Solo Homeowning - Sixty Days In

​On Friday, June 28, 2024, I spent my first night at my new home, and as I type this, in my guest bedroom/office, on the desk I built myself, I’m mostly moved in.
 
For me, the “setting up the new area” is the fun part.  I had a tough time getting motivated to put in my bedsheets after spending most of the day working with the movers, but hey, I had to sleep somewhere, right?  The Internet installers weren’t scheduled to come in until the next morning, so I spent the night horizontal on the couch, watching a DVD of Jimi Hendrix’s Woodstock performance on my laptop.
 
Once the Internet was installed, I upgraded to watching The Wonder Years reboot on Netflix.  And when I found a power strip, a DVD of Brooklyn’s Finest.  The next few days were spent unpacking boxes and some rudimentary exploring of the area.  This included my first major grocery shop, getting gas, a Dunkin’ run, a few trips to Ace Hardware for a power drill and Velcro strips, returning of an old modem to Xfinity, and giving an old set of baseball cards to a kid.
 
I thought it would be jarring to suddenly travel to Boston in the midst of all this work, but it proved to be a nice break.  I got to see Bella, Joan, Elyakim, Karen, Elizabeth, Donna, Kate, Geoff, Ketaki, and a bunch of my fellow Singles Studies scholars/writers/activists.  The trip could have been marred by that power outage in New Haven, which kept me from boarding the Amtrak, but since Chester was staying with his Mom in New York, I ended up cancelling the train trip and hopping a bus to the Big Apple.  That Sunday was well-spent with Chester, especially the many naps I took throughout the day.  I hadn’t realized how exhausting that solo move really is.  Then add the trip to it.
 
Now, to showcase my lack of handiness:
 
1 – I did put together a nice writer’s desk for my office.  It said “We recommend two people for assembly.” Yeah, my left buttock! 
2 – I shouldn’t have gotten so cocky.  I bought some towel hooks for my door, which came with screws and drill bits.  Unfortunately, I just couldn’t make any kind of hole in the door, which messed with the paint some.  So I tried to mount it on with Velcro, which didn’t hold it on and just messed the paint up.  Next, I bought hooks with Velcro.  They didn’t work, and messed the paint up even more.  So I called a TaskRabbit.  Lesson learned.
 
At any rate, my game of Box Jenga (as Christina put it) ended in my storage space, as I got rid of most of the boxes, unpacked most of my items, and just left some things I don’t necessarily need but just can’t read it of (some jackets containing CDs) in my storage space.
 
And I got “welcomed” by an act of G-d.  On Tuesday, July 16, at about 9 a.m., I was writing in my office when I heard a vibrating thud from the master bedroom.  What’d I mess up this time? I said.  When I walked in, I saw a huge tree branch sticking through my ceiling.  It had come through the roof and knocked out a blade on my ceiling fan.  Fortunately, the on-site handypeople patched the roof up, and the condo agreed to replace my fan and drywall/paint the ceiling.  As I type, we’re waiting on the fan.  So I have a nice hole in the ceiling where that fan blade used to be.  Funny enough, I didn’t go completely ballistic.  My reaction was a muted, Oh, shit.
 
I’m just glad I’m only responsible for the inside; if I had a traditional family and lived in a single-family home, I’d have had to call a roofer, and in transit, possibly move the bed and my nice area rug.  Then, I’d have to put a bucket on the floor to catch any rain, as we had some remarkable thunderstorms last night.
 
I love my condo life.