It’s 3:30am. The house is a cool 68 degrees. I’ve been up for about an hour. I went to bed a little earlier which means the 3:00am stirring happened at 2:30. I checked my phone (a not-so-great habit I should probably correct). I had a text from a woman out west. She wants to know why I’m considering the neighborhood I’m considering – she recommended several others. She likes that neighborhood – just thinks there are better ones. Rent and availability (and proximity to work when/if I land a job) will be the deciding factors. I wrote back to her. I’m not expecting much, but who knows maybe we’ll connect when I arrive. I’m finding that I’m still falling into the old trap I did when I was on dating sites a few years ago. I’m always a little caught off guard that the cute and/or stunning ones are talking to me – which I suspect has something to do with being new to the process and adjusting/setting my expectations. Admittedly, appearance is a shallow consideration, but attractiveness is one of the first things most of us focus on. I’ll say to myself, “she’s really cute” and then I have to remind myself that I think everyone I talk to is cute (it’s why I’m talking to them in the first place).
I tried to go back to sleep, but started thinking about things. Today is my last day in the office. What are the things I HAVE to get done today? And what’s the best way to pack the car? What other things do I need to buy? I should probably book the campsite. What days? Depends on when I’ll see friends back home. It’ll be nice to hang out with my friends here these last two nights in town – to shoot pool over at Roy’s one last time. My colleagues gave me a nice send-off yesterday. We eventually figured it out. I should just get up… maybe I’ll get a run in later this morning. Maybe a nap before work.
I turned over all of my accounts and passwords at work. Today, I’ll leave the key and tomorrow I’ll set the auto-reply and forwarding. I didn’t get to “clean up” nearly as much as I wanted to. I had hoped to do some electronic filing, shred the papers in my shred box, and purge old emails. I’ve done some of those things, but sometimes, I became mired as I went through old emails. I’d get lost in the drama from when I first started. It was a bumpy transition. I’m glad we found our footing. I need to write a note explaining where things are. They’ll figure it out and build their own processes. I don’t want them to start from scratch the way I did.
Two of my friends lost their fathers this past week. If it’s open to the public, I might attend one of the funerals – which may determine when I get on the road and when I try to camp. He was my first soccer and baseball coach. He was everybody’s coach. He was a good man. I don’t think I’ll go to the other funeral. I only knew him as the host of the annual 4th of July party – manning the grill and cooking for all of us. I suppose this is that age.
Yesterday, my pop-up tent arrived. They’re not kidding when they say it just pops up. It’s like something out of a cartoon where a droopy-eared dog or a tiny mouse tosses a folded up piece of material that springs open into a full-blown house. [Aside: this is another example of how I sense that the internet is overrun with content. I’m sure I’ve seen that cartoon – maybe the Jetsons or something. I tried to google cartoon and unfolding house and a couple of other iterations. Most of the results were dioramas or videos of actual tiny houses that unfold. I suspect had I googled this a few years ago, I’d have found what I was looking for. Maybe I’ve grown impatient.] As soon as I took the band off the tent, it opened up and unfolded into place. Forcefully. It practically flew out of my hands. I got inside – cool, it has a skylight type of thing, and I fit comfortably. The zippers work. That’s good. As the reviews had indicated, it takes a little work to get it folded back up. I kept looking at the directions. The lighting wasn’t great, the lettering on the instructions was small. I squinted. I held the tent closed with one hand. What do you mean hold part B to the ground with your knee and loosen part A. At one point, the tent sprung loose and knocked my glasses off. After half-an-hour and several tries, I stopped following the directions and just fiddled with it. I got it. I let it spring open again and tried two more times – got it each time on the first try. I’m good to go.
Am I? Am I good to go? I keep looking at my to-do list and my shopping list. The problem with not having a firm plan is that it’s nearly impossible to have contingency plans. The problem with not having done these things before (camping and an unending road trip) is I don’t know what one needs or how to prepare… and I’m constantly reminding myself – the point is to figure it out as you go. I’m trying to walk the fine line between carefree and stupid and I’m not always sure which is which. I’d really like to avoid being dangerously stupid. And in this week’s segment of stupid humans, man starves in the wilderness because he forgot to bring a can opener. He did, however, remember to bring a corkscrew as evidenced by the several uncorked and empty bottles of wine found next to his decaying corpse with a smiling face.
It’s 5:30am. The lone star that was at the treeline earlier is higher in the still-black sky. I haven’t gone back to sleep and it’s too dark to run. I’ve spent a lot of time distracted and/or staring off between paragraphs: looking at the tablecloth, checking my phone, adding things like can opener to lists, scratching my head, re-reading previous paragraphs. This is how it’s going to be for the next few days: a minor and low-grade wave of worried energy buzzing in the background of everything I do. At this point, I’m just opening and closing apps on my phone – not quite sure what to do next.