Astoria, NY current conditions for 8:23 am, May 26 2010: Temperature: 72.3°F | Humidity: 72% | Pressure: 30.32in ( Falling) | Conditions: Clear | Wind Direction: West | Wind Speed: 0.0mph

Leonard and I are moving to a new apartment here in Astoria. It's larger and cheaper than our current place. With the help of Pat, Mirabai, Lucian, and Hal, we've given away a bit of furniture and moved most of our fragiles and personal items to the new place. Today we finish that, and tomorrow the movers move about 80 boxes and the few pieces of furniture that can't be disassembled, folded, or otherwise made wieldy enough to push on a Magna Cart and lift up the stairs. Hal got us the boxes so it looks like we have far more comics than we actually do.

I'm fairly exhausted, even though Leonard has been doing most of the physical work. As he puts it, I make the phone calls and he lifts heavy objects. I've tried to help with the latter. It's easiest before 8am: cool, low-traffic. And I've already been waking up at 5 or 6 despite myself. This does not bode well. I'd hoped to be well-rested before going to WisCon and Open Source Bridge. Perhaps I will conk out on the plane.

I only got one chance to play Once Upon a Time with friends; I'd hoped to get my game up before the panel. Somehow I predict my stories will involve packing tape.

A few links: OKCupid questions are problematic, femininity and consumer culture in style blogs and style role models, and artefacts of paid work as the substrate of open source.

Last night was the last time we'll have slept here. The mattresses lay on the floor; Pat and Leonard had taken the bedframe over already. That's some real wood right there. Leonard's grandma had that bed, and he doesn't know how old it is. Decor was long gone. We'd given away one nightstand and moved the other, so my red desklamp sat on the floor next to my head. I've had it for ... fifteen years?

This was our first apartment in New York.
It was the second place we ever lived together, and the apartment we came home to after we got married. We've had some important arguments here, and some great love-filled days.
It's where he wrote part of Ruby Cookbook and all of RESTful Web Services and "Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs," and where we created Thoughtcrime Experiments. It's where he finished "Mallory" and has written most of his novel, and it's where I wrote most of my newspaper columns.
I lived in this apartment through three jobs and a master's degree.
This apartment is where we watched Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica and University of Laughs and The Lives of Others. It's where we had Backup Thanksgiving parties with Powerpoint Karaoke. It's where Leonard met Jake Berendes for the first time.

It's the place I've lived longest in my adult life and it's hard to say goodbye.