Eyes On The Prize

As I write this, we no longer have a bed, and are surrounded by what could probably best be described as 'creative carnage'.

Yes, yes, I do appreciate that from your point of view, breaking down the bed the verys same week I got the go-ahead for the moving plan might sound like jumping the gun - especially as we're still going to be here for four and five weeks respectively (d's leaving on the 18th of December, with the moving guys - there have to be moving guys, as well as my pal Sian, because a) we have a lot of stuff accumulated after seven years together and the rest of our lifes beforehand, and b) the moving guys actually do the work for you, and I'm a lazy, clumsy-ass wuss who'd fall over his own feet and smash whatever we have in the way of priceless family heirlooms, guaranteed. I meanwhile have to work until the 23rd of December, and then get a train Home two days before Christmas. Ticket's already bought.)

But you see, here's the thing. We've been packing for a while now. Quite a while actually - certainly long before I put the work-from-Wales plan forward. We've been doing this on the principles that, a) 'something might turn up overnight,' and b) we really have a lot of stuff, crammed into what is technically a one-bedroom apartment. In the event of (a) happening, we wanted to have taken advance notice of (b), and not be caught with, say, just a month in which to pack, clean and move everything we own. This means that we've actually done quite a lot...without, in fact, it either looking or feeling like we've done very much at all. This in turn means WE HAVE NO SPACE in which to do anything more. Think of our little one-bedroom apartment as one of those sliding puzzles you used to do as a kid, and then put that little plastic ring in the slidey-space, to make the picture complete and immovable. We can't pack any more boxes because there's no more space to put any more boxes. That little plastic ring...

is the bed.

So today, we've broken down the bed, and stacked it neatly where our headboard used to be. We've double-wrapped the mattress in duvet-covers and taped them down, to protect it rom mountains and mountains of semi-prehistoric dust, which we've uncovered and sucked to a vacuumy doom. Whole ecosystems of spiderswebs that have been hidden behind bits of furniture that haven't moved in years have been rendered extinct by our callous waving of a vacuum-wand - we're pretty much a metaphor for Mankind today - carving out the world as we want it, and fuck the rest of you.

So now we have nowhere to sleep, but plenty of space for box-stacking. Haven't really started stacking them yet - have stepped out to take stock.

Wow...loooooooot of stock.

I'm guessing the next thing to do is pretty much put all the boxes from everywhere else in the flat, into the space where our lovely, soft, warm, comforting bed used to be. Oh, excuse me - incoming transmission from My Brain: WHERE THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO SLEEP TONIGHT, SCHMUCK-FACE???!!!

Ah, well, you see, we still have two couches. So anyway, as I was saying, once we've shifted all the current boxes into the bed-space, we'll be able to take everything off the remaining bookshelves and DVD units, fill a bunch more boxes, shift the bookcases into the bedroom, then up-end the couches and shove them in there too...

THEN WHERE THE HELL ARE WE GOING TO SLEEP TONIGHT, SCHMUCK-FACE???!!!

Fortunately, I bought an air mattress last weekend, and an electronic pump (not as young as I was when I used to take pride in blowing those up by lung power alone, and everybody was too frightened of shattering my fragile ego to point out they used to sag a bit at the corners)...so we'll use the air mattress as a combination couch and bed.

OH, YIPPEE!

Hey, you think this is mad, you wait till we make it down the Basement. The Basement is not what you might be thinking of when you hear the word 'Basement'. This is a door, leading to a ricketty, half-rotten wooden staircase, leading to...well, basically, a cave. No, really, a cave. The kind of thing that would come as a great optional extra if you wanted to take up caped vigilantism or serial killing. It's literally a hole, hacked out of the black, dusty earth, and we've used it for...well, pretty much everything we haven't had space for in the civilised floor on which we live. There are children's Christmas presents down there that we wrapped for kids when they were babies, who are now probably in fifth grade by now (Brits - suck it up, these were American babies!). There's the original fridge down there, that came with the apartment, and which d referred to, not unjustly, as a 'mini-fridge'. Don't think it's worked in about five years, but it's still down there. Probably home to at least three generations of rats by now too. Call me crazy, but I'm thinking The Basement might be a job for a whooooole other weekend. Right now, there's enough work cut out for both of us making sure we have absolutely nowhere comfortable to plonk either our asses or our exhausted, shattered bodies at the end of a night.

"These..." said d, as she unscrewed the last bolt that held the bed together, "are gonna be some cranky-ass weeks. You realise that, right?"

She's not wrong. Time to fix our eyes firmly on the prize, probably. Once more with feeling - more space, more time, fewer bastards, fewer bastards with knives, less nightmarish transport, better Disappearing facilities, family, friends, yadda yadda yadda...

Right. This has been quite enough stock taken. Boxes a-go-go.