[moving]

For a while now, I've been talking about moving to Manhattan. At this point, it's more a question of when than whether. Bay Ridge is pleasant enough, but it's far away, and I like to have a home that people actually visit. Plus, I'm tired of the long commute, and of feeling like once I've gone out for the day, popping back home is simply too far to go if I want to go out again. And then there's school: if I go back to school, living as far away as I do now will make things all the harder.

So I'd like to move to Manhattan, preferably somewhere very close to my office, in Chelsea or the West Village. Most of my life happens around here anyway: Korean dance in K-town, swing dance near Penn Station or Times Square, work in Chelsea, socializing in the Village or the East Village, shopping in Union Square.

As for the timing, well, I guess my life is pretty full. I'm just not going to get it together by the end of January, and anyway January is a rotten time to be going around, looking at apartments. Also, I have jury duty. So that rules out February 1. March 1 would be feasible, but I'm leaving for India on March 5, and that double stress is more than I need, nor do I want to come home to the chaos of a new apartment when I'm all jet-lagged. There's pretty much no way, coming back from India on March 21, than I'll find an apartment and get packed in that final week of the month. And so it looks like May 1 is the next really good date.

May 1.

I have until then to clean out my junk drawers, give away my old clothes, and generally scale down the stuff. That's plenty of time, but also plenty of time to worry over it.