Everyone kept asking me “When are you leaving?” I would say “tomorrow,” but they would ask “what time?” And then I would make a grumpy noise and left the room because there’s nothing more debilitating that thinking about waking up before the sun, just so you can drive for 15 hours to get back to your messy apartment that needs to be packed in less than a week and a variety of other various small, annoying decisions and responsibilities.

That “tomorrow” was yesterday, and I am now back in Boston, sitting in a pool of annoying nonsense.

And also: it won’t stop raining.

It rained all through Massachusetts, then started pouring when we pulled up (ONTO THE SIDEWALK!!) in front of our building and continued to soak us through while we hefted loads of crap up and down the stairs.

I was thinking: what is all this crap, and aren’t we just going to have to move it all to our new apartment in less than a week? Why did I sign up for this, exactly?

I went to bed hoping I would be that stupendously motivated woman I often think about being when I’m falling asleep. The next morning, why, maybe I would go for a walk before breakfast! But I woke up to more rain. The kind of rain where you don’t have to second-guess bringing the embarrassingly large umbrella or wearing the rubber rain boots that match zero outfits.

I was thinking: it hasn’t rained like this all summer, Jessica, and aren’t you a lucky girl to have walked to and from work all summer long without such jeans-soaking rain to chain you to the 39 bus schedule?

But it was raining now and it will be raining later and I will be wet and taking the 39 and our apartment needs to be packed up and we still don’t have our new car and Lance needs to call UHaul and I have to read Little Women AND Tom Sawyer in the next 10 days and goshdarnit why are books so long?

And why am I old enough that I can’t sleep on my parents’ couch for a week without inducing daily migraines and mysterious, lingering hip pain?

And doesn’t anyone know that I don’t WANT to be annoyed right now? I don’t WANT to forward my mail/pack things/eat up the food in my fridge/read Little Women/set an alarm.

I want to sleep in and read Under the Banner of Heaven and play Mario Kart and take a nap and when I wake up, somebody has moved all of my belongings into my new apartment, including me, sleeping on top of my bed.

Is that so much to ask?