Moving Blog Post #1: June 24, 2008

It’s Tuesday.  The fourth day since I started living out of a suitcase, and the second I’ve spent homeless. My “home” these last two nights has been a room at Days Inn.  I spent Sunday night over here at Chesterfield Towne Center: and Monday night near the airport on Williamsburg Road. 

I am pretty good at packing.  I traveled in a musical production for four out of the five years I was in college.  We’re talking two nights a week, every week, then a summer tour.  I can pack a suitcase.  Usually in just a short while, too.  It took maybe twenty minutes to pack for my present condition.  Most of that time was spent picking out the work shirts I would like to wear.  I do not have a large suitcase; rather, I have two small ones, each sized to put in the overhead compartment of an airliner.  I decided I would pack the cases with a week’s supply of clothes each.  I could then use the outfits in the second case while washing the contents of the first.  Simple and easy.  I even put in some lounge wear and workout shorts. 

But now after a mere four days I am awash in trouble.  I have messed up.  And the source of my problems lies in my own lack of planning.  I hate it when that happens!  My tribulations are the result of how I packed.  I took the items I would need to wear each day- socks, t-shirts, underwear, and work shirts and packed them in their own group in the suit-cases.  (In case you’re wondering, I do have pants, too. They are not in the scheme of things.) I put underwear and t-shirts on the bottom, socks in the middle, work shirts on top.  So now, when a new day begins and I need a new t-shirt, for example, I have to dig way down underneath these pristine layers of carefully smoothed-out work shirts and drag it out, potentially messing up everything else above.  It is a disaster waiting to happen, at least for a perfectionist like me.  (You can bet I’m probably just too lazy to simply lift the top layers off first.) What to do?  Maybe I will re-think the whole process and, after washing this set of clothes try a new tack.  I will place a days worth of clothes on each layer rather than separately!  Then I’ll have everything I need right there and not have to resort to digging, except in emergencies, of course.  That might be just the ticket. 

Packing in such a way takes a lot more time, so I won’t be able to brag about speed anymore.  But it might be worth it for the convenience. So what to do about the used clothes?  I’ve already got that covered.  I brought along an empty bag to put them in.