Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Adieu, Centralia! (Part 1)

Right now, my computer is packed away in a box.

And yet, I am still posting.

How is this miracle possible?

OooOOOOooo...

I don't know, but I'm sure there's a ghost involved.

Or maybe a high-tech space virus that hacks into the intersphere* and spews gibberish onto the Internet.

Or lots of tiny blue men with green hair and that smell like cardamom, and whenever they do a dance and spin to the right, it rains, but if they spin to the left, cows give birth to cockatoos.

Or maybe it's actually July 24th when I'm typing this (moving day is still a little less than a week away) and I know how to time-travel. Yup. And if you send me a mere $50, I'll teach you how to do it, too!

I'm at the point right now in packing that I have stopped CARING about what goes in a box. There was a time when I was carefully packing things and padding them with plenty of paper, labeling the boxes with accuracy, planning which things to pack NOW and which could wait a week or 1.5 days...now, I just don't care. Grab a box and shovel in whatever happens to be close to it, whether it be garbage, clothing, kid, or cat. Who cares? I'm thinking that it's fun to kick a sealed box around until something crashes and tinkles around inside, and then I have a fun time trying to guess what I just broke 'cause the box is cleverly labeled "stuff."

Mmm-hmm.

I think that, right now, I'm a little woozy from the fumes rising off of the adhesive on the extra-strength tape...or is it from the fumes from the Sharpy markers? Or, perhaps, the boxes are poisoning the atmosphere with cardboard-derived stress. Whatever it is, I'm feeling a little unstable.

But I did want to say goodbye to this place that's been my home for the past year. While I can still type. So, here it goes:

GOOD RIDDANCE, RENTAL FROM HELL!
GOOD RIDDANCE, CAT PEE SMELL!
GOODBYE, CHEAP-ARSE LANDLORD!
GOODBYE, SPIDER SMORGASBOARD!

FAREWELL, STINKY BROKEN KITCHEN!
FAREWELL, BACKLOGGED SEPTIC SYSTEM!
I HOPE NEVER TO SEE AGAIN
A PLACE AS NASTY AS THIS HAS BEEN!

love, wynne

Here, a portrait:


Well, actually, this is a picture of the house across the street, but it basically looks like the one we were living in, except that ours is blue, and our wading pool does not have dead plants in it.

*Yeah, I have no idea what this is.

8 comments:

Mad Libs Millie said...

But are you sure you want to move?

Your mad time travel blogging skills are just amazing. It's an honor to leave a comment.

Annie Oldham said...

Oh, Wynne, I love your poems! Do you remember when we had so much fun coming up with demented (macabre is a much more literary word for it, I think) rhymes for the Wall of Terror that one year?

Anonymous said...

Hee hee! Great poem. Wishing you lots of luck and not too much broken "stuff" in your move. Oh, and watch out for paradoxes and wormholes when you time travel. Don't step on any bugs. Stuff like that.

(Still jealous that you get to move to Spokane... heh!)

Elizabeth-W said...

Sometimes when people have to leave, rather than be sad, and express true loss, they become angry, lashing out at those they're attached to, because anger seems safer than the vulnerability of showing the attachment.
Wynne, it's okay to let us know you love that place; just think of your blog as a big group therapy session. We'll all hug you through your pain of losing Centralia.

Or maybe the place is simply a pit and anyone would be glad to be gettin' gone. What do I know?

I tease because I love.

Super Happy Girl said...

EW always puts things in perspective.

Adios Centralia!
On the plus sign, you won't have to worry about yucky flooding :)
YAY!

Marie said...

Come now -- you know that you're at your blogging best when the world is out to get you. I don't exactly revel in your pain, but you do make it easy for us to laugh at it.

No, really -- I'm sorry for your stress. And I pray that the scent of Sharpies and cardboard and packing tape will fade like the pain of childbirth and leave you giddy in the glow of your new abode (that will of course have a perfectly functioning septic system -- not like an infant, of course -- don't overextend the birth/baby metaphor, or it will just get you down.)

Jean Knee said...

Oh the horror, you poor thing.

Kristine said...

Okay so I have been a huge slacker of a blogger and a friend. So I apologize now for being horrible at commenting.

I can't believe you moved. I hope the city treats you well and that you make new friends soon. Of course knowing you you probably already have a huge mob of people around you begging you to hang out with them.

We miss you. Curtis had a friend over and he called him Jake. I don't know if he really thought he was Jake (he never sees this other kid) or if it is the only boy name he remembers. We miss playing with you guys.