today was the big offensive push in moving most of my stuff over to cambridge. out of all the people, it was my sister who helped me move. with her landrover suv and my parents' ford explorer, i was able to transfer a large portion of my stuff. all my clothes, a lot of my books, my computer, my television, i moved it all.
after my sister helped me move, she went back to belmont. jeanne un paid me a surprise visit with her man friend paul. they were out seeing some open houses, and decided to drop by. it was totally unexpected, i don't even think i told her that i moved, let alone my actual address, but she said she'd been following my progress on the web, and was able to gather enough information to track me down. after they left, my father showed up to install the blinds in the master bedroom, while i was busy taking off tape.
i went with my parents and sister to our family friend fan susu's house in needham for dinner and to fix their broken imac. dinner consumed, computer fixed, we watched some home videos he shot on a recent trip to taiwan/china. his two sons were busy running around the house. i looked at their pet turtles in a nearly waterless tank. i briefly played ping pong with my father in their basement, suddenly remembering one of my summers in taipei living with my godparents and how i taught the "godkids" to write chinese words like "kill" on the back of their paddles to intimidate the other kids in their ping pong summer camp.
after dinner, my father helped me haul another two large boxful of books to my place in cambridge. since he was already there, he decided to put up the blinds in my living room as well.
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after he left, i pulled out the mattress chair and spread it open on the living room floor, admiring the blinds. funny how privacy can really make a place feel like home. i also moved my desktop computer into the living room and hooked everything up. i spent the rest of the night surfing the web and watching television, getting use to the new channels. i was thirsty, i had some orange juice, i was hungry, i had some ramen. i finally removed all the blue tape from the living room walls (now all that's left are the floors, aiy!). instead of sleeping in the guest bedroom, where the bed was already made, i grabbed a blanket and just slept on the living room floor. i was around 5am when i finally fell asleep. during the night there were periods of cold and warm, an idiosyncrasy of the cycles of forced air heating.