There are quite a few things to talk about, aren’t there? How long as it been, oh Jux? I’ve been busy, of course; I always am.

I could write for pages about how Travis and I pulled a 34 (36?) hour day two weeks ago replacing some Cisco switches; our Project with a capital P is finally completed. The new phone system is in. The last piece is done. It feels good.

I could write about how I lost a book of stamps worth about $18 and can’t find the damn thing anywhere. It should be in the drawer where I left it…unless I stuck them in with my Christmas cards. Then it’s in Jasper. I think that’s likely.

I could write all about the house I just bought, in a post full of pictures, and all the work I’ve done on it and all the fun I’ve had doing said work. And I will, oh I will, believe me. I can’t wait to be out of this apartment.

Out of this apartment, though…there’s a rub, isn’t there? I moved in here in July of 2006. Lives can change so much in three years. My trajectory through life has been deflected a few times since then. On Tuesday I will officially live in my own house, and it will be the fourth ‘home’ I’ve ever known.

Packing up your life always has a way of stirring up the detritus from the bottom of the tank, though, doesn’t it? Those little things you put aside in some corner and didn’t touch for years. Now it’s time to move, time to leave, and you have to deal with it somehow. Throw it away? Catalog it? Treasure it? Hard to determine, isn’t it?

I’m a historian. I don’t throw anything away.

I have boxes of memories. Things that were important, very important, and maintain a small token of that importance as they traverse time. Relics of lost times, lost places, lost people. My box has the pipe of a man I never even met, a watch that I wore for over 10 years, a collection of plastic aliens playing sports that I picked up while waiting in Pizza Hut with a friend who’s no longer with us…just artifacts of lost days. Places you can’t send a letter.

It would be a lie to say that this is the first time this dredging process has been done since I moved in here. But it’s the first time in awhile. And doing it, I realized I needed a new box.

And let’s not even talk about the thousands of pages of academic stuff I found that I really, really, really need to get back to…ugh.

Less introspection, more photos of the house soon, promise.