Getting settled

I'm slowly getting settled in Vancouver.

Wednesday my parents came over for the day and packed all my plants (seriously, I've got a lot of plants...) and a few other things in their SUV. We also went to see 'The Hobbit', which I enjoyed a lot more than the 'LotR' trilogy (I actually fell asleep in each of those...), but that's probably because 'The Hobbit' was the first book I took from my parent's shelf when I was around 7 or 8 and read on my own. I haven't read it since, so watching the movie felt strangely nostalgic in the, "is this a memory, or is this only something I'm imagining is a memory?" kind of way.

Thursday was crazy, decompression treatments in the morning, then packing everything up and having to make tough decisions when I realized everything I wanted to take wouldn't fit in my car. All my art stuff, light table, paints, etc got left behind. I got to the ferry terminal just after 2:00pm, and the 3:00pm ferry was already full, so I ended up parked for 3 hours until the next ferry (5pm). My back/ribs didn't overly appreciate that, so I did get out a couple times to walk Eva around. By the time I got to the condo, around 8:00pm, I was too sore to bring up anything more than the pets and their food. I even had to sleep in my clothes. Good thing I had a toothbrush ;)

Friday... I walked Eva on the Seawall in the morning, and it felt like the first time in 2 months I've been able to take a clean, stress-free breath of air. Then I hung a bunch of my art... not stuff I've made, but stuff I've bought, or have been given as gifts. My parents came by around noon with their SUV full of my plants, and the three of us unloaded their vehicle, and my car. We went out for dinner, Chinese food, including my favourite: gai lan stir-fried with garlic.

Saturday, I walked Eva again, then my bro-in-law (husband's younger brother) was awesome and tagged along on a whirlwind shopping trip to IKEA, Costco & Home Depot to get the last necessities, two of which were lights for the bedroom (seriously, why do condos/houses never have a central ceiling light anymore?) and wall anchors you can hang off, since the headboard for the bed needed to be mounted to the wall. That should have been a 2 person job, an hour max, but instead it took 4.5 hours total on my own... partially since I was dead tired and kept measuring wrong, partially since it was really heavy and it took some mad-analytical-skillz to get it up with only 2 hands. Unfortunately, one of my ribs popped out, but it's not bad.

Today... I've been just taking it easy.

Cooked breakfast, and have been watching a tv show on Netflix that a friend of mine recommended as an excellent time-waster called "Alphas", kinda like "X-Men", "Mutant X", or "Heroes". I have a particular fondness for computer/nerd characters, and Gary is pretty awesome as an autistic guy who can see radio/wi-fi/etc frequencies.


With the bed set up, the art hung, and all the plants watered & fertilized, this place is starting to feel a little like home. Then again, since I've moved 10 times in 10 years (this is #10) maybe I'm just highly adaptable...

Now it's 1:57pm and I think I'm going to take Eva down to the Seawall for a long walk.



Oddly enough, I've been sleeping badly for the last week or so... okay, not so odd considering what's been going on... but the odd part is, I've been "re-writing" Brake-Fluid while in that dozy-nearly-asleep state. Like, visually imagining the words on the page and mentally striking them out and writing new words. I get stuck in that state and can't fall asleep, but I can get up, turn on the light, do other things and snap out of it, but as soon as I lay down and turn off the lights... bam... back in editing mode.

This is a normal thing while writing a first draft of a new story, but I've never experienced it for editing.

Too bad my dyslexic-brain doesn't include a photographic memory, but I could probably re-create about 60-75% if I was awake enough to concentrate.

I'm hoping the walk, and maybe a second walk later this afternoon, will tire me out enough that I can crash.