforehand so that your insides show up. This stuff comes in multiple flavors, all of which are a little odd because of the chemical burn factor. Because of some scan-lab confusion I won't go into, I had to drink two doses of the stuff; I would describe the flavors I got as "nuclear orange Tang and coconut milk" and "eggnog laced with metallic strawberry." They are a little nauseating, especially in the hours after the scan, but not as bad-tasting as you would expect. Helpful hints for you if you ever need such a scan: refrigerate the barium sulfate - that's allowed, and it helps - and drink it through a straw.)

So because this has, like I said, caused various and sundry weirdness, my plans to cook and explore and read new things this summer got derailed. Instead I've cooked a lot of whatever (or, sometimes, not-whatever: per doctor's orders this week, I am now getting very chummy with water and fiber), reread a lot of classics and apologetics, attempted a little bit of geocaching (some with Joe and Andrea, some solo, most of it relatively unsuccessful), worked at church, played weekly team trivia at CyberCafe with Charles and Jackie and whoever else we can scrounge, and made a lot of trips from Binghamton to Syracuse and back again. It hasn't been bad, and gosh am I glad it's happened now instead of during the school year, but I wish things would go back to normal.

I did have four or five nice reprieve-type days which corresponded nicely with my trip out to Tim and Maggie's wedding. I don't have much to say about them, but I am glad they happened.

That's really all the news that's fit to tell. I'll report back when there's something else.