I handed over the house keys on Tuesday, so except for some discussion about how we'll balance out that I spent ten days of my vacation gathering all my housemate's crap out of the cupboards and disposing of it (I'm planning to have him pay for the final house-cleaning, as well as the junk hauling), the house is done.

I'm listening to Sting's latest album, Songs From the Labyrinth, a collection, of all the crazy things, of songs by the Elizabethan lutenist/composer John Dowland. It's really good, and he brings a natural everyday-ness and life to a kind of music that's often performed in a way that may or may not be how it was originally performed, but definitely feels aloof and alien. I first heard of this album when he was the musical guest on Studio 60; it being a fictional show, I assumed that Sting doing an album of lute music was a joke. But it's not, and it's quite good.

I like that I'm so consistent about throwing shit into random storage spots that when I go to look for something I can think "What random storage spot would that be in?" and correctly think that in the course of packing up the house, I would have placed my tire gauge in the bottom drawer of my nightstand.

With the move, I am really enjoying the thrift store ecology. More and more I'm trying not to buy new things, because (a) we all consume too much, (b) the free and used stuff works fine at a single-digit percentage of the price, and (c) I'm going to beat the crap out of it anyway, so why take the depreciation hit? So I'm amused to go in and see for sale things like my old wall-hanging knife block, or my gardening tri-fork-tool-thing, or a set of computer speakers or whatever, and then spend $5 for a $25 stainless-steel colander or what have you.

I like that I'm so consistent about tossing crap into random storage places that after the move, I can think "What random place would I have thrown that?" and discover on the first try that yes, I put my tire gauge in the bottom drawer of my nightstand.