movement

It has been 18 days since my last confession-- er, blog. The morning sun is sitting on my right shoulder and that constant hum of the interstate two blocks away has been replaced by the occasional swishing of cars on the two roads outside my window. But they're not close by, these two roads; I'm sitting in the middle of a 3.5 acre piece of land in Austin's "Upper East Side" (as the tongue-cheeked like to call it). We've moved out of our dilapidated apartment near downtown to a three bedroom ranch house owned by my oldest friend in the world. I don't mean that she's like 107 or anything; I mean she's my longest relationship in the world. We met when I was working as a barback in an R&B club in Houston. I was 19 years old, she and her friends were 17 at the time, sneaking in with fake IDs (which I had no say over one way or the other). She and I hit it off and have remained in contact these 26 years, with her traveling the world and then settling back in Houston and now Austin with her husband and their six-year-old, and me moving to NYC (where I met S) then Nashville (with him), then onto the road (with him and a third), then to Florida (without either), where I lived with my oldest friend in the world at the time. I met that friend just a few months before I met this one, and that relationship fell apart when I moved in with her and her husband and their two kids on the Atlantic coast. Therefore I had a lot of fears about moving in with this friend (since I don't talk to that friend anymore). But I'm a lot closer to this husband, and we faced my fears at the get-go (I sent out a group email outlining my fears), and it looks like things are gonna work out.

They offered to build S & me a shipping container house on their property (for minimal rent) and we were excited by the prospect, particularly since our apartment near the Capitol -- groovy as it was -- was falling apart. They were hoping to finish the construction and have us move in before they left for Panama for a month, which they did last night. But life got in the way and they weren't able to complete our new digs, so they asked us to move into a third of their house (they would take another third, and we would all share the third third), because they needed somebody to take care of their boxer and potbelly pig in their absence. So here we are, almost fully moved in. Our bedrooms and bathroom-and-a-half are set up, as is the front porch, which they let us use; there's a bunch of boxes in and around the kitchen that need to be dealt with, but that'll happen eventually.

Besides my relationship with my dearest oldest friend in the world, I was most concerned about my cat's comfort in the new space. But he LOVES it here, I am happy to report, and we're all confident that someday he will be snuggling with the boxer who stands at the gated hallway door drooling and whining and wagging his tail at the sight of the cat (who is not as freaked out by this as I thought he would be).

The only thing that has suffered since my last blog is my timesheet. I had a good friend visit for six days and took the whole time off while she was here -- she helped me bring a couple of loads over; and then after she was gone, I spent another half week-plus finishing the move, straining my back, taking time off. So I'll stop blogging now and get to work and hopefully update more frequently in the coming days, weeks and month.