Big Announcement

How does one navigate major life changes in this era of incessant sharing? When I make public my achievements, my political and religious beliefs, the constant cultural commentary that infuses my brain, and occasional photos of my food, how do I then share with you, friends, aquaintances, colleagues (and all three followers of this blog) the biggest change I have undertaken in my life since moving to Los Angeles?

I’m moving out of Los Angeles.

I’ve known for the last few weeks, but I’ve only been telling people quietly on a “need to know” basis. I felt that I needed to make some sort of announcement, but I also felt like it could be the most personal thing I’ve ever posted on facebook.

I’m moving to New York, or more accurately, New Jersey. Or more accurately, I’m becoming fully bicoastal, since my mom will stay in L.A. and I’ll be back once a month to visit her, plus take meetings (hopefully) and meet with graphics clients while I’m here.

So I’m not really moving, just packing up all of my possessions, loading them on a moving van, driving across country with a husband, dog and parrot, and renting out my house. (Anyone need a house? Two miles from the beach!)

The planning and the packing and the stress of it at first made everything into a kind of blur. It didn’t really hit me until I saw my car drive away on the cross-country transport, whereupon I burst into tears. (Yes, I shot video of my car leaving me for the east coast. It kind of reminds me of the credits sequence of Slingin’ the Slang, where Samantha dances off down the street, turns the corner and is gone. Stop it, I’m tearing up again.)

And the packing. The PACKING.

 If you follow me on fb, you may have seen some posts about my stuff, my STUFF. First it was the yearbooks -- I am in possession of seven belonging to my sister and six or eight belonging to my parents. Kind of cool to look at, but collectively weighing more than fifty pounds. Not coming with. I took photos of all the relevant pages I could find, asked the fb hivemind, and decided they will have to go to the recycle bin.

The STUFF is an emotional minefield, too. The yearbooks again, for example. All those photos of my teenaged big sister, carefree and DOMINATING all academic competition in high school. Also, all four of her college yearbooks, which I remember my brother-in-law leaving on my parents’ front porch one day, some months after Linda died of Hodgkins disease at the age of 22. I thought they were so precious at the time, but now I look at them, she barely makes an appearance -- just the standard headshot her senior year.

I may not be a millenial, but I am adopting the millenial attitude towards STUFF. If I can’t keep it on my phone or hard drive, I don’t want to own it any longer. I have shelves and shelves of books, but I’m going to attempt to get rid of all but the plays, the literature, and the few books aquired in L.A. that are absolutely necessary to my existence. (Of course, I haven’t gone through them yet, so I don’t yet know how many will be deemed “necessary.”) I am ALL FOR keeping my library on my iPad. (As a side note, I love reading on my iPad. Did you know you can download ebooks from the library? So if you’re lonely and bored at two in the morning, you can download a book to read ABSOLUTELY FREE. Instant gratification, gratis.) I have stacks of screenplays -- who wants ‘em? Likely more than half my boxes will be full of nothing but paper and words. (Don’t get me started on the office supplies -- I dumped three bags of recycling yesterday because: printed scripts, floppy disks, CDRs and all the accoutrement of making the ephemeral solid in the world -- OBSOLETE. Yippee!)

So that’s my big announcement. I haven’t posted on this blog, with its strangely prescient title, for years, but when D proposed the cross-country car trip, I only agreed if he would let me document the whole process. Watch this space for further adventures.