  Hello from my beautiful new Oakland home! :-) You probably guessed that I finally set my new desk up and hooked up my computer. (Don't tell the guys who live upstairs, but Mel and I are piggybacking [stealing] their wireless Internet. Shhh! [That just means money I would've spent on Internet will now go to digital cable, ha! ]) All I did was plug in my wireless USB adapter and VOILA! , I'm online. WAH! So here's an update to tide you over til I finish unpacking, etc... Mel told me before I moved in that there's a youngster (undergrad at Berkeley) who lives above us (his room is above mine) who used to give her and her old roommate problems. He'd play bass and drums loud, play his music loud, have loud sex... He hasn't been a problem for a while, because Mel and Barbara (her old roomie) would go upstairs and knock on the door and complain.
But Mel and I ran into him the other day on our way out (to Target for some shopping) and she was like, "Oh, Brian, I want you to meet Audrey. She just moved in with me. " She said how she thinks we should all sit down and come up with some common courtesy rules about noise control. I agree. I'm going back to school (I have two weeks of freedom left! ) and I'm not trying to be all gangster and walking my ass upstairs to curse that fucker out because I can't study. But the loud sex thing? I'm not tripping off that. I've had roommates with skanky One Minute Man boyfriends--I've heard rhythm-less bed-banging.
(Don't know what's worse, no rhythm or no stamina/endurance? ) I think Brian-Who-Lives-Upstairs is a Ten Second Brother (but he sounds like he's got a little rhythm). I heard some bad-banging at like 2 AM this morning--I mentally timed it and it seriously didn't go on for too long. In my head I was like, "BOO! I feel sorry for whoever's lying underneath you all unsatisfied right now! BOO SOME MORE! BOOOOOO! " The least he could've done was go for a second ten-second round, but he didn't.
Look at me, talking shit already about the neighbors. But it's okay. The really good loud-sex noises will be coming from my room soon (haha). Anyhow! I moved in the first wave of my things on Friday afternoon/evening. Then Mel and I headed to Ikea to do some shopping for a TV/media stand. I actually wanted to furnish my room Crate & Barrel or Pottery Barn style, just because I didn't want to get callouses from building my furniture (I really moved in with little in terms of furniture [just a desk chair, bookcase and a mattress]), but I shall have an Ikea room, too. My new furniture (dresser, bedframe, desk, chair) has cost me a little over $400. It's not so bad--I'm just not down with the raw wood look, so I need to stain/varnish my shit so it doesn't look so cheap (haha!).
Saturday I rented this crazy "luxury" minivan (is there such a thing? ) and drove solo to Bakersfield to fetch boxes out of my storage space. (It was a daylong mission. I drove down, got my shit, then drove back up. I left the Bay Area around noon and returned about 9 PM. ) When Daddy and I packed up our house so Junior (my brother) could move in, I marked about 4 boxes with the letters "SF" on them, so I could easily spot them when I went to retrieve them. Unfortunately Daddy and my uncles put some of those boxes in the far back of the storage space, behind big furniture that I'm too weak to move, so I only came back with 2 boxes (none of which had any kitchen stuff that I wanted/needed).
The trip wasn't bad at all. I rocked out to Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake the whole way down (I made sure to bring CDs that made me want to either dance or sing along so I wouldn't fall asleep. ) I ate In-N-Out at my half-way pit stop. And I visited Mama's grave. Instead of flowers, this time I brought her a turtle. I was annoyed that I had to cut my visit/talk short, though. The sprinklers were on at the cemetery, so I got caught a couple times as it went around and around. I think my mom understands why I had to cut my visit short. Before I left, I told Mama about my move and how she would like both Mel and my new home. Sunday afternoon Hatty, Mel, Adrienne and her friend (visiting from Australia) John, helped me move the very last wave of things from Pacifica to Oakland.
The biggest pain in the ass was my mattress. I had no problem transporting that shit from SF to Pacifica (shorter distance, and I had more rope to work with), but this time around it was a nightmare. We dropped Hatty off at BART in Colma, retied my mattress, stopped off at In-N-Out in Daly City, stopped at Serramonte Mall and instead reshifted boxes to squeeze my mattress into Ade's minivan, then we were on our way.
Anyhow, let me go. I need to run errands. I need to mail Jeremy his present so maybe it will arrive in Philly in time for his bday, and (EEK! ) rush Hatty on a flyer design so I can get Hyphen flyers made for the AAJA Unity Conference for Todd and Ursula in DC this whole week/end. I need to get my shit in order for the Hyphen meeting Thursday. Ugh! 
