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I'm thinking the phases of moving to a new state go something like this:

1. Excitement

Fucking A, everybody! I'm moving to Charlotte, I'm moving to Charlotte, I'm moving to Charlotte!!! It's going to be better, I can feel it. Our rent will be cheaper, our place will be better, the temperatures will be warmer, and at least five times a year I'm going to look down and swear that my dick is bigger!

(And it's already pretty damn big.)

((Hear that, ladies?))

Honestly, who wouldn't get excited at the prospect of moving to a new place? Well, unless the new place was Detroit. It's no mistake that many moving companies have 3 or 4 locations and one just always seems to be Michigan.

(That's because lots of people move out of Michigan. Now try to follow along, OK?)

People move out of Michigan in a pulsating way. Waves of exodus due to the economy, the economy, or the blacks.

Hahahaha, I'm just kidding.

It's the A-rabs.

Damn, I'm slaying me tonight.

(It's really just the economy and weather.)

Actually, Michigan can be downright awesome for like, 3 months a year. Unless you like really cold snowy weather where the snow never accumulates and the ice on the roads destroys your car. Then it's awesome for almost the whole entire year!

2. Worry

Am I going to be accepted in the land of uneducated, accent of the stupid, put on some goddamn deoderant, why do you still speak like a dipshit when all the programs you watch have people who speak normally NASCAR fans?

(Aww, I'm just kidding NASCAR fans. I know you don't know any better. I shouldn't make fun of you. )

Will moving to a new place disrupt the many things I've been working on while residing in Michigan? Does North Carolina support high enough internet speeds for me to maintain my 3-monitor masturbatory routine? Will we have HGTV so I can finish my thesis that Michael Holmes from Holmes on Holmes is really just a planted agent of the female agenda to make men across the world start wearing overalls again as an emasculating tool meant to undermine man's rightful place as the breadwinning, master of the household? To what extent can I peep?

Really, it's going to be a big transition. Worry is a big part. Part 2, actually. Of the phases.

3. Confidence

I'm certainly going to find a fantastic deal on movers because I've got mad google skillz (See 2003's Shemale on Midget mpeg success rate) and I've got nothing to worry about, right? I mean, there are deals to be had and the economy sucks and I think it was just a new moon which has something to do with karma and I haven't made fun of retards or anything for weeks so this has gotta happen, right?

Actually, yeah. You'll find a good deal in this stage. It just isn't always the type of deal you think it would be. We quickly went from possibly paying for movers a certain weekend to moving ourselves a weekend earlier because of a good deal. That's quite a big difference when you get down to it. Sure, we were going to be packing boxes anyways, so moving them onto a truck shouldn't be that bad. But guess what, douchebag? It's totally that bad.

4. Insanity

As the shitload of boxes you acquired run out and you've got many awkward sized things yet to box you quickly realize that it's a goatfuck of epic proportions. You've packed things that you now know you should have left out for your last few days. Five times a day you shoot to attention with out of the blue half-brained ideas on where to find boxes, or how to save money on the rental truck, or how witty wall posts on your ex-girlfriend's facebook page each day might result in a recreation of that one time in the courtyard of that Key West bed and breakfast where any animals up that early were simultaneously blushing and nodding their heads in approval.

5. Excitement

In the end it comes full circle as you realize all the stress and insanity fades with each filled box and utility confirmed. With some loading, a drive, and some unloading, it becomes clear that it's just a tiny fraction of a fraction of madness for what will certainly be a fantastic new phase in your life.

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Despite the bad press it gets, there are many things that are good about this place I've called home for the past year. There are people with similar thinking, with vision to make things better, despite living in one of the finest examples of what can go wrong in a city built on hard work and patriotism, but failing to keep up with the competition from other countries and their technology. Buying "US made" is promoted on more bumper stickers than I can count in a day, despite the local government being a continual letdown, and politicians facing criminal charges and jail sentences on a regular basis. Still, people continue to find the silver lining, to see the beauty despite the destruction, and who truly love this place. People turning abandoned lots into community gardens, seeing neglected houses and hospitals as a sort of anthropological art to be captured in stunning imagery, and grass roots movements to make changes in a landscape of almost overwhelming depression.

As a couple, my man and I are an anomaly, because we are over 30 and neither married nor parents. In the New York area, this is completely average, if not expected. Here, it is eyed with some measure of suspicion. What, they wonder, could we possible be waiting for? Don't I know that my biological clock is just hammering away in there? At the same time, it is a testament to the family values one reads about but sees so rarely where I'm from. I used to wonder why someone from a small town in middle America would leave, live somewhere like New York or LA, and then come back to settle down and raise their own families. While it may not be my ideal, I can certainly see why they do. Don't get me wrong. I'm not romanticizing things too much. There are plenty of crappy people here, like everywhere else. It's just nice to see a shift in priorities, and luckily, I've been exposed to the best examples of why people plant their roots here and don't leave.

They are what I will truly miss and my only regret about moving my man away from. Besides his family, there are people here he has known for decades. Not just passing acquaintances or Facebook friends, but people he sees all the time who have had a major role in forming who he is. They are the main characters in his stories and I hope they don't resent me too much for taking him away because I want them to stay in our lives. Besides, we are really good hosts and we enjoy visitors!

Our apartment in our soon-to-be hometown is finally locked in. I guess that's solidified things in my mind, and I'm ready to move on. I will actually look forward to coming back to visit though, and for anyone who knows me, that is a sentiment they never would have imagined from me a year ago.

Posted by Elizabeth

Moving is a bitch.

It shouldn't be so hard. You put stuff sitting around you in boxes and then either pay someone to move them or load them in a rented truck yourself. Placing things in boxes and carrying them to an open truck shouldn't be that difficult, but it is.

As much as I'd love to pay someone to do it for us, it'll be at least $400 cheaper to do it ourselves. That's money that can be used on more important things. Like food, home accessories, utilities, golf, monthly ivanafukalot.com dues. These things aren't cheap and every little bit counts. So that, along with all the other costs of moving, leave us doing it ourselves.

U-Haul can suck it, I mean, they are priced higher than both Penske and Budget no matter where you go or what date you select and they're so goddamn proud of their lower loading ramps as if people's only complaint is that they wish the grade were 5% lower as they wrestle all the heavy, awkward shit they never wanted in the first place up a narrow-ass ramp and god forbid you just throw in a fucking hand truck to help out, I mean, it isn't as if you're getting a THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS for that old ass truck with shitty brakes maybe you offset the death defying trip I'll be taking through the mountains with a few motherfucking furniture pads on the house and if Budget really wants to charge me an extra hundred dollars to rent a truck from their lot of 900 hundred trucks a whopping 3 days later than their "deal" expires I may go apeshit on someone because I may not know the difference between "18yo" and "Teen" porn categories but I do know that those trucks aren't going anywhere you foreign dipshit I ALREADY LOOKED ON THE INTERNET SO WHEN I ACTUALLY SHOW UP TO SPEAK WITH YOU IN PERSON MAYBE YOU COULD DO MORE FOR ME THAN OPEN UP YOUR OWN WEBSITE AND DO WHAT I ALREADY FUCKING DID ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING TO ME because the trucks aren't going anywhere and maybe you'd like some business instead of just sitting on your ass on a lot full of unused trucks or I have a better idea yet, maybe you can get as aggressive as the moving companies that call me ten times a goddamn week to offer me "up to 74% off the price of other movers" yet all the goddamn companies are charging the same inflated, ridiculous price to move my shit like I'm just going to be a jackass and say OK mister mover guy, please come to my house and rape me of my dollars at your leisure because if my couch weighs 400 pounds I'll be a goddamn monkey's uncle and I know goddamn well you can tell me if you can beat a price of another company without coming out to do your own estimate because I know how many cubic feet I have and how much it's estimated to weight and the girth units and virtual landscape it takes up and I know that EVERY GODDAMN ONE OF YOU USES THE WEIGHT AND CUBIC FEET TO DETERMINE THE PRICE SO IF YOU CAN'T COMPETE WITH THE PRICE I GIVE YOU ON THE PHONE LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE ON A SUNDAY for chritsake that's the lord's day and I use it for masturbating angrily into my least favorite socks while sobbing over my high school yearbook messages from friends that wrote to me that we'd be in touch forever and yet I've never received one phone call or letter or even the lamest of all things which is the facebook wall posting wishing me a happy birthday and once the sobbing resides and the socks are in the wash I usually sit alone for awhile on my 400 pound couch dreaming of scenarios where someone actually utilizes common sense and looks out for others, says "thank you" and "sorry", parks like a normal person, drives like a sane person, and comes over to help me pack a truck with all my worldly possessions.

Seriously, though.

Time to pay a visit to IOweYouOnesBurg. This truck isn't going to pack itself.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's the lord's day. I've some personal stuff to attend to.

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