The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Apartment Hunter

Rob is away in Portland looking at apartments, which means I am home alone for the next week at least (since he has to find the apartment, then arrange for a flight back). Should be a perfect time to work on writing, right? But as it turns out, an upcoming cross-country move is one of those things that is so brain-destroying that it eclipses anything else you might want/need to work on. This includes not just writing but also reading, sleeping well, basic hygiene, and ironically enough, packing for the move. It's just this omnipresent thing hanging over you all the time. If moving anxiety was this bad when we moved from Pittsburgh to Baltimore, I surely do not remember it. But then, that's only 400 miles. (And I also wasn't writing then, so I can't gauge if it affected my writing or not.)

Somehow we missed this statue in September.

The thing about moving to Portland that makes it tough is that a LOT of people want to move there, and there aren't enough apartments for everyone. Supply and demand. We heard from multiple sources that the best way to get an apartment in Portland is to fly out here and walk the streets. Unfortunately, the For Rent signs weren't exactly thick on the ground in our preferred area (North Portland), and even though I knew it wouldn't work out this way, we did not secure an apartment on his first day out there. It's almost enough to make someone utter the b-word, although I'm not certain we're at that point yet.

Anyway, in publishing-if-not-writing news, the Strange Bedfellows anthology (which includes my story "The Afternoon Revolution") is available for pre-order at Amazon and elsewhere. Check it out!


P.S. Props to our friend Alex Wrekk for hosting his stay in Portland! Go buy some buttons and zines from her.