April 8, 2003

“Fangirls, fanboys – some of you people out there get chastised by the fan community more than others. Yes, there is a reason. And yes, it is your fault.”
— “Bamboo Dong” from Anime News Network, in this column

The move is going well. It’s still crazy, as everything settles down into more-or-less final locations, but the last big thing should be done next Monday, at which point I’ll breathe a big sigh of relief.

Sunday’s a good example of the frustrations I’ve been feeling: In setting up my TV, VCR, and DVD player, I discovered that the VCR had died. Every time I plugged it in, it would flick on for a moment, then die (sometimes accompanied by a brief whine). The VCR was old, and I’d had trouble with it before after power outages. But this happened at 7:00 on a Sunday night, and all the electronics stores are closed by then. So, I had to wait until Monday to buy a new one and set it up. That worked, but it was One More Thing To Take Care Of.

My main problem, actually, is that all this chaos has pushed my brain into an emotionally weird state, which is keeping me awake at night. I only got about four hours of sleep Saturday night, and about six last night. I need about eight. This makes me tired and prone to mistakes during the day, which only intensifies the frustration of realizing, for example, that I can’t make stir-fry because I forgot to buy vegetable oil.

Fortunately, the only major things left to take care of are:

• My books. I’m a bibliophile, so that’s a significant ask. Fortunately, I came up wtith an idea I’m rather proud of: My Monday night small group agreed to meet at my place next Monday, and help me assemble bookcases and shelve books. That’ll be a great help.
• My framed anime cels — I’ll be hanging them in my bedroom, but there are about fifteen of them, so that’ll be a significant chore
• My desktop computer (Pendragon), which is another frustration. I put it in my bedroom on a computer desk in there, but discovered that all the outlets in that room are two-prong outlets. Surge protectors don’t like two-prong outlets. Arrrrg. I don’t know what I can do there, except run a big, ugly extension cord from the main room.

And, of course, there are all sorts of little things that I’d like to take care of. Last night, I opened up a box of all my old transformable robot toys (Transformers, Go-Bots, Voltron, and the innumerable cheap imitations), which kicked off quite a nostalgic trip through memories of playing with these things. I’m seriously tempted to photograph them and put together a section of my website devoted to them. There are all sorts of really cheesy toys here, and some impressive feats of engineering.