Thursday, January 30, 2020

help me piece it all together darling

After a surprising turn of events that involved shenanigans and secret ballots, I'm now in a new rental house in Carlsbad, which is approximately ten minutes south of the house in Oceanside. The morning started off not so great - I had gotten about five hours of sleep when the construction site next door went into full production at seven a.m., including a machine that was compacting the sand/dirt so forcefully that our whole house was vibrating (and filled with noise) for over an hour. This was a v. unwelcome development - I'd gotten my top-bunk crib cocoon into slightly better shape with the addition of blankets and I thought I was #inittowinit for the week, but the construction was becoming a real nightmare.

Of course, I didn't say anything, I just tried to doze for a couple of hours. I went upstairs when most people had left for a walk, and I made iced coffee and journaled / daydreamed on the upstairs deck while getting some sun and watching a lone surfer attack the waves. And I probably just would have grinned and bore it the whole week...

...but then opportunity presented itself when Barbara got back from the walk and had talked to the rental company, who offered to move us to a different house. This house is split, so we have to go outside to go between units - but they're on top of each other in the same building, so it's not much of a hardship. I initially didn't want to have to pack stuff up, but I ended up deeply in the #wrexit (writer exit) camp after looking at the floorplans and also thinking that the construction could get worse.

So the twelve of us talked it over, and there was a lot of 'I'm fine with anything', so we ended up doing a secret ballot. It was closer than expected (7 to 5 in favor of #wrexit), but we went with the majority. We stuck around the old house all afternoon (which proved the perils of construction - I think they were on lunch break when we voted, but it was noisy off and on all afternoon), but then executed a fairly quick move of our luggage + the contents of the kitchen around five p.m.

I think it was the right move - the common spaces are smaller, but the rooms are better and no one has a bunk bed. Also, there is no construction, and we are still right on the water. So tonight was fairly relaxing - we ordered pizza, hung out, and several of us ended up in the hot but. Then, Anne, V and I came back to our unit - the slightly shady thing I did was carve us out of the normal "everyone chooses in order" room process and suggest that we take the three rooms in the lower unit since we get up way later than everyone else and are often bothered by the kitchen (which is true). But it was v. nice to hang out with them late-ish into the night, and Jules and Christie joined us as well, so that was super fun.

But now I need to sleep if I have any hope of writing tomorrow - goodnight!

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