A Moving Opus

Not much blog-worthy today, but it’s been a while. SuperGirlfriend’s “Flashback Friday” (theoralreport.blogspot.com) got me thinking about my own disastrous moving-of-large-items experiences, which got me thinking about moving experiences, which got me thinking of moving.

No, I’m not planning to call on any of you to help me move large objects any time soon, so you can just keep sipping your coffee and cruising the ‘net and relax.

But I was thinking about my years spent in Boston (there is a nostalgic theme building, if you’ve been following me). How every time you saw an awning going up on your building, it would mean the place was going condo and you knew you’d be moving soon, ‘cause no way could the average bullpen artist afford to buy instead of rent (Unless you came from mucho dinero, which some of them did. One owned her own coop in the South End, furnished in to-the-moment Laura Ashley (it was the eighties, after all) courtesy of her trust fund. None of us liked her.)

The first time I was forced out of my rented abode, I had to get rid of a dog (a beautiful Australian Shephard named Cutter, a good jogging companion, but sadly, had some indoor behavioral problems and was not welcome in my perfect soon-to-be-new living situation), tried to get rid of a live-in boyfriend (but like a bad check, he kept coming back) and because he was conveniently out of town on Moving Day, I had to beg and plead a male coworker with a drivers’ license to bail me out (which wasn’t too hard, but still, the whatever feminist Bad Boyfriend hadn’t intimidated out of me hated to have to do it). He was a cool guy, and played my stand-in date while Bad Boyfriend was out of town having whatever wanderlust Peter Pan-ish adventure appealed to him at the moment (roadie with a traveling circus, bartender at various seasonal resorts, probably sleeping with anything that would stand still long enough to be drawn in by his Svengali charm). But was he crazy enough to help me move?

Yes. Even crazy enough to drive the moving van I rented (standard only) while (since I claimed I knew how to drive a stick) I would follow in his yellow Bug.

Turned out my knowledge of standards was theoretical at best. In the middle of the main artery that feeds through Allston, I stalled out. And stalled again. And again. Finally, he had to call a buddy to help out while I rode shotgun, feeling about three inches tall but grateful that it wasn’t me behind either of those wheels.

Bad boyfriend had it in for Cool Coworker ever since. Even though no funny business was afoot. The coworker had a girlfriend (actually, a series of them, depending on how well he did in the bars over the weekend) and was smart enough not to mess with the girlfriend of a guy who imagined he was a ninja, was built like a fireplug and owned a series of lock picks and knew how to use them. So I continued to accept rides to work, escorts to movie premieres, invites to parties when my Designated Asshole was out of town. I sensed the inevitable pissing match coming, but until then, I was not about to walk three miles to work (I was living in one of those dead spots in Allston with no public transportation close by) or sit in what was becoming an increasingly claustrophobic formerly perfect living situation when I could be at a free movie premiere or a party.

Finally, it came. His Wonderfulness came “home” for a week, where he expected me to feed him, wash his clothes, and generally spend every waking minute paying attention to him, and only him. He got crabby when I had to work late, crabby when we had to stay in (a tenet of my ridiculously cheap rent was that I had to babysit my roommate’s two-year-old on Thursday nights while she went to art class), and very crabby that some guy was knocking on my door at 7:45 in the morning to drive me to work.

There were words. There were threats. If there were rulers, they would have been used.

Cool coworker started meeting me downstairs. (Heck, he had an original Bug. I could hear him coming a half-mile away)

And Bad Boyfriend starting getting jobs in town.

Finally, as it inevitably did, it became time to move again. And guess-who managed with all of his strength to stay in town and help.

And that was the last time he helped me move.

Because by the time the next awning went up, he’d moved on to someone younger and more gullible, but he’d yet to move his things out of my apartment.

And the “man with the van” I’d called and sent a deposit to never showed up and had his phone disconnected.

So once again, I had to become Penelope Pitstop and ask for help. Fortunately, I had eager assistance in the form of an old friend of Mr. Wonderful, who’d also been screwed over by the guy. The only price he asked was that I never, ever, ever to give the guy his new phone number or address.

We left the a-hole’s worldly belongings on his new girlfriend’s front porch, I bought a Diet Pepsi with the magic quarters he’d left behind, then we took off to my latest soon-to-be wonderful living arrangement (which was pretty damned good) and partied the rest of the day.

A little tipsy and a lot tired, I stretched out on my brand-new futon (No way I could keep the old one) and thought, this is all mine. He’ll never be back here again. And tomorrow I could go to the grocery store and get the kind of peanut butter I liked, not his, could buy the kind of bread I liked, and didn’t have to be cowed by that steely-eyed glare ever again.

Even though in my new, small bedroom, I was imprisoned by still-packed boxes and up to my eyeballs in debt, I never felt so free in my life. And that was the most moving experience I’d felt since I left home for college.