Thursday, September 11, 2008

On my first day in Durham, my true love gave to me....

So, after the first 48 hours in Durham, here are the stats so far:  (mostly in 3's and 4's)

3 awesome family/friend movers who helped us move in in about 2.5 hours.

3 guys who turned on, delivered, and installed our power, bed, and cable on the day we moved in.

3 visitors later that afternoon, each bearing gifts:
  • Willie's mom and 10-year old mentee brought us pizza.
  • A friend of Wille's aunt and fellow Durham resident brought us fried chicken and beer.  She also gave us the advice to find a safe space in our house in case of danger.  At first, I thought she was talking about a place to hide in the house when an intruder enters, and I near about lost my mind.  Then, I realized she was talking about a safe space for our stuff -- not us.  "Lock up that camera equipment," she said, "because it's fine for a junkie to steal your tv, but not your camera."  Um, right, so a junkie will be visiting my house?  And that's fine as long as my valuables are locked up?
  • Willie's aunt, who also lives in Durham, brought us flowers.  And she tried to dispel the safe space / junkie myth and said that there was probably just a crack house down the street.  This unsettled me a little until I realized, "Wait a second, I grew up with a crack house down the street!  I know how to do crack house down the street!"  That's right, the cold hard streets of Evanston toughened me up in ways that are still just now making themselves known.  (True story: the summer before I left for college, as I was backing out of my parents' driveway, I saw a car turning the corner onto my street, and so I waited for it to pass.  This car was followed by -- and I counted -- 1o undercover cop cars.  A whole bunch of SWAT guys got out to storm the house across the street.  Later that week, when I looked in the Evanston paper under the police blotter, sure enough, included in the listing was the raid of the house on Ashland Ave. -- "a reputed drug house."  
4 meals that have involved cold fried chicken and/or cold pizza.

3 sightings of a mouse.  Did I scream?  Hells, yeah, I screamed.

1 major 24-hour-plus migraine.  And as I lay awake last night, my head pounding like crazy, I started to think about how helpful it would be to name and measure my migraines like they do hurricanes.  I'm always trying to compare and contrast them anyway, thinking, "Well, this is better than the one on the 4th of July, but longer and more intense than the one in Vermont."  How much easier would it be if I could say, "Migraine Mimi was more severe than Migraine Lorraine -- since it was a category 4."

Since I still have no idea what I'm doing here in Durham (and probably won't for a while), I suppose I'll just keep finding things to count, starting with all of those boxes waiting to be unpacked....




4 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey, Naomi!
I just read your first entry. Susan sent me your blog address and I am so happy. What a great thing for you to do. I love the idea of counting things and the vividness and importance of those details. So sorry about the migraines. I would do a walkathon for migraie research if that existed.

Keep your great sensibilty and observational insights. Love, Joan

antee said...

mice!!! we got sprayed for black widows yesterday, but i think mice are worse. (but didn't 1415 ashland prepare you for that, too?)

hope migraine durham-numero-uno was less severe than migraine b&b-buffalo.

did you make it to that dance class? what do they dance like in durham?

OrangeMoJoJo said...

Naomi Blog is my new favorite blog!! I *heart* Naomi Blog! What a great way for me and the rest of us Naomi fans to hear how you're doing, and for you to journal what's going on from day to day.

I home Migraine Newton is barely a category 2.

Claire Just Claire Like Cher said...

Where have I been?! There are beaucoup de Naomi treats for me to read. Ahhhh, happy day for me, and hopefully a happy migraine and mice and junkie free day for you in Durham! Lots of Love (I can't say LOL because that acronym has already been taken), WTCC