Flashes of Panic

This morning we (re)visited the apartment which will be ours starting in mid-August. We spent a bit more than a half an hour scrawling rough floor plans, snapping photos and taking measurements. The idea is that we compare the vital figures with the dimensions of existing large objects (furniture) and think about where it all goes, what we have that we can get rid of, and what we don’t have that we need.

I’ve never been so deliberate about moving before; I’ve just thrown all my stuff in the new place and pushed it around until it appeared to fit. (By the same token, I’ve seldom bought furniture for a space before; I’ve picked up bits and pieces to fill needs as they came along.) I hope it actually works. I am glad we had the opportunity to see our landlord again; I definitely left with a positive feeling about him and the building, and looking forward to being there in the fall.

I also think having a sharper image of the space in our minds has already helped us grasp the reality of what we have to do. Once we returned to our current apartment, we set out on a list of chores. I purged my bookshelf again, this time clearing 10% to 15% of the shelf space and filling a box which will go to Reader to Reader early next week. If anyone wants some good Russian literature, please let me know; I have some reasonably good stuff going, and some of it is even in English translation. Also, I’d love to find a home for seven or eight track statistics books which I’ll probably have to recycle otherwise.

A. is producing bag after bag of clothes for distribution elsewhere (not all of hers will go to the SA, as mine do.) Yet it seems like for all we shed, there’s still just as much sticking around.