The Move to Portland

As many of you know, I just moved to Portland after much talk about doing so. What strikes me most about the move are the parallels between this move and my move to Boston. When I got to Boston, I arrived in mid-July, well before anyone else in my suite was due to arrive. I spent a lot of time watching TV on DVD and listening to audio commentaries (those voices talking over the shows quickly became my best friends). My time was spent doing that (while doing a puzzle), watching Red Sox games, and walking around. The biggest difference between then and now, though, is that I knew school was going to start and I’d meet many like-minded people. That security was very nice. By the time everyone was leaving, I was prepared to relish my alone time in Boston and milk it for all of its selfish glory.

After spending nearly a month back in Camp Hill, living with my parents and seeing my high school friends regularly, I got used to the presence of others, but I was getting restless not doing anything with my life. The move to Portland needed to come fast. Time moves slowly while you’re living it, but in retrospect, it flies, and the next thing I knew, I was camping out in my new living room with little to do but read and do crossword puzzles. Oh, and watch TV on DVD (The State on my computer if you are interested).

By the time my stuff arrived two days after my arrival (it was shipped across country in a trailer), I was ready to be done moving and looking forward to life in Portland. Fortunately, this time I was able to get the nephew of a Portland acquaintance to help me unload the truck (as opposed to doing it mostly alone, which became habit the past month) AND got the truck out of the neighboring parking lot before it could get towed.

Surprisingly, the “it’s time to set everything up in the new apartment” phase was the most emotional part for me. The fact that all of my friends and family are spread out across the country nowhere near to me hit hard and seeing all of my stuff around me indicated that the move was official. It didn’t help that I was working in complete silence and had nothing to distract me from thoughts of that nature. In light of this, I made it my first priority to hook my TV and DVD player up so I could have SOME mental diversion. And it worked! Also, it’s weird thinking about the bulk of my friends and family are living life three hours ahead of me. But then again, I get all of my sports earlier, so that ain’t not bad.

So yeah, I’ve spent most of my first week here in Portland walking around, watching TV on DVD, setting up the apartment, and looking for jobs. Sadly, the security of school and more importantly, school loans (that cash is flowing the opposite way these days) isn’t there and I spend my time wondering how long it’ll be before I meet some people. Thankfully, I know I went through this in Boston when I went two weeks without really knowing anyone there.

Now that my apartment is mostly assembled and looking like a home, things aren’t so up and down. I am trying to avoid certain media for risk of it sparking melancholy nostalgia, but Netflix started shipping here, so that’s great (except watching How I Met Your Mother, while entertaining, didn’t help assuage the desire for friends). And as another bonus, the record player I thought was broking works perfectly (or Andy and I “fixed” it). With Internet and cable coming in the near future, I’ll be positively civilized, just in time baseball playoffs.

So, I’m sorry about the delay in posting anything here on Creamy Nougat, but I’ve got a ton of content planned and will update my saga as I see fit.