Unauthoritative Pronouncements

Unlike Reel 2 Real, I do not like to move it, move it. I moved a lot when I was a kid and I hate everything about it. I’m generally a pretty anxious person so telling me I have to go through everything I own and squeeze it into a smaller space, or get rid of it isn’t going to relax me.

Jason and I have been together for nearly 16 years. In 2020 we each ditched our one bed, one bath apartments and moved into a large single-family home. It certainly had pros and cons, and one of those pros was that there was ample square footage to store things. I did eliminate almost all of my 2005 furniture (microfiber isn’t quite the fabric of the future that they made it out to be at the time,) but I did retain most of my other possessions. They were boxed up and then most of them were never unpacked. When we moved again this month, it made it pretty easy to determine what things I didn’t really need. However, that didn’t mean that everything was going in the trash or being donated.

I did keep some things, and those things went into a small storage unit. I don’t want to maintain a gargantuan storage unit full of junk. I’m not running a museum for retail decisions I made 20 years ago. I also didn’t want to part with every sentimental thing that I would otherwise like to have in a larger home, assuming that happens again.

This meant unpacking boxes from nearly five years ago, and sifting through them with a more discerning eye than I had originally. All the while I was working 10 hour days on a project. Do not recommend.

Strangely enough, The Verge has a whole slew of articles about moving that they published the week I moved. I have absolutely no idea why they did that, but it didn’t help me in the slightest. Even when I was lying in bed at 4 AM unable to sleep, the posts weren’t what I was looking for.

I couldn’t exclusively listen to tech podcasts, read about tech, and follow social media about tech. There’s not a lot of great news happening in the world of tech at the moment! In my search for good vibes I went back to something that I had used to calm my nerves back in 2020: Total Party Kill.

Ironically, I had stopped listening to TPK because I fell far behind in 2020 and couldn’t figure out the last episode I had listened to due to mixing back and forth between the edited releases and the bootleg recordings which are nowhere near each other in terms of sync. I was a little less concerned about hearing funny puns too many times. I needed puns, stat! I needed to hear someone say, “44” and for Steve Lutz to say, “4 d4!”

Oh, also I guess my “tech angle” for this post is that just like the other items you own, you should also inventory the gadgets and gizmos because you don’t need aplenty. I had whos-its and whats-its galore. The new place was smaller, and had different lighting requirements, so the smart bulbs were retired. The old smart switches that worked — iHome switches, which were discontinued — were dumped and now everything is an Eve switch. There’s only one Apple TV acting as the Home Hub.

Hilariously, Apple makes it very annoying to remove devices in the Home app. Especially grouped devices — like if you have a lamp that takes two smart bulbs. You must ungroup the devices, then edit each individually to remove them. As a matter of cosmic history it has always been easier to destroy than to create — unless it’s in the Home app.

So that’s my big moving advice. Listen to something funny because the rest of the process is grueling and you need to replenish those endorphins so you don’t crumple to the ground. Throw out and donate what you can, but don’t keep something because you feel guilty about it, or you might still be able to use that discontinued smart device. You’ll continue to roll through life collecting more junk.