Blue Gatorade & Beef Jerky, Iced Coffee & Fries

pt. I of my move to the burbs...

Just like Didion had her roasted almonds and Coca-Cola, I was on a mission to sustain myself on one inventive little combo. Something healthy enough to OD on a singular macronutrient, but lethal enough to erode my stomach lining. I’m talking blue Gatorade and beef jerky. I’m talking hot boxing the Buick with jalapeno breath and musty July air, heat straight disagreeable. With one foot on the gas, one propped up on the seat, knee against my aging, sunscreenless chest, I begged the breeze to cut through the ripeness of my existence.

Suppose that’s what 48 hours of packing up the last four years of your life does to you: it reduces you to the gas station version of yourself. I was a rosary hanging from the rearview, gone without a prayer. Goodbye, bitch. Creaky joints from lifting boxes, filled with grating desperation to be done with it all, to get settled.

And, of course, blue Gatorade and beef jerky. Don’t forget that.

For weeks, maybe even months, Andrew had been preparing for our move from Philadelphia to suburban New Jersey—a mere 15-minute trek over the Ben Franklin Bridge. He magic erased the walls, spots where Mousse’s slobbery toys bounced off and stained gray. He spackled holes where the art hung. Sanded and painted the windowsill. He made several trips to his parents’ over an hour away to drop boxes, and sold what we weren’t taking with us on Facebook Marketplace.

The man was like a walking to-do list that was also a Roomba that was also Beyonce rehearsing for Coachella 2018. To match his energy was a futile task. So I went Loaf Mode. 

Take the checklist, for example. There was a checklist on the fridge titled “DIA TASKS” that Andrew wanted me to complete before the move: clean out my file cabinet, my drawers in the bathroom, etc. I could tell he was leaning on that productivity philosophy of small, achievable goals, because each task was a 10-minute job, max. I’m sure he also thought having it right in my face every day would be motivating. But I managed to do exactly none of it until the night before.

I wish I could pinpoint what about this particular move turned me into a useless blob. My body was rejecting the whole process. I’d grab an armful of shirts from the closet and toss them carelessly into an XL box, still on the hangers. Then mosey back to the couch where Mousse, terrified of the cardboard castle being erected in the living room, would crawl into the crook of my legs, trembling. Moving seemed to underscore the skittishness of the dog and I as a unit. Every clang made us flinch and huddle up tighter, like two hikers stranded in the snow with no survival skills.

I’d moved four times over my eight years in Philly, and had always considered myself a good mover. I shed my usual sentimentality and get rid of everything. I am Fast; my aversion to boring, strenuous tasks generally manifests as cranking 'em out, eyes on the prize. I do not “trust the process” because I do not “enjoy the process” but I get that shit the fuck done because the sooner I do, the sooner I’m on the couch eating peanut butter off a spoon, glued to my “Home” Pinterest board, building out The Vision.

And that’s what relocating to the burbs is all about, right? THE VISION. The serrated edges of life just smoooothing out over a lush lawn, a Sade song wrapping the scene in velvet. The soft intimacy of a shady spot beneath a tree on land that is your own. There, you can paint the walls mauve. There, you can forget to lock the door. Let the dog bark out the window at wild turkeys knowing he’s not waking anyone upstairs. Yeah. That is The Vision. My Vision, at least. In every iteration, it remains a ballad of simplicity—the one true luxury that gets muddied by everything else.

The morning of the move, Andrew’s parents showed up with freshly baked blueberry scones and banana walnut muffins, and I could tell it was going to be an ordeal. I couldn’t haphazardly stuff the u-haul in 90 minutes when there were now four cooks in the kitchen, three of them committed to order without any real sense of urgency. That made me wanna kill myself.

Nonetheless, I kept fake smiling like we were doing the coolest job in the world and not spending three full hours dismantling a 400-lb treadmill just to get it up the stairs. I’m not exaggerating, either. It took three hours, and the treadmill was busted by the end of it, anyway. We ended up dropping it at a recycling center.

As I watched my big heap of plastic and wires get sent to the pound, I remembered our time together fondly. When old Milly was there for me through the cold isolation of winter marathon training. It’d get dark out too early for me to run outside after work, and I’d come home and run 16 miles straight on that thing without so much as a pee break, the cup holders full of energy gels and salt tablets, the whole arch of my left foot one big blister.

But a cardinal rule of moving is that treadmills are not talismans. That’s why there are hundreds on Facebook Marketplace labeled “FREE, YOU MOVE.” So I had to let those thoughts go, and any other flashes of attachment to our old life.

At some point, Andrew caught me sitting on my computer chair, surrounded by things I could be carrying out to the u-haul, staring off into space. So he tasked me with running to the drugstore for snacks. This is exactly the kind of job you give to the personality hire. “Nuts or something. And Gatorade. I need electrolytes.”

I came back with three colors of Gatorade (not flavors, damnit, COLORS), a little thing of pistachios, and two huge bags of beef jerky: teriyaki and jalapeno. I thought that would please his parents, neither of whom, themselves, eat carbohydrates beyond quinoa. But apparently processed meat isn’t their preferred source of protein (who knew!)

So I ended up taking the blue Gatorade and jalapeno jerky with me for the ride to their house, where we’d be staying for two weeks before moving into our new home. It was just Mousse and I in the Buick, embarking on this new life with the satisfied nonchalance of two beings who didn’t really contribute to the hard stuff. I was washing down fake spicy with fake sweet, feeling real as ever, the gaps of my teeth all flecked with carcass.

I drove slow. Yes, I was on my time now. I threw on some Creedence and turned it up to 10. I left the city that turned my nervous system to scrap metal. I pulled into McDonalds for iced coffee and fries.

To be continued…

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Sorry for no recording of this. I can’t find my headphones that I use as the mic. I will try for the next one. Thank you for reading. I love you.