Moving Day(s)

I was bitching with Office BFF this morning about moving out of my third floor apartment (in a house on a hill… so there’s actually another staircase outside). After she mentioned that she’s been making yearly moves since leaving college, I counted up how many times I’ve moved in that time frame and came to the realization that this will be my ninth relocation since December 2005. The first seven occurred in the year and a half span after graduation, much to the frustration of Bologna and T who helped 63% of the time. Here’s a not-so-brief outline of my travels:

1) Hilton Head, SC (Dec 2005 – Jan 2006)

I left my dorm room and moved roughly 1000 miles south to my father’s retirement village. By car. I stayed there for under a month. Shortly after a rousing New Years Eve of drinking Bacardi on his couch while watching Amelie and then attempting to play it off as drowsiness when he came home early from his Old People Party, I hopped on a London-bound plane with one suitcase to reclaim the alcoholic genuinely-Irish boyfriend that I procured during my stint at Oxford the previous summer.

2) Brixton, London, UK (Jan – March 2006)

Turns out there was very little worth reclaiming. He was still Irish and an alcoholic, but spent a good portion of my three month sojourn unemployed and not paying his share of the rent. We lived in the ghetto of Brixton (of the Clash’s “Guns of Brixton”) above an Indian bodega on a street where they frequently posted sandwich signs advertising unsolved crimes (for example, “Please be advised there may be a serial rapist on the loose in the general vicinity”). I worked as an illegal nanny to the director of American movies in the Marble Arch area. I regret not spending more of my time sightseeing by myself and wandering the city instead of wallowing in the misery that was my personal life. After a particularly bad row, I hopped on a plane back to the States with my one suitcase… and one very large bag of souvenirs.

3) Central NJ (April – May 2006)

St. Bologna greeted me at Newark Airport and brought me home where she deposited me (and my luggage) on her couch in central New Jersey. My father brought the rest of my belongings from South Carolina and they began piling up around Bologna’s condo. This was around the time that T developed a nervous twitch.

4) Weehawken, NJ (May 2006)

After getting my first big girl job in Manhattan in April, I moved to Weehawken just across the river from NYC. I had a beautiful view of the city skyline from my bedroom window and three incredibly creepy roommates who I caught congregating outside my room listening to one of my phone conversations. When Bologna prompted me with “Do you want to leave this place?” after a baseball game, I packed up my entire life in about an hour and threw it in the back of their pick up truck. T’s tick became inescapably noticeable.

5) Central NJ… again (May – June 2006)

We formed a neat little family unit back in the old condo. Just me, Bologna, T, and T’s head jerking. I crashed in their guest room for another month or so until selecting…

6) New Brunswick, NJ (June – Oct 2006)

...another slum! But this apartment was also conveniently located a full mile from the train station. I like an extra challenge when I’m running for my life down dark alleys past gold toothed whistling Mexican men. This one also required furniture. So, me, my luggage, and my brand new furniture were all neatly deposited on the 18th floor of a high rise by the ever patient Bologna, T and T’s hopeless shaking.

In early October, sick of getting cat calls on my walk home, I shouted back at a car full of large black men something to the effect of, “Does this ever work for you? Have you ever had success picking up a female using that kind of language?” They parked around the corner and menacingly began following me. I was then very grateful for my troop of lurking Hispanic guys and my ten years of Spanish lessons because I was able to ask them for help in their own language. They formed a blockade on the side walk behind me as I high tailed it. Apparently they didn’t take kindly to others intruding on their sexual harassment turf. To my knowledge, that was the only racial riot that my ghetto booty has incited.

During this time period, I’d also begun talking to Beau more and more frequently and ultimately decided to move up to Boston for him since he seemed unwilling to move to Yankee territory.

7) Boston, MA (Sept 2006 – June 2007)

Once again, Bologna, T, and T’s violent quaking packed me into a U-Haul and put me on the road. I unloaded in record time in Boston with the help of Beau and my three new roomies who were completely unconcerned that I had no job or marketable skill base. That Christmas, after it became clear that I was indeed settling in one location, T presented me with a gigantic bottle of tequila and lovely card noting that he had almost fully recovered from the persistent convulsions that I must have noticed when I was retired to his couch.

8) Outskirts of Boston, MA (June 2007 – June 2009)

After moving in with Beau, I stayed in the same apartment for an unprecedented two years. Now we’re finally leaving for our very own purchased home with our very own adult couch for T to crash on, should his malady ever return.

This concludes the Nomadic Adventures of Dangerous K. On a side note, I’ve decided to continue blogging even if that means subjecting my loved ones to pictures of my wardrobe choices and gushing over frilly things with pink bows once in awhile. More news to follow after the closing on Thursday!