Fraters Libertas

Life At Balsawood Begins

Moving. What a colossal pain. I absolutely love the end result but I loathe the process. It always starts with the painful surveying stage. This began for me on a day so far removed from the actual moving date that mail was still arriving with the little yellow address correction labels from my previous moving experience. This stage entails standing amidst all of your accumulated stuff, letting go with a big exasperated sigh once the enormity of the task ahead sets in and then pouring a drink and forgetting about it for the evening.

After that bottle of gin is gone comes the purging stage. That's when you comb through your stuff and separate the items that are deemed move-worthy from those that are just dead weight. When one's future roommate will soon be referred to as "the wife", this involves some careful consideration. Some items are easy. Pictures of any and all ex-girlfriends...trash them. Better yet, hire a courier to pick them up and deliver them directly to the core of the sun. The argument slated for sometime in 2006 when they are discovered in the corner of the basement closet is therefore successfully averted.

Some items, however, are not so clear-cut. These require clever planning and strategic boxing techniques. Since the lovely Atomizerette does actually read this site on occasion, I will refrain from giving specific examples. Suffice it to say, the argument slated for September of this year, when the first of these items is discovered, is still very much in play. Needless to say, I am prepared.

Next come the utterly mundane stages of packing, loading, transporting, and unloading all that stuff. Nothing good or witty can be said about these actions. They are necessary. They are ugly. Best of all for me, they are done.

After the bottles of gin necessary to accomplish those stages are empty comes the unpacking stage and that is where you, gentle reader, have found me today. The lovely Atomizerette and I have spent the last two days transforming someone else's house into our new home. This process had me, among countless other tasks, feeding my inner obsessive-compulsive demons yesterday morning by carefully placing my 300 plus CDs into their racks in strict alphabetical order. So strict, I might add, that despite my strong desire to file my Elvis discs under "E" for Elvis where my heart feels they belong, I felt compelled to file them under "P" for Presley.

When the time came to combine the lovely Atomizerette's CD collection with mine, I was struck by a curious juxtaposition. As it happens, the immutable laws of the modern Roman alphabet dictates that my copy of Rapeman's "Two Nuns And A Pack Mule" sits next to her copy of country boy-band Rascal Flatts' sophomore effort "Melt". The only thing that these two bands have in common, aside from the fact that the members of each are all biped humanoids, is that both bands are trios. In fact, our two CD collections have very little in common. Tim McGraw is now next to The Melvins. Faith Hill is pressed up against The Hives (and the boys never looked happier).

Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking my wife-to-be's taste in music. It just has occurred to me that the melding of our two collections represents the first in what I imagine will be a long series of eye-opening revelations, some good and some bad, that will present themselves now that our two solo acts have become a permanent duet...and I can't wait to see what comes next.

And so, life now begins in the not-quite palatial suburban estate we lovingly call...Balsawood.