Well, the move went smoothly, and friends in L.A. and here in the East SF Bay worked like mules to get us loaded and unloaded. I feel lousy that I don’t have pix to post. My friend Ken Mitchroney posted a ton on Facebook, and as I am not a Facebook member I don’t have links and such. But to everyone who helped, my deepest gratitude.
Maureen drove up with the birds a day ahead of me. My friend Adrian and I slept in the empty L.A. house and took the truck up early next morning. The drive up the 5 is usually one long snore through the San Joaquin Valley, an unvarying straightaway bordered by bland brown hills. But the entire west coast had been deluged throughout the previous week, and the hills were emerald green all the way up.
Maureen and I lived in a fairly small place in L.A., with literally half our stuff in the garage waiting for when we lived in a bigger & better joint. The old house must have been some kind of clown car, because we not only filled the biggest U-Haul truck available, I had to rent a trailer at the last minute to accommodate what wouldn’t fit in. The new house had seemed unfillably huge before we moved in, and yet we’ve filled it up to a surprising extent. I can’t believe we’ve had this much in storage. And now I get to open boxes and actually use things I haven’t even seen in two years. O Bliss.
My first order of business whenever I move is to set up my office. I’m sure there’s some pissing-in-corners territorial monkey emotional security aspect to this, but it’s also a matter of practicality: If I wanna stay in the house, I better get to working in it asap. So the new writing desk is set up and the audio desk is set up on the other side of the room, and I’m going through the lengthy process of dialing in the room acoustics (my first mix here was a friggin joke; thank god no one will ever hear it) and then sorting piles of files and gear and crap.
I’ve already turned in new Groovelectric and Podrunner mixes, and am cranking away at the stories that are due in (ulp) two weeks.
Our third night here I was awakened by a weird noise. I realized it was an owl in the back yard. The next night it was the same owl (he’s here every night) and coyotes in the hills behind us. And it brought home what a big change this move really is for us. A week before that what woke me up was, I am not kidding, six helicopters hovering over our house, aiming tv cameras and police spotlights about a block over, and a voice on a chopper PA saying Put down your weapons and come out with your hands up. You have one minute. So it ain’t like I’m gonna complain about being awakened by hooty owls.
I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to Making Stuff in a place that is conducive to it, and I can’t wait to see what kind of effect it has on my work.
Amen.
And all of the places just waiting to be discovered all around now, too!
Sounds like a great excuse for a dinner at the Nantucket or the Dead Fish sometime. Heck you can even see them, well almost, in the sunset view of Crockett across the way…
Seafood — ewwww. Among my admittedly many quirks is an aversion to eating anything that swims in its own pee or possess a chitinous exoskeleton.
Well, the Dead Fish has Other Dead Things on the menu – http://www.thedeadfish.com/pdf/tdfmenu.pdf
Same for the Nantucket!
Hey steve glad to hear everything went smooth with the move. We miss you down here. Oh my wife and i are taking a trip up to cambria next sunday, its going to be weird going to Hearst castle and picturing scenes from Elegy. Can’t wait for number 3.
Andrew
Hi, Andrew, it’s great to hear from you! I miss you guys, too — I didn’t realize howmuch a part of my day it really was to head down to that coffee shop to get some work done.
Re Hearst Castle, I admit that one of my secret aims with concrete detail and accuracy of place in my fantasy works is to leave my fingerprints all over real-world places when they’re visited by someone who’s read my stuff. My friend Ken Mitchroney has been going by the Del Mar racetrack and environs every day for the last year, and he says all he can’t help picturing scenes from ELEGY BEACH. To which I say hee hee.