Packing for the Last Time

In five days we'll be in Vestal, New York.

We got a POD instead of doing a UHaul, and the guy just left with it.

I hope nothing's destroyed, but that's the thing about just being married: You usually don't have the best stuff. Therefore, it's not hard to replace something like a lamp.

That said, I'm not looking forward to doing this again (yes, I know: Who is?), most likely in a year. We're married. I'll have at least three years left at Binghamton University after this year, so it may be time to get some equity. We're thinking a condo instead of a house. That would be easy to do in Richmond, but we haven't researched it yet in New York.

It's just so easy these days to become complacent and pay rent, especially when you keep gathering and more and more stuff fills your apartment. So I understand. That's why, in our apartment that we'll be living in together in five days, I still don't feel the need to replace a lot of the stuff we're taking with us.

We have money and gift cards from the wedding, but shouldn't that really be used for necessity? AKA: future nicer furniture for a condo living room instead of the hand-me-downs, and things like that.

Plus we have to get acclimated to much within the next year.

As always, we'll see.

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I'm cleaning out the desk that we got from a friend a few years ago. The thing is massive. We're either going to take a sledgehammer to it or try to get someone to saw it into a bunch of pieces so we can get it in the trashcans. It's way too heavy to deal with and travel with.

I usually keep my rejections and acceptances in a pile, however, and it was interesting to see those places who haven't taken poems but have been encouraging. It's good to make that "Remember to send here in the fall" list.

Also, I decided I'm going to be a little bit more judicious in my journals I submit too. There are places that have rejected me, sans any semblance of ink, for years now, sometimes in the double digit range. Not a big deal, of course, but these are all snail-mailed submissions. A 44-cent stamp and usually around $1 to send the submission is around $1.50. Multiply it by ten over the last four years or so, and that's $15 I could've had in my pocket.

Right: I didn't know that would happen. Sometimes it takes once to send to a place to get an acceptance. Sometimes it takes six. Sometimes it takes sixteen.

But I'd rather spend the money, at this point, on past ink: encouraging editors, the "send again" or even "thanks for trying us" notes. And I found many of those I'd forgotten about. No guarantees, but it'll make me feel better to send to places where I have a more legitimate shot. Hopefully.

There's nothing like workshops and being back around writers and taking classes and whatnot that makes me want to start sending out work again. Maybe that's weird, but it's how it works.

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Got an acceptance from Portland Review the other day, but the two poems they wanted were accepted by two different journals months ago.

I felt bad at first because apparently the email address I was using for them, when I let them know the poems were taken, was an old address. So clearly they didn't get the email.

That said, they took almost nine months to get back to me. It's fine, don't get me wrong, but that's maybe the second-longest acceptance response time I've ever had, so that seems to diminish your chances of publishing someone's poems the longer you wait.

I'll be sending again in the fall, though, and this time they have an online submissions system in the works I believe.

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Also funny was another rejection from Controlled Burn.

They took two days to get back to me, and I noticed that the normal "Dear Writer" response that I've always received from them was not only in bold, but it was in maybe 18-point font. It seemed like it was on purpose. And I laughed more than I was taken aback, as that's the first time I think an editor has seemingly hated my work so much.

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Back to cleaning out the desk. Soon enough I'm going to compiled my What I'll Miss About Richmond / What I Won't Miss in Richmond list.

Should be fun.

Knot City

I'm getting married tomorrow.

We leave for our honeymoon on Monday.

Back later in the month.

Another First Book Interview will be posted then.

Moving preparation.

New York bound around August 15th.

More near August...

Vestal

After driving to New York and looking for apartments, I drove back to my hometown of Greenville in Western PA. It hasn't been as stressful as I originally thought it would.

I stayed with my sister-in-law's sister's boyfriend, who was a completely gracious host. Otherwise the trip would've consisted with me staying at some hotel for a few days. That would've been fine in the long run, but if I haven't said it before, I'm pretty much the world's worst when it comes to directions.

Luckily Mark was a trooper and ended up coming with me to all my appointments. We really liked a few that weren't necessarily out of our budget, but places that we weren't super excited to pay that much for, for at least 12 months, since hopefully we'll be looking for something like a condo or house after a year's over and we figure out exactly where we want to live.

But on a whim, our last stop, which I hadn't even originally planned on looking at, everything seemed to fall into place. Balcony. Second floor. Five minutes from Binghamton University. Dishwasher. Way cheaper than what we pay now in Richmond. Two bedrooms with two full bathrooms. The biggest thing, however, is heat's included. That'll also save us a ton of cash in the long run.

It's an older building, so not everything is modernized and renovated, but it's also utilizes space better than our apartment right now in Richmond. All-in-all, it was the place I immediately loved the most, and everyone usually says "You'll know when you see it" when you go apartment hunting.

The application is filled out, so I just need to call the woman who showed us around and get the ball rolling with deposits, having her get in touch with my current landlord, move-in dates, etc.

I'm not getting more excited than I thought I would when this whole process began last week.

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Also, the drive back from Vestal was only about four hours and fifty minutes, versus the seven hours it takes me to get either to Jess's place or my own when coming home. Two hours may not seem like a lot, but when you've been driving seven hours to and seven hours from, five really feels like about three.

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And yes, I need to mention that apparently I'll be surrounded by New York Giants fans. That thrills me to no end. Hopefully I'll be spending Sundays watching them in HD on our new TV, which I've been wanting forever but have agreed to wait for until we get married.

But should bars happen (and of course every once in a while they will to watch the game), I predict myself making fast friends. No more being surrounded by Redskins fans.

Plus they should be on pretty much every week. On cable I mean. Glorious.

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The only city I didn't really drive into, funnily enough, was actually Binghamton. BU is in Vestal, and we also looked at apartments in Johnson City and Endicott. And yet there was still plenty to do. I don't need to live in Chicago or New York City to be happy like some folks. Smaller towns are perfectly fine with me, and the plus side is in this shit economy, you'll always be saving money in the smaller places.

But when we move hopefully around mid-August, I'm sure Jess and I will be exploring the city a bit more. Plus I didn't really go to BU, which I'm also looking forward to checking out once we're up there, moved in, and settled.

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And Jess and I will be getting married in exactly one week.

This year flew by.