As things presently stand, it looks like I’m going to be living in Wheaton, Maryland. The apartment is going to be nice. It’s got one bedroom and one bathroom, a good-sized living room, an eat-in kitchen, another separate dining area, and – the best part – a balcony. The balcony was the clincher for this deal. One thing I never liked about dorm life was having to go halfway across the building to be able to go outside. Now, I’ll be able to go out onto a balcony right off the living room. Sweetness on a stick.
And it’s within walking distance of Glenmont Metro.
However, here’s the kicker – the apartment won’t be available until May 20. The job starts May 14. This is when you find out who your true friends are. Matthew Tilley and his mother are letting me stay with them for that week before the apartment becomes available. So for a week, I’ll be living in Reston, and taking Metro to work from Vienna. Then that Friday, I’m going back to Stuarts Draft, getting a whole lot of stuff together on Saturday, and then moving into my apartment on Sunday. That will be when Wheaton becomes “home”, and Stuarts Draft officially becomes “my parents’ house”.
I still can’t get over that it’s actually all starting to come together. Though it still hasn’t quite sunk in that I finally did it. I got a “real job” in Washington DC, and I am moving out on my own. It still doesn’t seem quite for real. It’s like someone needs to pinch me so I can wake back up from the dream I’m in or something.
Another thing that I thought of is somewhat odd – I’ll be taking my final “DC trip” next week. Trip #95 will be the last one before I start living up there. I’m going up next Tuesday, May 8, and it’s fixing a loose end from two years ago. That would be that I’m finally going to take Katie to Washington DC. You may remember that we were supposed to go to DC on February 2, 2005. We’d both requested the days off, and we were set to go. Then I had that problem that led to the surgery at the end of that month. The DC trip was cancelled as a result. Now we’re finally going to make the trip. I’m also going to show Katie how to get to Vienna, because once I’m settled, I could meet her at Vienna and we could Metro back to Glenmont together, or alternately, Katie could Metro from Vienna to Glenmont and I’d meet her there in the Sable.
And by the way, I still think that the idea of Glenmont as my “home station” is a very strange concept. After all, Vienna has been my “home station” for twelve years. You want to go to Washington? Go to Vienna and take the Orange Line. To call the Red Line my home just seems so foreign.
Of course, I will get to ride past that giant BUSH HATES BORF tag every day to and from work.