moving = stress bomb

I can't stop eating. This has happened before. Pre-Peace Corps I ate everything in site with, of course, the rational that I wasn't going to get to eat my favorite foods for some years. I gained twenty pounds in two months. Before I left I didn't have a pair of pants that fit, and for the entire plane ride to Armenia I had my pants unbuttoned.Now I'm moving across the country. Last night my mother made a pie consisting mostly of cream cheese and condensed milk, and while it is my favorite pie in the world, that is no excuse for eating multiple slices in a row. I'm fairly certain that Minnesota will provide me with the four necessary ingredients for said pie should I require it, so no Peace Corps excuse this time. No, this is stress binging. Moving is stressful, and while for the last two months I've been faithfully going to the gym, currently I am most active when confronted with Tex-Mex.I spent the early part of this week starting my job at the American Refugee Committee while also looking for apartments. I had about 36 hours to see as many apartments as possible. I met a lot of really interesting characters. I stood on floors I was sure were going to move from under my feet, and I learned to date a building by its smell. In apartment hunting you'll see more ugly than pretty, and after finally deciding on one great place, I went to claim it with my application only to find that I'd been beat to the desk thirty minutes earlier. I did settle on a great apartment in a neighborhood I'm happy to live in, but the push-pull of that apartment-hunting ride still has me feeling queasy.The other fire still burning is my broken car. The head gaskets are warped, and the machine shop they sit in won't give me a straight answer as to when they'll be finished. I'm supposed to drive to Minneapolis in two days. My mechanic took my little car baby apart, and now pieces of its head are somewhere far from its body, held hostage by someone I can only guess is grinning in a greasy chair, stroking his cat and twisting his own whiskers.In happier news, my job is already amazing. Monday, my first day at work in the Twin Cities, showed me a great time. That first-days-of-fall feeling was in the air. The sun was shining, and I spent the entire afternoon walking around the city and talking to strangers. I met great people who are going to be part of my first piece for ARC (I'll share it here soon!). I was walking around the park, sunny day, friendly strangers, talking, filming, noticing, creating, and I thought, 'OHMYGOD, THIS IS MY JOB.' That's a good feeling to have on day one, amirite?Second positive is that great feeling Minneapolis gave me. I realized that I've never actually resided in a place whose population was greater than 120,000 people. And this big city gave me that urge, the one that compels you to sing, "Moving on up!" Which I did. While stuck in traffic. Because it was traffic on a beautiful street in a the biggest city I've ever lived in. I am currently filled with some joy about all of this, so despite the apartment-hunting spins and the uncertain transportation, I am still tapping my feet and smiling like I won the lottery. It feels like I kinda did.