It's a funny thing, packing. Even though I chucked out a bunch of stuff after my ex-husband moved out; even though I regularly go through my place every six months to cull my belongings;* and even though I had a yard sale, I am still finding things I had forgotten were ever in the house.

I'm convinced that parts of the house are doorways to the Plane of Lost Things. The attic in particular, because it both devours things I wanted to keep, and returns other people's things in pristine shape. Last Sunday, my oldest friend came down to retrieve 10 boxes she'd been storing in my attic, and all of them looked as if they'd been set down the day before rather than 10 years ago. No thick layer of dust, no grime, no water damage. Meanwhile, I cannot find my collection of Elric books at all. They've buggered out of existence completely.

I briefly thought about twittering updates on packing, but decided against it, as it would quickly devolve into Ye gods, how does Tupperware breed lids and slaughter containers? and Shit, where is my hammer? and Cool! I found that necklace! Not exactly gripping stuff.

Although the house is now at the point where I despair of it ever being completely packed and cleaned, I am beginning to get excited about the new place.** The one room I can't quite decide how to lay things out in is the studio, and that's mainly because I need so much more stuff for the studio, it's not funny.

a desk for the laptop and monitor to live on
a flat filing cabinet (one can hope)
some kind of stacked storage for art supplies, so they are all in one place, instead of in many little boxes
shelving units for things that don't fit in little boxes
some ingenious way I have not yet thought of to store old paintings
a low table to set my oil palette on
a nice, big, sturdy easel, as the tabletop easel currently takes up my drafting table, and this is not good. I have some plein air easels that are portable, but they don't exactly balance, or hold large canvases.
and a bunch of other stuff I'm sure I'll discover as I go.

I'm looking forward to having more space, and living in a place where it doesn't look cluttered all the time from sheer lack of convenient storage. Or dirty because the floors and counters and cabinets are so old. Not particularly looking forward to tearing down the wallpaper in the master bedroom that I helped my mother hang in 1985, but you can't have everything.

I'm also looking forward to just being DONE. Whether or not I'll get any sleep tonight is debatable, as there's a lot left to be packed. Wish me luck.

Technorati Tags: moving

*a 700 sq.ft place will do that to you.
**Well, the old place, since I did live there before.