I'm packing things. Many, many things. Things that I didn't even know that I possessed...by fortunate coincidence I have found them, in my quest to stuff the entire house into a series of duffel bags, and I have severely packed them. My mother is going to have a seizure when she sees all of this luggage. Hi mom. Come prepared to the airport. Like, bring three cars.

I have been traveling, in my own way, for many years now and I thought that I had perfected the art of packing light. Packing "organized." I calculate what I will need, put it in a suitcase, and throw in a toothbrush, some shampoo (tied in a plastic bag indeed), and my cellphone charger. That's it. No muss. No proverbial fuss. Even packing for W and I together I've managed to keep things well within the realm of sane before. One suitcase and a carry-on. Two cellphone chargers. We use the same shampoo and socks.

Interestingly, the socks fit neither of our feet. This is why they are perfect. They're an "in-between" size. As in, some unknown size that is neither a women's 8.5 nor a men's 13, but something between the two. I cannot begin to guess at the possible numerical cohort of these socks. They are an enigma. That pleases us.

Anyway, packing. I can do it, and I can do it without losing a whole bunch of crap and forcing my cellphone to die half-way through the first day of my trip. This happened a great deal when I first started packing for myself, many moons ago. I only ever packed for myself as a child when I was traveling with my father or alone...I believe that my mother would still pack my suitcase for me if she could. I sense that the Evil Packing Gnome in our family will rise up in righteous indignation at the injustice of these 6...actually, 7 pieces of luggage. When she sees them.

*sigh*

Mostly the suitcases are meant for carrying things home so that we don't have to ship them. Presents and such. Apparently people have been frantically demanding that my mother reveal to them the location of my wedding registry. She reports this smugly. The duffel bag of clothes can be condensed into 1.5 actual suitcases, and with the addition of shoes and toiletries that should round out our honeymoon load to a comfortable 2 suitcases and 2 carry-ons, plus my purse. All of this is irrelevant. The point is, I am not looking forward to getting the entire contents of my closet onto the plane without wheels. There are no wheels on a duffel bag. And that fucker is heavy.

I don't honestly know why I tell you people all this. It isn't even remotely interesting. But it is what's going on around here. That and the scratching.

The Angst seems to have subsided for the moment, but of course the execrable neediness prevails. I do not, on the eve of my departure for the Atl, feel very much like being alone. But W is at work, and Andrew is in bed, and despite my best efforts I am unable to locate the sleeping pills. So I have been up all night, packing and watching OPB specials. They've moved on to "Good Morning Yoga" now. I can't bear to watch it, yoga is just too depressing, so I've left it on in the next room while I write. Eh. After spending several hours getting chased out and off of my various pieces of luggage, Vitas has retired sulkily to her chair. I wish now that she would come sit in my lap, but I know that if she did the niceness of it would only last for a minute. I feel very restless. In the last year or so I have discovered that I don't really like transcontinental flights. Imagine that. So the prospect of flying and stopping over and flying and sitting on the tarmac for the entire day tomorrow isn't terribly appealing.

I haven't traveled very extensively for a while (and to be fair I've never really traveled "extensively" although I have been out of the country for over a month), so maybe I just need to get used to it again. But I never feel this kind of trepidation when heading up to Seattle or taking a trip to the seaside. Maybe it isn't that I am leaving my home, but where I am going. Leaving home to return home is an increasingly uncomfortable experience. Every time I go it feels stranger. And now everything is going to change. Will having a new place in the social hierarchy make trips back home more comfortable, or less?

A new place in the social hierarchy...but what is that place, exactly? I guess we'll have to see. I'll bet anything that things will stay exactly the same. Which is great, actually. Come to think of it. Same shenanigans, except now they'll include W and his family. They are a wealth of Midwestern conflict-avoidant scandalizable material.

ARGH. Now the cartoons have come on. That's too much. Excuse me.