The trip details have already been written, but I’m not quite ready to post them. It’s a longer entry, and my tendency to obsessively proofread (and still miss glaring mistakes) is exhausting to even think about, let alone actually edit.

Instead of finally publishing the trip or, I don’t know, watching the presidential or vice presidential debates, I’ve been unpacking. I managed to sell and/or donate almost everything I needed to, except I still need to post a coffee table to the Craigslist free section and Graham has to do the same with his futon frame. Oh, and someone’s got to take the mountain of cardboard to the recycling place, because we don’t have alleys or dumpsters in Seattle and no one has picked up any of the recycling bins out front. It’s bad enough that we have to keep bikes and patio furniture on the small porch; our neighbors might be fine leaving a whole bunch of furniture and other white trash shit out in the yard, but I’m not. I don’t even care that we can’t be seen from the street. Get this garbage out of and away from here.

In other things I still have to do, the thank you mixes for the CD project have to be created, burned/uploaded, and sent to/shared with everyone who contributed. And it’s a lot of music. I was kind of overwhelmed by the response, and by the thoughtfulness of some of the mixes I received. In addition to choosing “best of” selections while listening, I tried keeping mental notes of category winners, most of which I’ve already forgotten. For which I think I should be forgiven, because when it comes down to remembering the Most Cat Soothing Mix or driving safely down a mountain, I think I’ll choose the mountain.

Ugh, those mountains. While I know that mountains are awesome to some people (like Graham, who exclaims “MOUNTAINS!” every time we see them in the distance while driving through Seattle) and that they are indeed awesome and beautiful pieces of nature, for someone who is afraid of heights – and I mean fully, legitimately, phobia-level afraid – mountains are not all that great. Especially when you’re a flatlander by nature, especially especially when you’re following a moving van full of your stuff and the person you love down 6% grades with 90 degree turns at the bottom. Even when I wasn’t quaking my way across some new pass, lookout, or gorge (all terrifying), I knew I was up higher than I should have been, and that scared me.

Dave called during one point of the trip, and after talking for a few minutes, I explained that I had to go because I’d just rounded a bend to see some Mount Doom kind of bullshit just loom right the fuck up in front of me, and that just thinking about going up and then down that fucking thing made me want to throw up. Graham told me that driving through the West made him feel like a giant who could tear through the even more gigantic landscape. On the other hand, the West made me feel very insignificant and small, and the vastness of it was oppressive to the point that I was scared I’d be crushed by it.

I’m basically afraid of everything that’s not inside of my own house, but at least I no longer have to be afraid of being unemployed. I was extended an offer today for a position that I kind of knew I would get from the beginning – I don’t know how I know, but when I do, I always get it – and so went in there and interviewed my ass off. It’s not the library (although I interviewed/tested there earlier today and you guys have got to see the Central branch of the Seattle Public Library ohmygod it’s the most beautiful), but it pays more than I thought I could get and it’s not all the way out in the middle of fucking Fangorn or some other ancient crazy nature shit.

Which is something, considering I’m already afraid of everything.