That's My Bix!

So, here’s what Las Vegas summer is like — blowing hot wind, like standing in front of a hair dryer, or an oven door just opened, a wooof of hot air that just keeps coming — and it never not ever cools down. 330+ days of sunshine, months and months without a rain drop, occasional wind storms that blow dust and Valley fever fungus and every piece of trash out of open garbage cans (some of which flip open because of said hot wind). You can look 300 feet up in the sky and think there are birds circling but then realize it’s a collection of garbage, plastic grocery bags and newspapers and receipts pretending to be seagulls. And have I mentioned the plants or wildlife that wants to sting or destroy you? And first degree burns if you stupidly touch something metal in the afternoon?

TL;DR version: Hot blowing garbage, also scorpions.

Despite all of the easy reasons to hate Vegas, I’m going to really miss it. I’m going to miss taking the dogs out at 2 am and not worrying about putting on something to stave off a chill because it will feel like crawling back under the covers. I’m going to miss flowers in January. I’m going to miss iced coffee and bare legs in November. I’m going to miss drinking with writers on patios in February — huddled around the outdoor heaters but still relatively comfortable. I’m going to miss the indescribably amazing smell of the desert after it rains, and the way that plants that looked beige or disappeared 99% of the time suddenly bloom forth with scarlets and blues and bright neon pinks the second they get a drink. I’m going to miss taco trucks and picanha trucks and arepa trucks. I’m going to miss the pastrami. And the people. I’m going to miss that there’s an actual authentic literary community here. I’m going to miss seeing someone at parties who looks like that one famous writer and it’s actually that one famous writer. I’m going to miss not worrying about wearing makeup to go to the store because no one judges you. I’m going to miss being relaxed about sweat — because it just means your body is working to cool you off. And I’m really going to miss my friends. I’m going to miss our ridiculous adventures. I’m going to miss the delight of going to a bar downtown, where none of us lives, and having each of them randomly walk in, unplanned, because despite being a city of over 2 million, it’s really a series of small concentric circles, thousands of tiny social townships that move through a larger geographical area. It is so many psychological small towns, nestled together and intertwined, but very much unique and distinct.

So.

We found a house.

I used my secret super power and wrote a letter and it worked. It always works — whenever I deploy this emotion missile during home buying, it works. We got our minions in the house about six hours after it went on the market, and then drafted up an offer that evening. Three days later, we went up against six other buyers but the letter is powerful. They had no chance against the siren call of the letter.

The house is somewhat of a midcentury wreck — still too much money, to be honest, definitely not a deal by any stretch — but it has fantastic bones and hits many of our requirements neatly. I don’t love it with all of my heart like I did our last house, but I’m awfully fond of it. It’s a bit weird projecting your feelings on something you’ve only seen through pictures — I imagine we’ll feel differently once we get into the house. And if my affection shifts, well, we can always buy another house.

So now we’re in boxes, as they say in Animal Crossing. I’ve packed up my entire office and much of the master bath and guest room and a whole lot of the kitchen stuff. I’m reluctant to pack the artwork because there’s something really awful about an echo-y house in my brain, but they are next on the list.

We’ve gone round and round on how to manage the move in a pandemic, and at the end of the day, the thing that makes the most sense is to hire one of those moving box things, load it up, and then Esteban and I will drive with the dogs across the country, pulling our bug jalopy on a trailer. The cat will be fetched by my brother-in-law Eric and flown back in the cabin to make life easier on her and reduce our anxiety of losing a cat during a road trip. We will arrive probably days before our belongings show up, and will likely spend that time unloading/moving our storage units there, and doing general “oh, we have a new house” tasks.

To compound the general chaos, I’ve been assigned three classes to teach this fall — two sections of the same 101 course, and then a lit class I’ve never taught before. Then I was assigned a fourth — a section of 102, which meant a third prep — and then they took it away and gave me a third second of the same 101 class, which means I’m back to just two preps again. Since they are all remote courses, and I’m an old hat at teaching online at this point (it’s what I used to do as a part-time adjunct before I decided to get my PhD), I’m not fretting too much, although I do worry that I’ll repeat myself or get lost in the thread and miss telling one of those sections something really important because I’ve got pandemic brain (as do we all).

But until then, one task at a time, the next thing and then the next thing after that. That’s all we can do. That’s all any of us can do.