Run in circles, scream and shout!

[chipotle]

The friend I'm moving in with at the end of the month just said, "Chipotle, you might want to consider factoring in your plans that if you do make it to California, moving your stuff out by around the end of the year. These proposed Lucent layoffs are pretty significant. I am probably still sure of a job lasting until December, but after that... there's a fair chance they might try to eliminate or move this office. And if they slash 1/3 of the staff and still expect us to make deadlines, I'm probably out of there anyways."

Does this mean I should just hang out here? Or does it mean I should head out to California as soon as possible with the hope that I'll be employed--or at least able to finance the transportation of all my stuff--by December? Which, after I move out of here, will only be three months away.

On the surface, moving and hoping I can have my stuff follow fairly quickly sounds like quite a gamble, but I'm pretty confident I can swing it somehow even without a real income. Conversely, f I stay and my friend does indeed abruptly change not only jobs but houses or even towns, that could leave me with quite a dilemma. Moving my stuff in with my mother--an idea I'd floated with her earlier--doesn't seem to be much of an option.

I'm generally pretty agnostic when it comes to "signs from the fates," but circumstances really are lining up to push me out west, aren't they?

I think the questions now just relate to timing. The last four months of the year are packed with holidays and birthdays and leaving at any point during them will create a certain level of added angst. I've written before that I'm on great terms with my mother and she was on great terms with hers; we've actually never spent a Christmas apart, and I can only recall one Thanksgiving we were apart. With her mother dead and the ex-husband she's remained good friends with having moved away a month ago, that only leaves her live-in girlfriend as "family." I'm not worried about how I'll handle the holidays apart from her as much as worried about how she'll handle them.

But, even knowing that, I suspect I'm going to be on the road sometime during October or November, the timing really dependent only on the as-yet-mythical position in Largo.

Now, I have to go find a couple positions to apply for to keep those unemployment warrants a-comin' in. Logically, I guess I should be applying for ones in the SF Bay Area.

Comments

[chastmastr.livejournal.com]

I'd make sure your stuff will be safe -- maybe you could just have it put in a storage unit and bypass the friend's back room altogether? If he loses his job and is dealing with his own stuff as abruptly as that, dealing with your own things may be an extra burden for him...

Possibly even have it come with you and go into a storage unit out in California. It might be more expensive in some ways but on the other hand it might save a lot of trouble, hassle and worry -- coordinating moving things which are really important to you from 3000 miles away can be nerve-wracking. You could be there and make sure it's all OK from time to time. This is what I did when I moved to the DC area and it worked really well for me.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

I've thought about this before, but I'm not sure I honestly like either thought. If I have the stuff stored out here, retrieving it becomes awfully problematic, unless it's actually stored by the moving company. And, moving my stuff with me will actually be almost as expensive--or possibly even more expensive, based on a few quotes I've asked for--as having a moving company do it, simply because I'm going to end up with so little in the way of furniture. Basically I'm keeping the bed, bureau, computer desk (no chair!), CD rack and my grandmother's baker's table (partially for sentimental reasons and partially because it's darn cool). I may keep an entertainment center and a couple torchiere lamps, too. In other words, this isn't quite even a studio apartment's worth of stuff.

If this all comes together, I'll determine what I'm going to do with the stuff here once I get out there. If it all goes into storage there, so be it. But if things work out I'll be a housemate at Tugrik's place rather than a houseguest, so I'll actually want most of my stuff there as soon as I can swing it, anyway. (I gather he has a room set up as a presumably-furnitured guest room that I'd be moving into, so as of yet I'm not sure what the logistics of this will be--but I'll worry about the logistics of the first move first).

At any rate, I don't have an option not to move in with Kim for a little bit regardless, other than staying with my mother. I'm out of this place in two weeks like it or not and I have a follow-up appointment with the dermatologist, and follow-up surgery (yay), on October 2nd, which means I'm probably here through mid-October even if the position in Largo doesn't happen--and if it does happen, obviously, that's another reason I should be sticking around a little bit.

[chastmastr.livejournal.com]

Well -- I guess I'm thinking that if you leave your stuff with Kim -- and the worst happens for him -- it might leave both of you up a creek, and be a frustrating hardship for him to deal with your stuff and his...

By the way, my own suggestion re torchieres, unless they're a better kind than the ones I've bought (i.e., $20-$30 at Target), is that moving them cross-country is not worth the trouble -- the delicate bulb especially. I think it would have cost me more to move them than to buy new ones, so I did so when I got my apartment.

Of course, you could still move to DC. ;) (joke!) The storage place I used was quite affordable...

Does Tugrik have any suggestions?

Hugs

David

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

Well, the torchieres are probably coming with me to Kim's, at the least. These aren't the ones with the fragile halogen bulbs--they have three lamps in them that take normal lightbulbs. If things work out the way I'm expecting, the movers can take 'em along and if they break, they break.

I don't think things are going to collapse for Kim immediately, and realistically, he's not in the kind of situation that I'm in with respect to finances. Not bailing on my apartment would mean a slow burn through my meager savings. Kim is making a phenomenal amount of money currently, owns his house rather than rents, and probably has a reasonable savings cushion built up. Since he does own the house, the "bailing in two months" tack that I'm taking isn't an option for him, and he has even more motivation than I do to see if he can manage to stay in the area (and in that house).

And, if I had to, I could give him some money to just ferry my stuff into storage, but more likely I'd just arrange for the move right then. If things don't go horribly awry, he's not going to have to spend undue effort worrying about my stuff regardless--it'll just be occupying space until somebody comes to pick it up.

If I had my druthers at this point, I'd just move all my boxes in with my mother and head out from there, but I don't think she has the space, sadly. I know that if push came to shove she'd make space, but it'd make things more complicated for her. And, of course, if I get the seemingly mythical contract position in Largo, commuting from my mother's place would be absolutely hellacious--90 minutes one way if traffic was good.