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.