Have I mentioned that I’m never moving again once we get settled in the new house? One of the only universally positive things I can say about my thirteen years in San Francisco is that I never had to move during that time.

Anyhow, Sunday is the big day. I can’t really say that I’m looking forward to it. We have to get the U-Haul truck, load it in Charlotte (which will be no small task given the layout of this apartment building), drive to Winston and unload it, and then (assuming we live through it and have time) go to Greensboro and pick up some more stuff from my parents.

Still, it can’t suck any more than last year’s cross-country move did, except for the fact that we’ll have to load and unload on the same day this time around. It’s a pretty safe bet, at least, that we won’t get stuck in a small town in Texas this move.

Updates may not be forthcoming for the next couple of days.

Today’s addition to the “stupidity reigns in American retailing” pile involves department store chain Boscov’s being sued for religious discrimination by two Christians, two Wiccans and a pagan after canceling religion classes it had planned to teach.

Why on earth would a department store chain have any interest whatsoever in teaching any sort of religion class? Legal implications aside, what the heck does it have to do with selling merchandise?

Since there has been some speculation that the second coming may occur today, I’ve decided to do my part to make certain that it does, at least for me. Therefore, I will be making a point of masturbating twice today, thus facilitating my own second coming. I may even go for a third.

I urge you to join me.

Even if not necessarily in person.

Interestingly enough — and despite all the time I’ve spent packing and moving lately — I’ve written several new rants in the past few days. I just haven’t posted any of them yet. Two of the pieces don’t feel quite “ready”, while the third may be just a bit more personal than I really want it to be. They’re pretty good, though. I’ll keep you posted.

The move is coming along very nicely, and by next Sunday, we’ll no longer be spending much time here in rapidly-ghettoizing east Charlotte. For those who care, we actually live in southeast Charlotte, but since the whole city is set at a 45° angle to reality, we have to pretend we live due east in order for the street names to work correctly. This is very frustrating to Geography majors, by the way.

Other frustrations and irritations du jour:

• Summer, with its attendant increases in temperature and number of children who must be kicked out of the way in all public places.
• The most useless new comic strip of the year, which (like another recent winner loser) seems to have suddenly appeared in every newspaper in America all at once for no good reason.
• People who go to great lengths to pass me on the freeway, and then don’t do so, but instead cruise along in my blind spot for the next ten miles moving at exactly the same rate of speed as me.
• Sundays, when all of those people seem to hanging out on I-85 around Salisbury.
• Knowing that I have a great house 70 miles away, yet having to continue living in a rapidly ghettoizing and increasingly noisy apartment complex for another week.

Sorry. It was a pretty lackluster list. I’ll try to do better next time.

It was a year ago today that we escaped San Francisco. I’ve never once questioned my decision to leave, and I’ve never pondered moving back, not even for a second. I love my boy, I love our new home, and I’m pretty happy with life in general, despite some pretty major bumps in the past few months.

I’d started a longer essay the subject of this one-year anniversary, but it was showing signs of deteriorating into yet another tirade against San Francisco, and I really don’t need to do another one of those. Yes, I was miserable and despised the place my last few years there, and yes, I felt that no matter how hard we worked, our situation was never really going to improve as long as we remained. Ultimately, though, I did have a number of enjoyable years in San Francisco. It’s just that my needs changed over the years, and San Francisco no longer met them. So I left. I’m quite happy where I am now.

In fact, all you really need to do is compare the photo above, from 2005, with the one below, from tonight. Even our boxes are neater and tidier and more organized now that we’ve left San Francisco.

It’s hard to believe a whole year has passed since the escape, though. It seems like we just moved into this place, and now I’m packing everything again. A decade or two down the road, I think this past year will seem vaguely surreal in retrospect, like an extended stay at some strange motel in the twilight zone. When I was driving through Winston-Salem last night after dinner, though, it just felt like I’d finally landed in the right place after many, many years.