In between watching movies we've already seen that inevitably play all day long most Sundays, J and I got down to some serious packing yesterday. Not the wimpy, put-a-few-kitchen-utensils-in-a-box kind of packing I'd been doing up until now. The kind of packing where, after some effort, shelves are now empty. A few shelves anyway. We are moving in a week and a half and it's funny how - from afar - I thought this time would be most notable for a certain party-ish, but organized vibe...all the beers we'd be drinking with our buddies, finishing up a few projects for work and relaxing lazily in the rocking chairs on our porch, enjoying a few last North Carolina summer evenings. I mean, we're doing some of that, but there are other memories that, I'm sure, will be etched upon my mind when I think back to this time. Like trying desperately not to trip on the stacks of CDs and precariously stacked boxes of heavy books while making my way from the couch to the refrigerator.

Mostly though, despite the glaring annoyance of having our stuff strewn all over the place and losing all drive to clean up after myself because, really, what's the point, this is an exciting time. And, of course, sad. A couple of our friends who graduated around the same time as J just recently moved away and after spending so many years hanging out in Chapel Hill together, believe me, it was hard to say goodbye.

A bunch of people have been a little confused about what the two of us are up to after we drive the U-Haul out of here, and rightfully so.

J doesn't actually start working at Yale until this winter. At first we were a little worried about this scenario, until we realized how AWESOMELY GREAT it could be. I mean, he's worked really hard for six years and when better to take some well-deserved time off than right now?

So we figured since one of our favorite places in the world is my family's house on the Bay in Shadyside, Maryland, and since, you know, that would be a rent-free place to stay for a while, we'd head up there after leaving North Carolina and live there indefinitely, until a) we buy a house in Connecticut (I've just started talking to realtors) b) I find the perfect job or c) J decides we've got to head north for the winter migration of the Two-Breasted Cliff Swallow or whatever.

At first I thought the intermediary Bay period would last a couple weeks, tops, but now I've really settled into the idea of spending as much of this fall there as we want. I've written to some newspapers in the area about freelancing. I'm looking forward to jogging along the water. And J says he's going to become a regular at the local pub, the Snug Harbor Inn.

Where, by the way, despite the fact that the place has a kind of nautical/no nonsense, serious drinking kind of feel, they have karaoke every Saturday night. And which, also, isn't actually an inn. And Budweisers cost, like, $1.50. So, stories? Yeah, we'll have stories.