Well I’m here and there are no words to describe how beautiful it is. I am dog fucking tired from the move, but it’s hard to complain with views like this.

I feel like by the time we’re done putting away our things, I’ll have a Rumpelstiltskin beard dragging behind me in the sand. It’s overwhelming. We left East Los Angeles with well more than 120 boxes. We gave away and sold almost 20 pieces of furniture and this-and-that. Yet we still weren’t able to fit what we had into the new place. There’s a ton of shit in the garage here. One of the last two tall bookcases sits in there with I don’t know how many boxes of books that are supposed to go inside, plus the boxes of books that went inside the bookcases we sold. It’s so sad. I have a lot of handmade Artist’s books that I can’t look at anymore–not just by me, but many other artists of whom I love. Now they sit in boxes seemingly unloved. I’m still not sure what I will do with them.

Our first week in just past yesterday, and the trash bins are beyond filled. We are spent, overflowing in aches and pains from head to toe. Very slowly, things are being put away and will continue to be. It’s a lot smaller here even though we measured the rooms beforehand and it didn’t seem all that smaller, but oh well. It’s still better and so much more affordable. I also never felt at home in the last place. I didn’t hate it, but it was never a “home” since we’d been pretty forced out of our true home the year before. I never really got a chance to pick the exact place I wanted. There just wasn’t enough time.

This move took two-days by the way. I didn’t think we were going to fit everything on the moving truck, in fact, I was panicked about it the entire time–of course! It barely did. We camped out in the empty house and waited for the movers in the morning, sleeping on an air mattress and brought a coffee maker. Gotta have that.

If you must know the story about this place now (quit twisting my arm!), we rented it site unseen! Yup. You may think we’re absolutely nuts, and maybe we are, but we knew where the property was situated and put a deposit on it. Then we drove up and looked at the outside. People still lived in it, so we only saw it from a distance. We parked near it and strolled around for a few minutes near the house. The land was just what we’d always wanted and the rent was something we could afford, so we signed the lease and paid in full. We didn’t see inside until we booked the moving company, and now here we are. The old tenants moved out days before we came in and the landlords were nice enough to get everything ready extremely fast.

A lot of changes were made, and we made a lot of requests, because when we finally did see the inside, and while the house is in really good shape (it was only built 20 years ago), it was fugly inside. I was so disappointed. I was still determined to live there no matter what–we didn’t exactly have a choice–but I really wanted, no needed, some aesthetic things changed.

First of all, EVERYTHING was a shade of green that I almost could not bear. The floors, carpet, and a band of bows that ran along the top of the wall (a border) all over the house in every single room.  WTF?

Now that’s gone and the place got re-carpeted and painted.

Sometime soon, I’ll redo the linoleum in the kitchen, but that green is still there on that floor. Oh well for now. Green is usually my favorite color too! but not this particular shade.

Anyway, leaving LA is weird. I’m pretty sure it will all hit me in due time: the perks of the city, the familiar sights of everything I love. Los Angeles is in my veins. But I plan to be there every couple months. I’ll still be seeing doctors there–my specialists anyway. I’ll be doing skype with my therapist, and seeing her in the flesh every couple months too, as well as my shrink, and my rheumo, neuro, at Keck, etc. I got my insurance worked out yesterday and I’m happy as a clam in shit.

This is my new office/studio and what it looked like over the weekend:

It’s much better now. I’ll take a pic once it’s “normal.” What’s funny is that I got rid of a cabinet before the move, only to realize I have to get another one to hold the rest of my stuff. This time I am getting one specific to fit into the corner next to the blue dresser. The old one was one of those Ikea locker consoles made to hold a TV and media. I loved it while I had it, other than having to bend down every time I needed paint out of it. The cabinet I’m getting is tall and thin. I should have it by this coming weekend. This is what it looks like:

Once everything is put away, I’m excited to get pack to painting. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, so that’s a good thing. If I can only remember where I put everything.

Oh yeah, Happy 4th!