104 Boxes.
That’s how many we’ve packed, and while we’ve packed a LOT, we still haven’t touched the kitchen, my office, the innumerable breakable things, the art.

I, who tend to spend money on books, pens, shoes, and hats, more than anything, have somehow acquired vast amounts of STUFF I never knew I had.

Some of the boxes we’ve packed have been condensed from other boxes, long ignored, like the sweater-box full of my grandmother’s knitting (she died in December 2001, hasn’t knitted since 1999), including a half-complete lavender and silver scarf she was making for me. The yarn smelled like her favorite cologne, not strongly, but in small bits, as if part of herself was left there for me to find and embrace, all these years later. There were magazine clippings in the box as well, but I tossed those, as I was unable to figure out why they were relevant. Probably they were meant to be included in some unsent letter to one of us – her granddaughters, or her daughters. With knitting becoming a fad among my friends, I’m suddenly inspired to pick up where I stopped at the age of nine, and finish her work.

Another box was filled with books leftover from my childhood. Not the hardcover Winnie the Pooh collection that has graced my shelves for years, my pre-Disnefied stuffed Pooh Bear sitting near them for company, but older books, like In the Night Kitchen, and Where the Wild Things Are, classic childrens’ literature with art sophisticated enough to be appreciated by adults. Fuzzy and I are in the ‘trying’ stage of becoming parents – as in trying to conceive – and I know it’s wrong to bring a child into the world for selfish purposes, but there’s a lot of really good kiddie lit out there I’d love to have someone to share with.

Yet another unremembered box yielded treasures from Junior High School. Fuzzy insisted I keep my 8th Grade yearbook, even though I attempted to add it to the trash. I laughed at hard evidence of my first science fiction geekery: The entire series of novels related to the mini-series (and later regular series) V – the one about lizards masquerading as humans, who come to Earth to harvest humans as food. Very ’80’s.

Tomorrow – later today really – we’ll be packing most of the day, and working in party prep betweeen the boxes. This last gathering of close friends will be a nice break in a weekend of work, with the clock ticking louder and louder as we approach 8/31. The movers come in the morning on that day, and while I generally hate hotel rooms, I’m looking forward to spending that evening in a room I don’t have to clean, with air conditioning I don’t have to pay for.

For now, even though my mind is wide awake, and crying, “Write, write,” and my version of J.K. Rowlings’ Severus Snape is whispering enticing bits of dialogue into my inner ear, forming the next installment in my self-indulgent foray into fanfic, I am going to go steal two more hours of sleep.