It is summer. I have attended two pool parties. I have plans for two road trips. One of them with a dog. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for me to push myself to write anything except fiction – and that makes me sound more impressive than I’m being, as if to say “she’s writing so much fiction she simply doesn’t want to write anything else!” Whereas really I’m reading for about seven hours a day and maybe cooking lunch and taking a walk. But I do have some ambitious summer writing/revision plans, and so far they’re on track, so, pat on the back to me.

What I really wanted to say was, I am feeling whiny. This is inevitable when it comes time to move. You look at your possessions and think There are too many. It can never be. Then you start putting them into boxes and for a day it seems doable – you’re ahead of schedule and you don’t really have that many clothes! Then you try to do the books. And the kitchen equipment. And then you think fondly of the fetal pigs in science classes, floating in a calm oblivion of formaldehyde.

Then, then, then. It’s just that moving is an unquestionably obnoxious experience. You already have to endure the emotional hell of separating from your friends and routines and all you hold dear, and once you’ve accepted that you still have several days of back-cramping labor and cleaning ahead of you. Which you wouldn’t want to do on the best of days. Plus it’s all expensive. Who prices packing tape. Jerks, that’s who.

Ok. Whew. That was somewhat cathartic. I guess I’m going to take another look at Hyperbole and a Half‘s This is Why I will Never Be an Adult episode and then curl up on the couch with a book and some coffee for several hours.