For basically the last month and a bit here, I've been living in hotels here on Guam or back in Fairfax.
Today, I have the keys to the condo. The keys themselves are high tech, I'm not even kidding. But for more than 40 days, I have been living out of luggage. I had to keep some Virginia weather work clothes, and a weekend's worth of winter wear for my trip to Chicago. Yes, that means I arrived in Guam with a big heavy winter top coat over my bags. Yes, I did get some odd looks. Yes, I probably should've planned better.
Suffice it to say that I originally thought this was going to be a cake walk. Like camping out, only with electricity, turn down service, fine dining, and cable. Tesla Pete, who came out a week later than I did, told me it was going to get old fast.
I came out here with the only other people I knew on the island being a guy at the site, the hotel bartender (it's me, guys), and our realtor. It was pretty weird. I felt kind of like Bill Murray in Lost in Translation, and no, that's not a knock on the Japanese tourists, I really felt alone, out of synch. William Gibson has a great line in Pattern Recognition where he describes jet lag as one's soul being delayed in transit, hanging back from the body via a tether, and that the sensation only ends when the soul has caught up to the body. It felt that way, like a soul lag.
So, at first, I tried to get out and do some stuff. Everybody was doing the holiday thing, and I was looking at Christmas and New Years alone. It sucked on Christmas, I'm not gonna try to put a spin on it. New Years I got out to the bars, met a few folks, took in a couple new businesses. But that disconnectedness from everyone back home, that I was literally separated not just by distance but time, that I was in 2012 and they were in 2011, that lag was still there.
At times, I forted up. I brought a bunch of DVDs with me, had hulu overheating my laptop like it was Chernobyl (yes, it's still way too soon for Fukushima reactor jokes, and I had friends there, so it may remain too soon indefinitely), and I worked on this blog a bit. I also spent a lot of time on facebook and trying to get skype to work so I could pester even more people and try to temporarily tug in the tether, as it were.
But you can only live out of a suitcase so long before you've worn everything in every combination twice. You can only watch so many reruns in a day, or reread your favorite book on the beach. Or, apparently, talk to people via social media so much (maybe someday I'll find a way to tell that particular gem of an anecdote, but today I'm leaving it at this: Friendship is founded on trust and communication, as I mentioned on here sometime before, I think.), and then you start getting a little cabin fever.
Pete and I were driving up to get lunch today, and Pete was grousing about room service screwing up his pasta. He said he felt like he'd permanently crushed some guy's ego down in room service, and I jokingly accused him of schaffhausening the poor guy (verb: to announce and act as if one were dead to you), then went quiet while we waited for the light and then added, "You should have ordered the pasta at the Marriott. That stuff was better. Somewhat." We both looked at each other, and it was like we knew we were both thinking the same thing: I'm sick of living in a hotel.
Well, like I said, that's nearing an end. Furniture arrives Monday. We get to move in. I get my stuff back. I get a sense of home again.
We also get the vehicles on Monday, probably. So, no more rental car (another lovely anecdote there for this weekend), either.
But I caught myself thinking about my stuff and questioned if I was too materialistic, too encumbered with things, kipple as Philip K. Dick called it, stuff that just accumulates. And it got me thinking about what I chose to bring with me, and what I chose to ship. And what I discovered is this: I schlepp around some seriously weird and useless stuff.
Old letters from people I don't talk to anymore, but whose words were formative.
Copies of poems that I hack to pieces.
A small pewter angel I picked up somewhere in my travels.
A small figurine my first love gave me when we graduated high school and I presented her with a badly-written novel that I am now re-writing.
None of this stuff has any practical use. It's not like I need to re-read the letters or re-revise the poems. The angel and figurine could easily be lost and should have been packed away and shipped for safe keeping. But I brought them with.
What we carry, our freight, as John Berger once called it, is what defines us. And it applies to figurative baggage as much as to the literal.
Something to dwell on a bit, and maybe I'll return to this in the near future. Right now, I have someone else's baggage clogging up my thought processes, however, and I don't want to try to avoid that and continue down this path, as I'll be tempted to clear my throat and go Old Testament.
Instead, let me say this: it will be good to finally start making the condo into home. To be able to come home. Even if home is now a place I never thought I'd ever be.
Met an interesting couple of locals last night. Saw a light on under Ball Scratchers (a pool hall, I kid you not, located downstairs from a strip club called, I kid you not, the G Spot) and it looked like a bar, so I rolled in. Bartender, a lady at the counter, and a guy playing guitar. Turns out the bartender, who I guess we'll call Waif, and her mom, the lady at the bar, own the joint. I asked for a Sierra Nevada, and Waif asked me if I wanted the Torpedo. I knew I'd found a good place.
I stayed for two beers, and Waif, her mother, and I exchanged stories. Got to know a bit more about Guam. Got invited to join some yoga and hash run stuff. Pretty awesome.
Tonight, I'm grabbing these keys and taking in the skyline from the condo. Yeah, it's silly--the place is empty, and I'm gonna be living there--but there's something about a place before it's got stuff in it that I want to experience, then see and feel the difference Monday night, when all our stuff's been brought in, we're situated, and the moment where you realize you're in a place where you live settles in.
But, hey, I'm a writer. This shit doesn't work without a title, right?
So, I'm taking suggestions. Either post them as comments below, or suggest them over on facebook. I have jokingly called it Argon Pacific and Pete's Home for Wayward Strippers a few times, but those aren't really rolling off the tongue. Winner gets kudos in the form of everyone else thinking their idea was better, and most likely a thank you from me. Probably via facebook. So, uh, yeah. And stuff.
Disclaimer: Void where prohibited. Not safe for children, small animals, or color fabrics. As with all Josh Gharst products, ingredients are highly combustible, and should be treated with full protective equipment. Contestant winner is not entitled to Tesla Pete's jacuzzi unless otherwise informed, but may possibly receive sauna privileges. Please recycle. It's my island.
Additionally, what are some of the not-useful things you take with you on your journeys or when moving, and refuse, forget, or just never manage to pack away? We can dwell on my figurative baggage later, let's talk about what doesn't go in the luggage rack, but what stays with us.
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