Worse Than Moving?

Current view of one corner of the living room. The whole house looks like this.

Well, I dunno if the seemingly endless prep for combining households is actually worse than picking up and moving a whole house, but it’s gotta be pretty near. Ms. B. and I have gone from minor upheaval during the initial do-it-yourself painting/refurbishing phase to all-out holy horror as we prepare to have both painters and flooring people come in to complete the interior overhaul of Casa de Rodan. Brugger and I have spent most of the week cleaning out every nook and cranny (with some most welcome assistance from friends Terry & Beth), dumping what we can and reorganizing — or at least attempting such — the things worth saving. Most of her belongings aren’t even here yet, so where we’re eventually going to fit everything is probably the biggest question of our lifetimes. And we still have a long way to go before this business is finished.

In the process of dismantling every neatly organized grouping of my personal belongings, I did find a number of things I had thought permanently lost, such as a cassette tape of my brother’s music and some artwork I did during and post college. I also discovered a couple of boxes full of copies of Deathrealm issues #20 and #23 — unopened — which I had no idea were even here. I thought all that stuff had been cleaned out long, long ago. Go figure. Anyhoo, I plan to keep a few extra copies of both, just for good measure, and probably recycle the rest.

Add to all this yet work on my brother’s house, which I managed to fit in this morning. I truly hope that place is now ready to sell and that it will move relatively quickly. While I was in Winston-Salem, I snagged a handful of geocaches this morning, which was the extent of the weekend’s caching. Friday night, Ms. B. and I did spend some quality time with authors/friends Stephen Provost and Samaire Wynne in Martinsville. Good company, foods, and drinks.

I hope I survive long enough to see all this in the can.

A newly discovered box full of copies of Deathrealm #23, circa 1994. Cover by the late, great Lew Hartman,
back cover by Ian McDowell