On Tuesday of this week, AEJ and I moved away from New York City. The day before The Big Move, here’s how my apartment looked…

Okay, that’s the living room. Not so bad, really. The bedroom was a bit more indicative of how things were:

AEJ’s place, too, seemed to indicate “we’re moving.”

Loki found the packing process pretty interesting, and a little exciting, but for the most part, he was cool with it. Just don’t mess with Loki.

After packing, AEJ and I ran a few errands (returning our cable boxes, having a last lunch at The Shake Shack, etc.) and then (insert drum roll here!) we went to pick up our brand new car! This was the first new car for either of us, and we were really excited to pick it up. Isn’t it cute?

Here’s Martin, our salesman at the dealership. He was funny — and actually a pleasure to work with! It turns out that not all car salesmen are insufferable. If anybody is in the market for a new Volkswagen, go see Martin in Manhattan!

Here’s AEJ, about to get into the car for the first time.

After leaving the dealership, we drove around a little, then headed downtown to pick up Newman & Melissa. The four of us had dinner back uptown, and then got dessert. Sundaes as big as your head!

Early the next morning, the movers arrived. It took them until 6pm to finish loading all of our stuff onto the truck. (AEJ’s apartment is across the street from mine, so there were two apartments to pack into the massive 18-wheel semi.)

The movers were great. There were a few snags, but on the whole, it seemed to go about as well as it could. One crazy thing about moving like this is that you pay for the move by the pound — so you end up knowing exactly how much your stuff weighs. Think about this for a minute. If you took every belonging you had and put it on a scale, how much would it weigh? I mean, I knew that my digital piano weighed about 100 pounds, and my speakers were 100 pounds each, and I know how much my TV weighs, etc… But what about all of it? Guess. Go ahead — guess how much it all weighed — my stuff, plus AEJ’s stuff. The contents of two one-bedroom Manhattan apartments.

7,150 pounds. That’s right. More than three tons. We have way, way too much stuff. Or at least too much heavy stuff. And too much music, and too many books. (I’ll admit that 99.982% of the books belong to AEJ. I’m not, literate.

Here’s a picture of the semi that’s holding all of our stuff. By the time it arrives in LA, it’ll have the belongings of two other homes, too. Those trucks are big. (This picture is from AEJ’s phone.)

We’re now in a suburb of Chicago…

…and I need to write an entry about the drive so far (aren’t you curious how Loki is coping with car travel?), but it’s late, and we’re beat, so I’ll write more in a day or two…