"I don't know where I'm gonna live, don't know if I'll find a place."

About 30 minutes into the drive up to Portland I listened to one of those aforementioned "old tapes" from Beach Week 1992. That was fun. (Really!)

One song from that tape stood out to me - Matthew Sweet's Divine Intervention. I think that set the tone for the entirely-too-unnecessarily-stressful week.

For starters, I got to the cute-but-cheap Vancouver motel at 7pm Sunday night only to realize that there was only wireless access, and the laptop I borrowed from work appeared to not have wireless (not that I even knew what wireless looked like on a laptop - punchline to follow). OH MY GOD PANIC DID ENSUE. How the hell would I log on to Craigs List or the property management company I'd been working with? Oh yeah, and I was supposedly "working" for 3 of the 4 days I was on the road - how would I deal with THAT without wireless?

I stopped by the motel office ("yeah, um, is there, like, a Best Buy around here somewhere?") and headed up the street to get a USB wireless gadget. Along the way I saw a FedEx Kinkos and a library, and figured - hell, if I can't get this laptop thing figured out I can just hang out there for a couple hours...

And my heartbeat and racing pulse immediately slowed, and it was right then that I realized that no matter how stressful this whole interstate move might be in the end, I can FUCKING HANDLE THIS SHIT. It was quite a revelation. I do not jest - I slept like a baby under this revelation Sunday night.

(And the next morning on the phone with the Help Desk guys, turns out the laptop did have wireless, which just made the whole problem laughable - and entirely sleepable.)

The rest of the trip was tolerably stressful - what with the not knowing my applicant status on the apartment I really wanted, but still valiantly searching but not really wanting the rest of the apartments I saw in that short three days. Wednesday afternoon after looking at a small studio while (STILL) waiting to hear back from the apartment I really wanted, I mentally resolved myself to another road trip to Portland, and yes, things don't always work out well the first time around, and... and that would be OK.

And I think I grew a lot mentally on this last trip. And I think I got the apartment I really wanted, which just makes this whole story pointless, but... Not really. The next year is going to be a huge challenge for me. Knowing I made it this far helps... A LOT.