BrockLi Soup

Friends in DC: I’m moving. Again.

Our lease here at Brockstone Manor will be up at the end of May, and Jym and Mel (understandably) want a place of their own, and I can’t afford the place on my own, so we’re all heading out. My new place is up near Mt. Vernon Square - I found a guy on Craigslist that was looking for a roomate.

The problem is the moving bit, particularly the way the scheduling worked out. I’m going to be packing up a truck here on Sunday the 27th - I’ve got the freight elevator 5-8pm. I’ve got the elevator at the new place until noon on Monday - which is, unfortunately, Memorial Day. This all worked out a lot better last time, when I did it all in one day before the holiday, but things got a little screwy this time around.

So, I’m imploring you, dear friends, for a little help. I’m planning on selling off some crap, I’m getting rid of some furniture, and I’ll be taking smaller stuff over on Saturday, but I’m looking for a few people to help load up Sunday evening and a few to help unload Monday morning. I know that moving the morning of a holiday Monday totally sucks, but please please please consider giving me a hand for a couple hours. Folks that pitch in will be compensated somehow - I’m not how, yet, since the usual beer-and-pizza deal doesn’t make much sense at noon on a Monday. A Memorial Day BBQ/Moving Extravaganza would be great, but the new place doesn’t have any grills. But, we DO have the old place until later in the week, so maybe we could move stuff to the new place, have a quick shower, then go back to the old place to BBQ and make friends with everyone else who’s doing a Memorial Day BBQ (of course, there won’t be any furniture or dishes left in the apartment, but we’ll be down on the patio anyway).

Anyone who’d be willing to help out, please drop me a note, and let me know how you feel about the beer ‘n pizza vs. afternoon BBQ issue. Thanks!

This afternoon I found a poster tube that had been stuck in a closet when we moved (and probably the last time I moved, too). I was hoping to find a couple posters I had back at RIT, but I guess they got tossed when I was moving out.

What I DID find was some drawings from Casey and Natalie from about two years ago. Casey gave me a “botched” print of this frog she drew two summers ago, and I’ve also got a sketch of me that she did for the CSH yearbook the year before that. That same summer, Natalie drew me three “quit smoking” signs that were hung in my room during another failed attempt to quit (even though they were very inspiring).

I looked into frames for them all today at Target, but it turns out those are a little pricier than I thought. For the time being, I just got one for the froggy (which you can see here). I feel really bad for leaving these all rolled up in a poster tube, because I love them all. I’m just glad I found them before they got lost in the next move, so I could do something with them. I’ll be picking more frames after my next paycheck, and I’ll post more pictures when I get them all up.

It is currently 79F in my apartment. To the best of my knowledge, our heat has never been on, and the door to the balcony is flung wide. What the hell, November?

So, we’ve only been living here at Brockstone Manor for a little less than six months. As such, it’s no surprise that we have nothing in the way of decorations (except for that thong on the dining room chandelier) and there are still a few unpacked boxes kicking around.

However! My brother was made aware of our dire situation, and for my birthday, sent me the classiest of Guinness posters. Tonight, it was framed and hung, and now, Brockstone Manor is truly a classy, swinging bachelor pad. It made such a difference that we’ve started discussing house plants.

Click on the picture to see just how awesome we are.

Our place has been a flophouse lately. Matt stayed here for a few days when he broke his car (again), and then for a couple days after. Sharon has been here since Sunday, and since Jym was off most of the week, they hung out and went to art galleries and such. BP showed up last night, and Rhubarb is here for the night. Toss in the other four people that were here this evening, and it gets kinda crowded.

It’s like living in the dorms again, except with more room and we don’t have to hide our beer.

Now that we’ve been in the new place for almost a week, I’m finally settled in enough to post about it.

The long and short is that it’s totally bitchin.

This place is orders of magnitude above my last place. The living room and bedrooms are huge, the balcony is great, and the location really couldn’t be better. There are still a few lingering boxes of crap lying around, but aside from that, we’ve got all our stuff put away, and we almost need to buy a bigger entertainment center for our combined collection of electronics.

It’s been a busy week, but people have been here visiting a lot and a bunch of us went and played paintball all day yesterday. This week should quiet down, and we’ll start falling into our groove. FN met us at the paintball place yesterday to pick up my car (with, as it turned out, Fotios’ wallet in it), so I’m car-less again.

This is going to be good. We’ve already got plans for a poker game and some house guests. The couch isn’t on the balcony anymore, but we’re talking about replacing it. It will be a good summer.