The journal out of Atlanta part 2--Sept 30 to Nov 1

We crashed, and I woke up about six times. Squeak kept exploring the room and eating, and I continued to worry about the move.
We planned on leaving earlier than 7 am, we didn't wake up, shower and pack until closer to 8. Squeak, terrified, hid under the bed, and peed all over me and the carrier when we dragged him out. He spit out the kitty valium five times before finally swallowing it.
By 8:15 we were driving. It took us 1 1/2 hours to get to 285/75N (Goodbye Atlanta morning rush hour traffic! Won't miss that!). Once we escaped the traffic, we stopped to redrug Squeak. The pills don't put him out, but they render him mute and a little more comfortable. (For him and for us.)
I still felt freaked and couldn't shut off the hamster wheel. What if the car detached from the dolly straps? (the car continually shifted out of the straps. In fact, we had to stop every single hour during the entire trip to readjust them.) How many times would we have to stop for gas? (We averaged about 10 miles per gallon and had to stop every four hours to fill up.) What if Squeak died? What if the world ended? It was ridiculous.
I panicked when I had to drive the truck for the first time. Thankfully, by this time I had some perspective. I thanked and thanked the universe for how we'd snuck by by the skin of our teeth, for the generosity of our friends, for the absence of accidents or catastrophe. I praised Jeremy for putting up with me and for his optimism and strength and patience.
But truthfully y'all, I was a basketcase for far too long. We drove through Georgia, through Tennesee, through Kentucky and it wasn't until Indiana that I finally felt normal. It was the first time I could see that we'd be okay. I could handle driving the van. I remembered why we were moving.
By then the trip had turned into this surreal dream. Holy shit! We're in Indiana!! How strange and refreshing it was to feel like a rational person again, to feel hopeful! Did that emotional nightmare really happen? And was it really only a day ago??
Then we were just outside of Chicago. The goal was to make it our good friends Marta and Dan's house in Grayslake, just north of Chicago. Mapquest claimed it was a 12 1/2 hour trip, but it quickly turned into 16 straight hours in the truck (including gas/pee stops and a 15 minute meal at Waffle House.) I drove the last shift and by then my exhaustion turned into rage. When will this fucking, sprawling behemoth of Chicagoland end??? At 11 pm we reached their subdivision. God bless them and their fabulous show palace of a house. They gave us drinks and thai food and beds and patience, although we were nearing the point of losing all sense of social graces.
Squeak was so dehydrated--his third day of no food/water/litterbox for 18 hours straight--that he drank three full bowls of water and qickly grew restless from too long in confined spaces.
In the morning we slept a little late, so happy to chill with Marta and Dan. We hit the road by 8:30 am, drugged the cat and growing anxious to just get there and escape the truck for good.
Squeak was pissed and noisy. The temperature fell to 52 degrees. We enjoyed the shift from the hilly south to flat farmland. We drove for six hours and reached Minneapolis by 3:30 pm on Saturday. Our landlord needed to drive in to meet us, so we paced outside the apartment while we waited. It felt so fucking weird to be there. Why were we there again? Why did this seem like such a good idea? When inside, the apartment seemed smaller than I remembered and I hoped that Jeremy liked the place I chose.
Jeremy's mom and a few friends had agreed to help us unload the truck for a while. He and I got started, and a neighbor felt so sorry for us that she helped for almost an hour. Trish and her friends came, and together we unloaded 2/3rds of the truck. We ate pizza, drank beer and tried not to collapse in our sweaty shirts.
Jeremy suggested that we sleep at his mom's that night since the apartment was a maze of boxes and disarray. I grew surly and worried about leaving Squeak alone. But it was fine, and we slept across the river in St. Paul.
The next day, Angie and her daughter came to help unload the rest of the truck. We finished by noon, and raced to the Penske dealer before they closed at 1 pm. Now we didnt have to worry about the empty dolly or truck anymore. We spent the rest of the day unpacking and rearranging boxes.
Monday morning arrived, and Jeremy dropped me off at work by 7:45 am. The first day, hell the first week, was pretty unproductive. It took the university a while to create an email account/passwords/etc. for me, as well as meeting the department, getting tours of the campus and collecting my ID card.
All in all, it was quite overwhelming. I knew nothing about law materials and knew nothing about cataloging. It all seemed beyond me and I wasn't at all prepared for what my job really entailed. I just so desperately wanted a job near our neighborhood and somewhat related to libraries that I took it.
Essentially it boils down to this. Everything is ruled by the Library of Congress (LC). They create regulations about how every book should be cataloged. It and two other entities--OCLC and RLIN--collect records on most books published and hold the preliminary cataloging done on them by either themselves, LC directly or another library. When the acquisitions department orders or accepts a book for the law library, they search the three databases for existing records on the item. They copy the initial cataloging into our system so that it exists in our online catalog. When the book arrives and accounting pays for it, it moves down to my department. We examine every book and adapt the cataloging so it fits into our system. Essentially a large part of my job is writing computer code so the book appears correctly in the catalog and it is shelved in the proper place. We also reclassify older, incorrectly cataloged books and do original cataloging when needed. (When no record exists for a book and we have to write the code from scratch.) My brain doesnt really work this way, and the atmosphere of the office was very serious and work focused. I was so used to the lighter, louder, crazier world of the public library, where I could pick and choose jobs as I pleased, and be moody and be lazy if I wanted to. Here, I was bound to my desk, bound to my computer, and learning all about MARC 21 and LC schedules and subject headings.
My job also required me to supervise (and later hire/fire) student workers in our immediate department. We currently have two--one brand new and one that has been there for four years. I've never supervised anyone before, and it quickly became a time consuming effort.
By the first week and a half, I felt depressed and overwhelmed and unsure if I could handle my job, or being here. Then, on Thursday, I learned the entire process of my job. I cataloged a bunch of easier books and felt for the first time that I was being productive. That night, Jeremy and I went for a walk near the lake. (We live less than two miles from a chain of three lakes right in the heart of the city.) The moon hung in the sky, and the skyline reflected in the water. It was so beautiful and wonderful. I understood that we were going to be okay. It was the right choice to move here. I felt happy and hopeful and good.
Relief! At last!!