The Last-Minute Box

Monday, Feb. 26th. 
Kat says everyone who moves has a Last-Minute Box.  It's the last minute and mine needs a couple more boxes. 

Today is my last full day in my home.  Saw Annihilation last night and then hit Rimsky Korsakoffee House (Scott's GPS pronounces it 'KOR-suh-k'-FEE'... it also turns Flavel Drive - flay-vell - into flavvle).  So I finally got to visit RKH before leaving Portland.  I like it a lot, and Jesseca would love it.  Great desserts, delicious coffee...it doesn't just have a home-spun feel, it's genuine.  Quirky, extremely playful sense of humor, too, exactly my kind of thing, and if you get there at the right moment they often have live music.  I had the Borgia Cafe (coffee and orange) and Rasputin's Vice (home-made espresso ice cream with coffee sauce and raspberries).  I wanted to leave some art under one of the glass tabletops but didn't have any prepared as all my stuff already went to Kathy's.  I'm way disorganized about this.  Any number of things I'll be needing are packed away, I may not see them again for a year or more.  No master list of which box anything is to be found in. My sculpt will not be refined without the right tools but even left crude it's the best one I've done so far.

Tried to make it this morning to the used DVD shop I found on Foster but didn't have time...had to get to the pharmacy and then the PO to register a change of address.  Went on the bus, used two of my four remaining tickets, time ran out.  Had to get home.  Maybe tomorrow morning I'll have time to try again.  Hope so, my last shot at it.  Not that I have money to buy more than two or three discs but I want to have been there and searched the place.  Could take a couple of hours ( Joy! : D  ) and they're likely to have something I haven't picked up that fills in one of my collections.

A few more cups of coffee and I can pack my coffee maker.  Trying to use up the food, and I'm not gonna achieve that.  Never even got the boxes for tapioca or pancake mix opened.  There's a really nice glass bottle for oil I'm tempted to keep.  Karla took everything she wants, John wants to just haul off whatever is left to a dump, and no one else has a key to get in. Not sure what I'll need for cookware for the next two weeks.  One of the covered pots, presumably, for rice or barley. 

Visited Scott's house and saw his parents again for what I could guess is the last time.  Damn.  Really, really nice people, I've known and been friends with them forever.  Scott drove past the house that used to be Kris Burley's home,  It's empty, up for sale.  I used to pass it sometimes on the way to or coming home from school.  Felt a pang that I'll never see Oaks Park again.  Never did get to see that dedication plaque at Franklin.  The Little Store is closed, has been for several weeks.  Candy's Kwik Shop is it's actual name, at the corner of Clatsop and 72nd.  Someone ran their car into it, the wall right behind the teller. Looking in the glass doors, it seemed even the cashier counter sat askew.  It's a nice family that's been running the place for two or three years now,  every member of the family takes a turn in there.  I left a note in the grated security door hoping no one got hurt. 

Scott just brought over a day's worth of firewood!  He wanted my last night here to be warm.  I've had my heavy Winter coat on for the last two hours since I got back, used the last of the scrap wood from the garage but the house is still freezing.  Figure out dinner, and hope I can relax tonight and watch a  movie. Don't know which one to go for.  Probably be gone early evening tomorrow.  Almost 5:30 PM now, maybe take a nap.  Been falling asleep during the day and not able to enough at night, but what the hell - my fight's an over-nighter and I want to be awake to enjoy it.  I can't relax waiting at the terminals but once I'm on board I'm fine.  What's the use of a window seat if you're too tired to enjoy it?

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8:58 AM, Wednesday Feb. 28th.  I've stayed one extra night, and this is the morning of my last day in my home.  Trying not to think about it, unutterably sad.  Just want to cry if I think about it.  Finally got the fire going in the woodstove.  Final move is tonight, maybe late afternoon or early evening.  Still have some items to eat, to get in order for the move.  TV still set up,  might be able to relax and watch something.  Hoping no one arrives to fuck that up. 

I made it through the entire series of Six Feet Under, under a family that runs a  funeral home.  The DVD set had belonged to my niece, Kat.  I awoke this morning from my last dream in this house.  It began with me and three other going to bed together - not sex, just laying side-by-side in some last effort to communicate, heal...I lay down as Nate from 6FU, next to Nate's love Brenda (who doubled for Dana).  Look them up, it's too much to explain who the characters are now.  As we fell asleep I took Dana's hand in mine, to hold as we slept.  I tried to feel every inch of her skin, of her hand's structure, her wrist, the smallness of it.  The dream segued, and now I was her walking away the next morning - this morning - walking away for the last time...walking against the sun's cold glare through a parking lot as a gleaming  white hearse pulled away, remembering the feel of my hand in his.  The word "addiction" flashed though my head a moment later.  I wanted to go back to sleep for an hour or so, dream something better, but that felt like the one I'm supposed to have last in this house.  Tonight I travel to some existential weigh-station.  New York is still two weeks out.

In one of my resurrection dreams of so long ago, Dana was struggling with talking to me against a conviction that she was ill.  It turned out in the dream that she was but that it did not destroy her, and she really did turn to me finally.  Illness, addiction, I'd stand by her through whatever if she had the courage to let me.  More, if something like that were true, I would be crushed at the threat that she would rob from me the days I could spend with her.  But I can't make her want to share that burden or threat, and I don't know how to convince her I want to be there, that I'm up for that. 

"Open Arms',  song from  my high school years.  Journey.  Keeps going through my head, keep hoping it's going through hers as well.  Heard it on the radio too a few days after it played in a hypnogogic flash.

Should go make breakfast but not hungry.  Wish time would stand still.

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Thursday, March 1st.  Left my home for the last time last night.  Traffic kept Lore from arriving for a while, and I felt right sitting in mom's chair relaxing, watching out the front picture window.  Had to fight back tears when I left.  It's not a house to me, it's my home.  I feel like I'm abandoning someone I should be protecting.  I can't let myself think about it, just go forward.

Didn't sleep until today, late in the morning.  In Hillsboro now until the 13th.  Maybe now I can at least draw a little.  Today was spent still resituating.  Finally get to watch Rachel Maddow again.  I don't think Jesseca has MSNBC at her home in New York so I'd better get it while it lasts.

Weary, don't have anything to say (oh shut up).