This is it: my last entry from Newbury Street. If I let myself think about that, I'll get paralyzed and sit here all night writing and rewriting the first paragraph, stuttering like a CD skipping, trying to create some melodramatic analogy to changing phases of life and maybe a cosmic tie-in with the death of Douglas Adams, who helped me survive my teenage years and taught me always to know where my towel is.

The move is Thursday, but on Risa's excellent (please god don't let this be a bad idea) suggestion, I'm moving my gear to the new place tomorrow. I won't let the movers move my computers. I'm trusting them with all of my belongings, including my beloved and irreplaceable tree (last loaded, first unloaded), but I'm moving my gear myself. My mother doesn't understand it, but Risa does. My gear, man.

Moving the computers will also make sure that I won't be online the night before the move. The theory is that I'll get more sleep, but I think I'll still be packing. If there's one thing I've learned from this, it's that I've got way too much stuff. Way too much stuff.

I had that breakdown I knew was coming. Maybe several of them. One of the first things I did today was drop a lightbulb, which imploded. I was tense and edgy as it was; doing something that stupid pissed me off. I swept up the glass and muttered a lot of profanity and realized, not without some amusement, that I sounded exactly like my father when he's exasperated.

"Maybe that's the bad thing," my mother offered as I swept. "You said that something bad always happens when you move. Maybe that's it and it gets better from here." I should be so lucky.

We ran some errands, then stopped by the new place to pick up the keys and get a general plan of where to put the furniture. This is where things started to slide for me. First there was the smell, which my mother identified as natural gas from the stove. I grew up with electric burners. I don't know from gas. I do know it blows up. It scares the hell out of me.

After that, there was the painful realization that my furniture will not fit neatly or easily into the new apartment, save a few pieces. Much speculation and measuring ensued. I still don't know how it's going to work. Stay tuned.

And then there was the general condition of the apartment, which wasn't clean with fresh paint as I'd been told. Not unliveable, but not very clean. The super said that the walls had indeed been painted, but none of the wood; the doors and baseboards are scuffed and dirty. I can't begin to understand how anyone can rationalize that. Cheap bastards. I later put in a very stern call to the management company's answering machine explaining that this was unacceptable. Stay tuned.

When we finally got back home, my current home, my home until Thursday, I looked around at how neatly everything fits in here and had my little meltdown. It wasn't very dramatic as nervous breakdowns go, just tears and whining about how I wanted to stay here. But then it was over, and we had Chinese food and watched Almost Famous and I eased up again. And now I'm falling asleep. I do have one last thing to say.

I've done enough puff pieces on this beautiful apartment of mine for you to know how much I love it. But when Risa spent the day here with me last week, she felt dizzy and unwell after a few hours. We later found out that the shop downstairs was having its floors refinished, so we must have been slightly poisoned by the polyurethane fumes. But Risa pointed out tonight that the constant low-level fumes from the chemicals in the salon below might have been making me sick for years.

I've heard stranger theories. And I'm known to be chemically sensitive. It's an interesting idea. I'm cautiously optimistic.

And with that, Radio Free Swerve is over and out.