So it looks like San Jose is a go!

Tentative date is end of July. Two cons and a cross country move in two months. My internal narrator sounds like the end of a particularly odd serial cliffhanger–“CAN Ursula do it? WILL she survive the deadly press of packing materials? HOW will she manage? WILL she crack under the strain and come to believe she is a small chicken?”

Still, on one level, this is the easiest cross-country move I’ll have done–Carlota will be doing the location scouting, and hopefully the apartment acquisition, which is a big ‘ol mountain of stress that I won’t have to climb. We’re talking about taking a fairly leisurely two weeks to cross the country, spending some time with her family in Alabama, and some time with mine in Arizona. So all I have to do is make sure all the various titles are signed over to the appropriate parties vis a vis James and I, start the divorce paperwork (I have no idea how long that’s gonna take to go through, but people do divorces from other states all the time, so that shouldn’t be a problem if it runs long, particularly since we’re on good, if emotionally awkward, terms still.)

And pack, of course.

God, I hate packing. I hate packing with a hatred so pure that it is approaching a religious experience. Two hours with boxes and I start to dream about being a mendicant monk with nothing but sandals, a robe, and a begging bowl.  The Anxiety Creature that lives in my chest, that sharp-nailed little beast, loves packing. Packing is its milieu. (Well, that and taxes.)*

Still, I can manage. I’ve done this before. I’ll pull all the books James has been graciously storing and sell/donate the lot of ’em. My art book collection could use a cull. I’ll go through the mountain of art supplies and pull the ones I don’t need or can reacquire with great ease. In some ways, this is easier since I moved out of the house–if I haven’t missed an art supply since February, I probably don’t need it, and it can go away.

(Remind me, and I may be offering an art book giveaway here–I’ll put up a list, and if people want to cover book rate shipping, I have lots of art books that I never use and would as soon send off to readers than to the store.)

We’d be flying the cats. Ben hates his carrier, get bladder infections under stress, and has accidents when upset, which is not somehing I wish to subject him, me, or the good people at Holiday Inn to for two weeks running. (He’s got one right now, which James is handling very graciously–had to authorize a urine culture long distance so that they can make sure they get it if it’s a reoccurance. Poor Ben! Poor wallet!)  So I figure eight hours worth of stress is gonna be a lot less traumatic than two weeks of misery for the big lug.

I can do this. I can do this.

I just have to keep telling myself that, and maybe I’ll believe it.

*Student loan paperwork was the thing that made it happiest. Thank god THAT’S over with…