Home on the Range

Lest all of my readers give up on me completely . . . I'm here. I moved into my new home on Sunday.

I stand in the kitchen typing on my laptop, which is perched on the box containing the range, which hasn't been installed because the vent hood hasn't arrived yet, and the phone jack on the kitchen wall is the only one I can use since the jack in the bedroom was painted over (and I mean the jack itself, not just the cover plate), just as almost everything in the entire place was painted over in the slapdash presale paint job inflicted upon it, which is what I've spent most of the last two weeks remedying when I wasn't packing or teaching or working or shoveling snow or hanging on hold with Verizon.

It feels good to be here. It's a complete mess. I'm exhausted. Last night I used an ice-cream scoop to eat my first meal of microwaved Stouffer's macaroni and cheese with broccoli because I'd left my utensils at the old apartment, which I still haven't finished cleaning and clearing out.

But there's one thing I know: For the first time ever, my home is as permanent as I want it to be.