Big, gorgeous loft apartment: mine! But I can't have it. Not yet, anyway. There's too much going on. I have a guest for a week, and then E's older brother is in town for a week, and then I'm going away for a long weekend, and I've got so much work to do and so there is no time for packing and no time for moving. And I am going to need a lot of help with this move, as it is up many stairs and my arms are noodle-like. Lots of offers of help, but no way to coordinate everyone. I still have an entire house to pack.

I'm pinning all my hopes and every single one of my dreams on next week. Next week is when things get better. Next week is when I will be happy and my hair will be healthy and shiny and my teeth flossed and my meals balanced and my house packed within a matter of mere hours. It will fly by, the next week, on wings of productivity, and that weekend I will close my eyes for the first time in my new apartment, on my nice bed, with all my things surrounding me in boxes, and be terrified to sleep because it is so creepy and not be able to sleep anyway because I have so much to unpack, oh man oh man.

In the meantime, I take incremental steps toward that nirvana. Yesterday, I took some quality time out of my day to call up various utilities providers to get my services switched over. Gas and electric were easy; I was on the phone with the Internet people for nearly an hour, and every time there was a lull in the conversation, the customer service representative started asking me personal questions, and seemed very intrigued by my statement that I do not have children--even at my advanced age!--and no, I don't know if I am going to have them. Stop talking about my uterus and give me Internet, woman. I am a spiky ball of stressful impulses, and I may take your eye.

Still, I experienced a sense of accomplishment, for 15 seconds, once I hung up the phone. In an effort to keep piling those on, I have been visiting furniture websites and quietly daydreaming about couches and media centers and prints and rugs, and making decisions about my fantasy lifestyle--which will include a bar and a breakfront and candles and chandeliers--is very satisfying, but the only thing I am accomplishing is instilling myself with a sense of longing that will remain unfulfilled, because I have extremely expensive tastes. It will be the thrift stores for me, where you find the most magnificent things, around here; but I can't go now, because I don't have time, and even if I did have time, I couldn't buy anything because I have no way to haul it back, and if I had to go and find The World's Most Perfect Chair and then leave it behind, I might expire from all the unfairness.

It is not unfair: I've got a great new apartment, and I am busy because I've got a lot of work and that is what helps pay for the apartment, for a couch and a television stand and kibble for the cat and my protein bar habit. I am impatient, as always, wanting things to start now, now, now, yesterday, three weeks ago, why aren't I already perfectly settled and getting a little bored, even? It is something to look forward to. That's the mindset I've got to settle myself into. It will happen soon enough. Though sooner would be nice.