I’m packing up to drive back down all the waaaaay down to my city of (permanent-ish) residence tomorrow. I am one with the I-5.

It’s kind of a bummer that I didn’t make it up to Vancouver (though there was some excellent playtime on Mt. Ranier this weekend) or down to–oh, I forget where. But I’m very close to having done all of the 5, certainly almost all of it that’s in the US. I think ultimately I’d like to have better Impressive Things to my name, though. As much as I love my car, well–road trips are fun when you’re on the way TO somewhere and have lots of time to stop places and hang out and take long lunches in tiny pockets of cultural randomness. But the going-back-because-you-have-stuff-to-do is more like, driving as means business. There are a lot of bad escapist novels in my iPod now, plus some liturgy stuff I need to learn, plus whatever other nine gazillion albums have wound up in there that I never listen to because I’m always hitting that one playlist over and over again. I plan to make good time. Tomorrow is going to be many many hours of driving. I’ll have like 18 to do overall, more if my brother is in fact in town and I detour to visit. Thankfully I’ll do Shabbos at a friend’s on the way, because 18 all together in a row is too many hours of driving a car. A new semester starts a week from tomorrow. *blink*

Now there is laundry and packing. Later there will be a trip to the grocery for provisions, and then tomorrow early I will be back on the road. Today I should also buy my plane ticket(s) for my High Holy Day gigs (I’ll get reimbursed). I just made travel arrangements for a different gig at the end of October on the East Coast. There may be even more travel in my slightly later future, still working on that–could be cool, but even more quality time with my suitcase. This rock and roll lifestyle….

In related news, I have a new hobby: throwing things away. My default state for years and years has been, “oh, I might find some use for that.” And half the time the old t-shirt then gets made into a headband and the pants get turned into legwarmers, or whatever. But the time has arrived. I just threw out most of my tapes (!!), which had been living in my car for who knows how long. But the time has come. I saved a couple of mixes from high school or early college that might still be entertaining (my car has a tapedeck but no CD player) but many of the great greats of my era–Sonic Youth, The Replacements, Bob Mould, the Specials, random old Chicago local punk that I loved once–it’s gone. Trash can. I’m not going to save it for posterity, I’m not going to assume I might listen to it again. I have a bunch of stuff on disc and if there’s anything else that I find I’m desperately craving, I can go track it down. Though frankly, I’ve got a little too much crappy Israeli pop going on now to really worry about whatever happened to Screeching Weasel or Prophets of Rage. And when I get back to SoCa–ooh, I can’t wait. My clothes closet is going DOWN. I’m a clothes-swapper from way back, and the propensity to just take something vaguely cute that a friend is giving away, because it’s there and it’s free, even if it’s not 100% my style or fits me kind of funny is too great, and I’ve accumulated wayyy too much useless junk. A year of living relatively light has been a good reality check–if I haven’t worn the velvet dress I inherited in 1999 up ’till now, why would I start today? If I have a need for red carpet gear, I’m sure I’ll be able to acquire something adequate in time.

I cannot wait to go back to my apartment, though. My real, big-girl, settled-into apartment. Will be interesting to see what state it’s in post-subletters and post-family-of-a-friend-in-town-visiting being there.

I just like the idea of getting to be unpacked, at least for a little while.