The ATL

I've been in Atlanta for a week and a half and haven't posted yet. I apologize to anyone who may have been waiting for an update. I didn't post because I STILL don't have internet.

Getting internet in my apartment has been the battle I never expected. Everyone wanted to set an install date two weeks away, or else had phantom bounced checks on my account (if my bank can't find it and I can't find it... it doesn't exist) or else their wireless couldn't function in my tiny half-underground apartment. My walls are two feet thick. I like that. Wireless networks do not. Tomorrow I should finally achieve internet, with the help of the slowest and most expensive provider around.

So anyway. Atlanta.

Two weeks ago the moving started. My dad brought a moving truck home and we loaded everything I had at my parents' house into it. This included a couch that looked like it was going to be physically impossible to move. That part made me nervous. The next day we drove to Knoxville to get even more stuff. First we went to the POD, where Jessica and her dad were already unloading. Jessica and I put our shit in the POD last July and haven't seen it since - opening it was kind of like Christmas. There were things in there that I had forgotten I owned.

And then it was time for the scary part.

In Knoxville, I'd been living in a loft in the very heart of downtown. The loft was up two sets of stairs, and my furniture was up another set of spiral stairs within the loft. Getting it in was bad enough - it took myself, three strong men, and a lot of swearing. Getting it back down was made much easier with the aid of two of my favorite boys from the Grotto: Pet Barback and Tony. Thank god for them. There were a few moments when I thought either my furniture or one of the boys was going to die, but it worked. After living here for a few days I remembered the stuff I left in Knoxville: a microwave, my nightlights (don't laugh), and a wireless router. D'oh.

My dad and I stayed in a hotel outside of Atlanta that night, and on Saturday it was time to move in. Moving in is always better than moving out.

My new apartment is a hole. Seriously - it's half underground and it's about 400 square feet. But I love it so much. It's in the greatest neighborhood and it's part of this really amazing building from the 1920's. It's small, but it's as much space as I need, and I knew my furniture would mostly fit. Plus, it's about all I could afford in this town. And I can barely afford it.

Cousin Zach, the DePalmas, my dad, and I unloaded the truck pretty quickly. (Cousin Jason showed up right when everything was unloaded...suspicious...) (and yet so clever) The couch was a major disastor all over again. Katie and I watched and tried to make thoughtful and supportive faces while her engineer husband helped make a plan for forcing it around corners. Then we all went to lunch at Mary Mac's, which was brilliant.

And that's about as much update as I feel like doing. We've gotten to moving in, and I'll update more later.