The majority of my books are packed up now–a few more still to go, requiring that I get more boxes. I even ditched a bookcase yesterday. Which is ultimately a good and neccessary thing.

Unfortunately, it’s affecting my mood–the resulting hole in my apartment feels like a missing visual tooth, which at the same time there is still so MUCH to pack that the thought is grueling. It’s just enough to be unsettling without having changed the environment enough to be a whole new visual space. (I could change it that much, but that would require living out of boxes for three weeks, which is another kind of depressing.)

Discouraged by this, and with my comfort reading all in boxes, I do what I generally do in times of melancholy and called my buddy Alan, one of my oldest and dearest friends, who knows all of my most extravagant failings and still likes me anyway.  He can usually cheer me up, although perhaps not in the way that normal people would.

Ursula: “Actually, I’m doing pretty well. If I could just shake the nagging fear that no one will ever love me again, I’d do fine.”

Alan: “Uh…yeah, see, that’s just the human condition. You pretty much keep that one ’till you die.”

Ursula: “OH! Well, shit, then I’m doing great! Cool!”

So that cheered me up. Unfortunately, this morning, the hole in my apartment was still there, so I went out for my usual two-mile slog around the lake, whereupon my iPod began crooning “…goin’ to California…with an achin’…in my heart…” and I stopped in my tracks and said “OH DEAR GOD, I’ve become a Zepplin song.”

And really, you gotta laugh.

Screw it, I’m packing up except for the Barong, basic art supplies, the computer station, and some dishes. It’s better to have the whole feeling changed than to have a hole in the space you know.