Light for the new year

Let’s start out 2016 with manifestations of light in morning glory. These were some of the last photos I took in the Valley They Call Silicon.

Dawn refracting against clouds in the West:

A rainbow as I went to breakfast with a friend on Christmas Eve:

And sunrise as it came to my final labyrinth walk on Christmas morning:

And rest...

It’s the last day of 2015, a year that completely wore me out.

Perhaps it’s A Sign that the battery on my pedometer died yesterday, while I was 35,000 feet above middle America, and that when I get the new one today, I reset it to Eastern Standard Time. Because in the next few days I have to figure out how to reset a lot of things in my life: recharge my physical, mental and emotional batteries; reorient myself to the Metro D.C. area; and recalibrate my thought patterns for the new job, which is different from anything I’ve done before.

Ordinarily I’d wrap up the year in a few hundred trenchant words, but to tell you the truth, I just don’t have the bandwidth for that today. I can’t wrap up the job search, the death of friends, the decision to walk off a metaphoric cliff or any of the rest of it. Instead, I’m getting a pedometer battery, and then I’m going to Wegman’s, just to look around.

After that—I don’t even know. I just know that I’m ready to ring out the year.

California, here I go

As of 0915 today (Lord willing and Virgin America for once taking off on time), I have ceased to be a resident of California. For two months I shall reside in the District They Call Columbia, within spitting distance of Congressmorons and other lowlifes, while I explore the area and decide where I’d like to live on a more permanent basis.

During this time I’ll be living out of suitcases and bin bags. For a couple of weeks, I’ll even be without a car, until mine catches up with me. That’ll make me feel terribly urban, I can tell you. And very un-Californian.

But I can use that time to find my way on foot around the city, get my feet under the desk (when my employers find me one), and generally reorient myself.

What a slice.

"We deliver for you"--NOT

More than two weeks ago I submitted the very-hard-to-get hardcopy Change of Address form to the USPS, setting 22 December as the date they should stop delivering mail to my old place and begin forwarding it to my new one in D.C.

I cleared out the mailbox on the 23^rd, and hoped that that was the end of it. But no—I went by on the 27^th to find five new pieces of mail addressed to me, which had been newly delivered after my cut-off date. Since I’m turning over the keys to the property management company today, I found this frustrating and enraging. They basically just blew off the CoA. So I had to go online and re-submit, in the tenuous hope that at least the computer system will spark some action—like, maybe, automatically pull my mail out of the delivery queue for redirection.

They make the hardcopy form hard to get (it’s not out on their counter with other forms; you have to ask one of their rude and charmless humanoid staff for it) because they clearly want you to go online to submit the change. An online form puts the data immediately into their database and saves them the labor costs of paying someone to translate the postcard details to their system. I get that.

But here’s their business model: they charge you for the privilege of saving them the work and possible data entry error. Yes—you make life easier for them, and save them a few bob, and they hit you up for $1.05.

But get this: they say they have to do this to you, for your security:

Where in the hell does that come from? How does charging you $1.05 have anything to do with security? It’s just another money-sucking scheme. (And I’m sure they hired consultants who arrived at that bizarre price point as the “sweet spot” where people would just fork it over without bitching.)

So, what I wonder is—if you don’t have Internet access, or a credit card—what are you meant to do? I guess you’re just not supposed to get mail. And if you do, you better not be moving, because you’re totally stuffed. They obviously toss out the official-but-non-revenue-generating postcard forms and do whatever they please.

Oh, but here’s the other thing: that unicorn CoA postcard doesn’t come as a single piece of paper any longer. It’s buried in a packet of “moving deals”—from Lowe’s, Best Buy and I don’t know what all. And the online form has the equivalent. Once you agree to let them suck $1.05 from your credit card, here’s the “confirmation” page:

Thanks, USPS, for being a crass, incompetent, lazy-ass organization with attitudinal staff and no discernable value proposition. Because people moving any distance really appreciate the way you put obstacles in their path and add stress to their lives. You continue to set standards for underperformance and don’t-give-a-damn customer service right here in the 21^st Century.

Gratitude Monday: Friends of the year

On this final Gratitude Monday of 2015, I’m spending the day watching as everything I own (except a couple of bin bags’ worth of clothes) is loaded onto a moving truck for storage. It’ll be there for the next two months as I explore the Metro DC area and figure out where I want to live this time around.

This has been a great and terrible year, one that’s worn me out. The best part of it has been my friends, who believed in me, encouraged me, made me laugh, listened to me rant. They sent cards, they took me to performance art, they made introductions, they offered their homes and their cars.

Basically, they got me through it.

So, as I run the mop over the plastic fake hardwood floor one last time before I turn the keys over to the property management company, let me say again: I’m deeply grateful for my friends.