#Interstate Moving Cost

[containerzone]

How To Reduce Interstate Removalist Cost With Moving Containers

Moving interstate can be a complex and costly process, but with a little strategic planning, you can significantly reduce the cost of hiring removalists. One effective way to lower your Interstate Removalist cost is by using moving containers from Containerzone. Here’s how you can save money and streamline your move:

1. Opt For Self-Packaging Shipping Containers.

One of the most cost-effective methods to manage your interstate move is by choosing self-pack shipping containers. This option allows you to pack your belongings at your own pace, reducing the need for professional packing services. By doing the packing yourself, you can save on the Interstate Removalist cost associated with packing and unpacking. Containerzone offers a range of moving containers that are perfect for this purpose, giving you the flexibility to handle your packing according to your schedule.

2. Compare Container Rental Prices.

Not all moving containers are created equal, and their rental prices can vary. Containerzone provides competitive pricing for their containers, making it essential to compare these rates with those of other providers. By choosing a cost-effective container service, you can lower your overall interstate moving cost. Containerzone’s transparent pricing structure helps you avoid hidden fees, ensuring that you only pay for what you need.

3. Reduce The Size Of Your Shipment.

The size of your shipment directly impacts the cost of moving. By decluttering and downsizing your belongings before packing them into self-pack shipping containers, you can significantly reduce the volume and, consequently, the cost. Containerzone’s flexible container sizes allow you to choose the one that best fits your needs, ensuring you’re not paying for more space than necessary.

4. Plan Your Move During Off-Peak Times

Timing can greatly influence your interstate removalist cost. Moving during peak seasons or weekends often results in higher costs due to increased demand. Containerzone suggests planning your move during off-peak times when rental rates and moving costs are generally lower. This strategy not only helps you save on the container rental but can also lead to better availability and flexibility in scheduling.

5. Take Advantage Of Special Offers And Discounts.

Containerzone frequently offers special deals and discounts on their moving containers. Keeping an eye on these promotions can help you save money on your move. Signing up for their newsletter or contacting their customer service team for any current offers can provide you with valuable savings opportunities.

Conclusion

Reducing your interstate removalist cost is achievable with careful planning and the use of moving containers from Containerzone. By opting for self-pack shipping containers, comparing container rental prices, downsizing your shipment, planning your move wisely, and taking advantage of special offers, you can significantly cut down on the cost of moving interstate. For a more affordable and efficient move, consider Containerzone’s comprehensive container solutions.

[australianexpressremovals]

Moving Interstate Costs | Australianexpressremovals.com.au

Understand the complete picture of moving interstate costs with Australian Express Removals. From logistics to service charges, we provide clarity to ensure your budget planning is accurate.

Moving Interstate Costs

[marketingmover]

Family Life and Moving in Bell Gardens, California - Why Trust Professional Movers?

Moving to a new city can be both exciting and stressful, especially when considering a family relocation.... Here is what our team has to say about moving to Bell Gardens!

Introduction Moving to a new city can be both exciting and stressful, especially when considering a family relocation. Bell Gardens, California, offers a unique blend of suburban charm and urban conveniences, making it an attractive destination for families. Using a professional moving company like Marketing Movers can make the transition smooth and hassle-free. This article delves into the…

[starmovingsolutions]

Tips for a Smooth Move in Virginia, US

Moving within Virginia, can be an exciting but challenging endeavor. To make your relocation stress-free, it’s essential to understand various aspects of the moving process, including budget-friendly tips, legal requirements, and professional assistance.

In this guide, we’ll cover key topics to ensure your move to Virginia is smooth and well-prepared.

Budget-Friendly Moving Tips: Making Your Virginia Move Stress-Free

Financial burden can be experienced during a move, but costs can be reduced with careful planning. Begin by organizing your belongings and selling or donating anything you no longer need. This not only lightens the load but also puts some extra cash in your pocket. Additionally, compare quotes from different moving companies to find the most affordable moving service provide near you.

The Ultimate Moving Checklist:

To keep your move organized and stress-free, create a comprehensive moving checklist. Break down tasks into manageable steps, starting weeks before your move. Having a detailed checklist ensures that no crucial task is overlooked during the chaotic moving process.

What to Expect from Professional Movers in Virginia

Reputation and Reviews:

Research the reputation of the moving companies in the area. Look for online reviews and testimonials from previous customers to gauge their reliability and quality of service.

Licensed and Insured:

Ensure that the moving company is licensed and insured. This protects you in case of any accidents or damages during the move and indicates a level of professionalism.

Experience:

Choose a moving company with experience in both local and long-distance moves. Experienced movers are better equipped to handle various challenges that may arise during the moving process.

Transparent Pricing:

Obtain detailed and transparent cost estimates from multiple moving companies. Be wary of hidden fees, and make sure the pricing structure is clear and comprehensive.

Services Offered:

Confirm the range of services offered by the moving company. Some movers provide packing, unpacking, and storage services, while others may focus solely on transportation. Choose a company that aligns with your specific needs.

Equipment and Vehicles:

Check the condition of the moving company’s equipment and vehicles. Well-maintained trucks and proper moving equipment contribute to a more efficient and secure move.

Availability:

Confirm the availability of the moving company on your desired moving date. Some popular moving dates may be booked well in advance, so plan accordingly.

References:

Request references from the moving company and contact past clients to inquire about their experiences. This can provide valuable insights into the company’s reliability and professionalism.

Contracts and Documentation:

Read and understand all contracts and documentation provided by the moving company. Ensure that all terms, conditions, and services are clearly outlined before signing any agreements.

Customer Support:

Assess the level of customer support provided by the moving company. A responsive and helpful customer support team can address any concerns or issues that may arise before, during, or after the move.

How much do movers cost in Virginia, US?

The cost of hiring movers in Virginia varies based on factors like the distance of your move, the size of your home, and additional services required. On average, local moves within Virginia can cost anywhere from $500 to $2,000, while long distance moves may range from $2,000 to $6,000 or more. Obtain quotes from multiple moving companies, ensuring they provide a detailed breakdown of costs to avoid any surprises.

Identify the Cheapest Days to Hire Movers in Virginia

If flexibility allows, consider moving during the offseason or mid-week when demand for moving services is lower. Weekdays, especially Tuesdays and Wednesdays, are often more affordable than weekends. By choosing an off-peak time, you can potentially secure lower rates and better availability with your preferred moving company.

Star Moving Solutions | Trusted Movers in Virginia, US

Hiring professional movers can significantly alleviate the stress of relocating. Look for reputable moving companies like Star Moving Solutions for Professional local, state to state and international moving services.

[we-care-moving]

Dallas Done Called Your Name - 5 Irresistible Reasons This Southern Charmer Should Be Your Next Move

[lorifragolina]

Cabazon Dinosaurs

It's Billy's birthday!

This is my contribution for my challenge in @harringrovemicroficandart, prompt "childhood," WC 815. I only know Cabazon Dinosaurs from the movie "The Wizard", but in my homecountry there is also a dinosaur park and I LITERALLY LOVE IT. Since I discovered it was really near Billy's home in California, I thought he could dream to go there, so, here you are my fic! It was really difficult to stick to the wordcount so sorry if it seems a little weird!

I wanted to post it today because it's Billy's birthday and he deserves love as always! WC: 815 Warning: no warning Read in AO3

Read it below

It began on Billy's birthday the previous year, when he drove alone down the interstate and returned with a toy shop bag and a gift-wrapped box. 

They were simple toys, collected here and there, from a crappy gas station or from Melvald’s. A couple dolls from Max’s boxes she wanted to donate to the Salvation Army when she felt too old for Barbies. An old Slinky Spring that he pushed sometimes, humming the jingle when he was distracted. 

Max found the display in Billy’s room a little creepy, but El thought it was funny; it could be strange that a grown up nineteen old man collected childish toys, but it didn’t hurt anybody, and Billy was little by little trying to get along with the others with kindness, and nobody wanted to hurt his feelings.

He didn’t talk gladly about his childhood, but all of them suspected that he had gotten punches instead of toys when he was a child, and that little quirk was harmless. Billy was trying to make peace with his past, being neglected by both his parents, treating himself with things. When his worries were too heavy, he played with the little yellow pony from his shelf for a little while. The pony had a clump of chestnut hair on his head and made him think about Steve.

“What are Cabazon Dinosaurs?”

Billy hasn't talked a lot lately. He was able to be noisy, bothering, but not talkative about important things. Steve struggled to get the words out of his mouth sometimes, and when Billy opened up a little, Steve was over the moon for it; normally, Billy kept his things for himself, and that afternoon near the end of February wasn’t different, but Steve felt concerned anyway. 

Apparently there were no problems; Valentine’s day had just passed and they had a nice date, and they laughed and had fun lately, but now, Billy seemed a little nervous and absent. 

Steve asked Max, but at home it was all good, apparently; she noticed that Billy spent more time alone in his room, or stayed sitting on the sofa reading the same page for half an hour but she didn’t have any more clues.

One day, she, Billy and El were playing with Barbies, making accessories and decorations for them. They used an old toy car to carry the Barbies around and Max drew and cut food from a sheet.

El wanted to celebrate Barbie’s birthday, and they didn’t notice it, but Billy frowned and sighed faintly. El suddenly looked at him, saying nothing.

When Hopper called to collect her, she stopped Max on the door.

“What are Cabazon Dinosaurs?” She asked.

Max frowned. “Why are you asking?”

“It was what Billy was thinking.”

Max remembered when she and Susan had just moved in with Neil and Billy. 

Susan didn’t know better at the time, and she asked what Billy wanted for his birthday. As usual, he shrugged, and Max, who didn’t know better either, said that she wanted to go to Cabazon Dinosaurs park. It was a place near Palm Springs where a guy had built two giant dinosaurs, and the almost fifteen years old Billy lit up for a second, looking at his father with a glimpse in his eyes. 

“We’ll see. It costs money,” Neil brushed it off. 

They didn’t go, obviously. Billy talked about it one more time, stating he had saved the money and that it was only an hour and a half driving; Max didn’t remember what was the excuse that time, but Neil had easily found a way to deny it and beat Billy, adding up another miserable birthday to Billy’s list. Max didn’t think anymore about the park, but after El went away, she realized. Billy would turn twenty in less than a month and he never had a proper birthday, and he was still thinking about that little, stupid desire that any other parent would fill without thinking twice, but that Neil had turned it into yet another sad memory. 

She talked with Steve, and everyone answered gladly at the call to arms.On Billy’s birthday, Steve picked him up at work and drove to the woods without a word about the date. 

Billy said something salacious about having sex in the car, but Steve parked and took his hand leading him between the trees.

Lights were hanging from the branches, with colorful garlands and decorations. Little dinosaur toys, from the boys collections, were scattered around a table with food and a cream cake with candles. 

The kids, Max and El were there, clapping and cheering, and behind them two big sheets on which Will painted the Cabazon Dinosaurs were proudly displayed with more decorations. 

“Happy birthday, Billy!” They screamed all together, surrounding a speechless, emotional Billy.

Steve squeezed his hand.

“One day I’ll take you to the real place. Happy birthday, babe.”

[malewife-overlord]

Btw I’m moving soon and I need to make some money to help with the expenses so. If anyone would like a seeker jet plush, designed by @milk-sharks, Im selling some here :) https://www.etsy.com/listing/1823257860/transformers-g1-seeker-plush-pillows

They’re on sale rn! It’s a great time to pick up the whole trine! Or just a single little guy. Every plush comes with a little bonus too! (Usually candy. Specify if you’d like chocolate or gummies or otherwise I’ll just throw two in at random!)

Sorry for shameless plugging but I do unfortunately need to cover gas for my trip and the cost of the toll roads! (I think it’s like 60-80$ to drive through all of Ohio on the interstate for some god forsaken reason :/)

And remember to support milk-sharks if you really like these plushies!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

A rare view of the Statue of Liberty from the balcony on its torch. This point of view has been closed since 1916.

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 30, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Dec 01, 2024

Cas Mudde, a political scientist who specializes in extremism and democracy, observed yesterday on Bluesky that “the fight against the far right is secondary to the fight to strengthen liberal democracy.” That’s a smart observation.

During World War II, when the United States led the defense of democracy against fascism, and after it, when the U.S. stood against communism, members of both major political parties celebrated American liberal democracy. Democratic presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower made it a point to emphasize the importance of the rule of law and people’s right to choose their government, as well as how much more effectively democracies managed their economies and how much fairer those economies were than those in which authoritarians and their cronies pocketed most of a country’s wealth.

Those mid-twentieth-century presidents helped to construct a “liberal consensus” in which Americans rallied behind a democratic government that regulated business, provided a basic social safety net, promoted infrastructure, and protected civil rights. That government was so widely popular that political scientists in the 1960s posited that politicians should stop trying to court voters by defending its broadly accepted principles. Instead, they should put together coalitions of interest groups that could win elections.

As traditional Republicans and Democrats moved away from a defense of democracy, the power to define the U.S. government fell to a small faction of “Movement Conservatives” who were determined to undermine the liberal consensus. Big-business Republicans who hated regulations and taxes joined with racist former Democrats and patriarchal white evangelicals who wanted to reinforce traditional race and gender hierarchies to insist that the government had grown far too big and was crushing individual Americans.

In their telling, a government that prevented businessmen from abusing their workers, made sure widows and orphans didn’t have to eat from garbage cans, built the interstate highways, and enforced equal rights was destroying the individualism that made America great, and they argued that such a government was a small step from communism. They looked at government protection of equal rights for racial, ethnic, gender, and religious minorities, as well as women, and argued that those protections both cost tax dollars to pay for the bureaucrats who enforced equal rights and undermined a man’s ability to act as he wished in his place of business, in society, and in his home. The government of the liberal consensus was, they claimed, a redistribution of wealth from hardworking taxpayers—usually white and male—to undeserving marginalized Americans.

When voters elected Ronald Reagan in 1980, the Movement Conservatives’ image of the American government became more and more prevalent, although Americans never stopped liking the reality of the post–World War II government that served the needs of ordinary Americans. That image fed forty years of cuts to the post–World War II government, including sweeping cuts to regulations and to taxes on the wealthy and on corporations, always with the argument that a large government was destroying American individualism.

It was this image of government as a behemoth undermining individual Americans that Donald Trump rode to the presidency in 2016 with his promises to “drain the swamp” of Washington, D.C., and it is this image that is leading Trump voters to cheer on billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy as they vow to cut services on which Americans depend in order to cut regulations and taxes once again for the very wealthy and corporations.

But that image of the American government is not the one on which the nation was founded.

Liberal democracy was the product of a moment in the 1600s in which European thinkers rethought old ideas about human society to emphasize the importance of the individual and his (it was almost always a “him” in those days) rights. Men like John Locke rejected the idea that God had appointed kings and noblemen to rule over subjects by virtue of their family lineage, and began to explore the idea that since government was a social compact to enable men to live together in peace, it should rest not on birth or wealth or religion, all of which were arbitrary, but on natural laws that men could figure out through their own experiences.

The Founders of what would become the United States rested their philosophy on an idea that came from Locke’s observations: that individuals had the right to freedom, or “liberty,” including the right to consent to the government under which they lived. “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,” and that “to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

In the early years of the American nation, defending the rights of individuals meant keeping the government small so that it could not crush a man through taxation or involuntary service to the government or arbitrary restrictions. The Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the Constitution—explicitly prohibited the government from engaging in actions that would hamper individual freedom.

But in the middle of the nineteenth century, Republican president Abraham Lincoln began the process of adjusting American liberalism to the conditions of the modern world. While the Founders had focused on protecting individual rights from an overreaching government, Lincoln realized that maintaining the rights of individuals required government action.

To protect individual opportunity, Lincoln argued, the government must work to guarantee that all men—not just rich white men—were equal before the law and had equal access to resources, including education. To keep the rich from taking over the nation, he said, the government must keep the economic playing field between rich and poor level, dramatically expand opportunity, and develop the economy.

Under Lincoln, Republicans reenvisioned liberalism. They reworked the Founders’ initial stand against a strong government, memorialized by the Framers in the Bill of Rights, into an active government designed to protect individuals by guaranteeing equal access to resources and equality before the law for white men and Black men alike. They enlisted the power of the federal government to turn the ideas of the Declaration of Independence into reality.

Under Republican president Theodore Roosevelt, progressives at the turn of the twentieth century would continue this reworking of American liberalism to address the extraordinary concentrations of wealth and power made possible by industrialization. In that era, corrupt industrialists increased their profits by abusing their workers, adulterating milk with formaldehyde and painting candies with lead paint, dumping toxic waste into neighborhoods, and paying legislators to let them do whatever they wished.

Those concerned about the survival of liberal democracy worried that individuals were not actually free when their lives were controlled by the corporations that poisoned their food and water while making it impossible for individuals to get an education or make enough money ever to become independent.

To restore the rights of individuals, progressives of both parties reversed the idea that liberalism required a small government. They insisted that individuals needed a big government to protect them from the excesses and powerful industrialists of the modern world. Under the new governmental system that Theodore Roosevelt pioneered, the government cleaned up the sewage systems and tenements in cities, protected public lands, invested in public health and education, raised taxes, and called for universal health insurance, all to protect the ability of individuals to live freely without being crushed by outside influences.

Reformers sought, as Roosevelt said, to return to “an economic system under which each man shall be guaranteed the opportunity to show the best that there is in him.”

It is that system of government’s protection of the individual in the face of the stresses of the modern world that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, and the presidents who followed them until 1981 embraced. The post–World War II liberal consensus was the American recognition that protecting the rights of individuals in the modern era required not a weak government but a strong one.

When Movement Conservatives convinced followers to redefine “liberal” as an epithet rather than a reflection of the nation’s quest to defend the rights of individuals—which was quite deliberate—they undermined the central principle of the United States of America. In its place, they resurrected the ideology of the world the American Founders rejected, a world in which an impoverished majority suffers under the rule of a powerful few.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[clownakai]

Today’s a pleasant Saturday, and after having a good laugh at the "The reviews are in" post, I thought I’d dive into an intersting theory about the possible connection between Gin and Mary :)

Shared Phrases (?) Both Gin and Mary are the only characters to say, “It’s like encountering a demon in the darkness.” Similarly, Tsutomu and Shuichi are the only ones who’ve said, “The fault is 50/50.” I mean.. it's pretty obivious from just here already.

Appearance In terms of appearance, Mary, Sera, Akai, and Gin share two notable features: green eyes and distinct lines under their lower eyelids. Mary also has platinum hair, much like Gin’s.

Mary’s shrinking instead of being killed Mary’s shrinking, rather than being executed by BO, is particularly strange. After all, BO is notorious for ruthless efficiency—why use APTX 4869 instead of simply shooting her? The idea of sparing an enemy with a “golden medicine” that took years of research feels uncharacteristically merciful for BO. Their usual motto of “leave no trace” makes this decision seem odd and deliberate.

The boss’s decision to let Mary live seems to be a carefully calculated trap. It’s confirmed that Sherry’s mother and Mary are biological sisters (as the author has stated that Akai and Sherry are cousins). This means Mary and Sherry share familial genes as aunt and niece, making their bodies react similarly to the drug. I believe Gin may have known early on that Sherry was alive and was aware of Kudo's survival as well. Therefore, Gin and the boss know that Mary will survive this drug as well. Gin likely hinted this to the boss and orchestrated events to leave Mary alive. Why? They will use Mary as a bait to retrieve the antidote.

If BO were to capture Sherry, she’d likely refuse to cooperate. If they killed her, they’d lose their only chance at the antidote. Raising Sherry, funding her studies abroad, and investing years in her research suggests how vital she is to the boss’s plans. Killing Kudo would also be out of the question—Sherry’s guilt over Kudo’s predicament is what drives her to work on the antidote. If Kudo were killed, Sherry might even commit suicide, leaving BO without their much needed antiodote.

Mary’s shrinking seems to be a part of the boss’s larger scheme to manipulate Sherry. By targeting Mary, someone closely tied to Sherry and the silver bullet Akai, the boss ensures that all roads lead back to Sherry. This clever and cost-effective strategy leverages Mary’s condition to force Sherry’s hand, ensuring she stays within BO’s reach. In the process, it draws in powerful agencies like the FBI, CIA, and MI6, all of whom may unwittingly aid the boss’s agenda. In the end, the trap wasn’t just for Mary—it was a strategic move to draw out Sherry and secure BO’s ultimate goal: the antidote. This theory further supports the idea that Mary and Gin might be related, potentially as mother and son. Otherwise she wouldn't have been alive until now.

Hello anon! Just so you know this was a delightful surprise to find in my inbox today :3 I think I reread the whole thing like four times before even thinking of doing anything else djsjfsk I love theories so much💥💥💥

(Everything else is under the cut because I ended up yapping too much. I'm so sorry)

I really like this theory, especially since it indirectly covers for the fact that Masumi (partly due to Mary's orders as she's getting more and more impatient) hasn't exactly been subtle in her attempts to get the temporary antidote and has generally been very liberal with the information she has about Conan and Haibara's identities, talking about it in public and even getting overheard (granted, Subaru isn't the issue here, and it's not a guarantee that she's being tailed 24/7 as that would be a bit of a hassle to keep up, but still). One would think that they'd have been found out by now, given that the BO is now fully certain of Masumi's existence and relations (Vermouth on the Mystery Train my beloved & beloathed... Girl why r u so evil) and, as minimal as it is, she does represent a threat, but nothing has happened to either of them yet.

I do think that the point about the BO's decision to use the poison is a little shaky, seeing as it's been explicitly stated to leave no trace on the body— which actually fits pretty well with their motto, and we do glimpse a pretty long list of people it's been used on a few times throughout the manga (we only see a few names, but it's speculated to be much longer than what is shown), so it would seem that the BO has been using it semi-regularly when they wanted more down-low executions.

There was also no guarantee that Mary would react the same way to the APTX even with a possible genetic advantage observed in Shiho (and without knowing exactly what they were looking for, I'm fairly sure trying to compare the two's DNA in order to confirm their theory would be really difficult if not outright impossible in such a short timespan, and that's if you don't consider the absence of the person who knows the most about the APTX in the first place and could have sped things up if she was there). <- sidenote: I feel like I may have misread this point of the theory, so my interpretation and objection could be completely off bc it's not what you were talking about djsnfns

That said, I find the point about ensuring a direct line to Sherry through familial relations very interesting, in the sense that it made me stop and ask myself how she would react upon finding out that she has more living family still, but over half of them are people who she may see as having caused her grief/major discomfort at best. Would her wish to connect to her family be stronger than her self-preservation (along with the fact that she doesn't really know these people and therefore has no emotional attachment to them, not even as abstract idealized family)? I'm genuinely not sure, but the BO banking on this, possibly because having essentially groomed her they know her weaknesses best, is very juicy.

Honestly, thanks to that post (and a few delightful conversations about it), I do think that making Mary and Gin related in some way would be like. Really really funny. It'd also probably piss off a lot of people, but it'd be so funny.

And, given Gosho's magic retconning powers, I have come to the conclusion that Gin being Elena and Mary's brother that nobody ever talks about for some reason would be peak comedy. It even gives the whole "Elena and her husband received an offer they couldn't say no to because it'd let them continue their research" thing a new layer of context if you consider that Gin may have been the one who brought them to the Boss's attention.

This is also brought to you by my superficial genetics liker ass who says "Tsutomu's hair is brown and Mary's is blond. Brown is a dominant gene while blond is recessive, so unless Tsutomu's genotype was heterozygous (which we unfortunately can't know without the rest of his family tree. Also Gosho only seems to care about genetics from time to time) Gin should also have brown hair".

Also it's infinitely funnier if this is all a very complicated example of what Cain's Instinct looks like. Imagine playing the long game for literal decades because you want your siblings dead but it should also wipe out the rest of the family. Insane

[mariacallous]

Every year, I find myself up against the Tax Day deadline, hunting down paper forms and password-protected PDFs, disciplining piles of crumpled receipts, and getting all the fine-print arithmetic just right. This stress, like money, is distributed unevenly. The wealthy and their corporations operate not on the basis of a tax season but rather on a year-round minimization of liability, achieved by accountants, financial planners, and lobbyists. Meanwhile, low- and middle-income taxpayers count on their refunds, through the earned-income tax credit, to survive the months to come.

The Treasury Department collected $5.1 trillion in taxpayer dollars during the 2024 fiscal year—money that everyone has a different take on how to spend (Medicare and Social Security, education, scientific research, tanks and bombs, asphalt on the interstate, job training). But all that depends on a functional Internal Revenue Service, which Donald Trump and Elon Musk have targeted since January. Until recently, the I.R.S. had about ninety thousand employees to carry out tax collection and enforcement across the United States and its territories. That number is considerably smaller now, and will continue to shrink as Trump and Musk make cut after cut—and change the nature of the agency’s work. Last week, in a possibly unlawful move, the Administration announced that the I.R.S. would share confidential taxpayer information with the Department of Homeland Security, for the express purpose of arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants.

My conversations with workers inside the I.R.S. reveal an agency struggling to carry out its basic mission under the dual pressures of tax season and DOGE. This Administration’s policies, enacted in the name of so-called efficiency, could cost the Treasury more than two trillion dollars in lost revenues throughout the next decade. Federal employees are not used to being the protagonists of any story, especially a story as dreary as this. The willingness of one I.R.S. customer-service representative to be featured in today’s installment of my Deep State Diaries column indicates just how desperate conditions have become.

A week before Tax Day, Mike woke up at 4:30 A.M. and caught the train to Philadelphia just before six. The weather was brisk and sunny; from the window, the freeway traffic didn’t look bad yet. He wore his usual outfit: a Henley shirt, a light jacket, and slacks. He had two sandwiches for lunch. He carried his pocket radio, which was tuned to NPR’s “Morning Edition” on WHYY. “I’m definitely a creature of habit,” he said. Mike—whose real name has been withheld for privacy—has worked at the Internal Revenue Service for twenty years, currently as a customer-service representative. He is in his seventies and does not intend to retire.

The I.R.S. office in Philadelphia is situated in a grand, Art Deco-style federal building across from Thirtieth Street Station, along the Schuylkill River. Before President Donald Trump started his second term, the office employed around five thousand workers. Mike swiped through security, bought a coffee at the snack shop, and took the elevator up to his floor of padded cubicles. At his desk, he logged into his computer and put on a telephone headset, preparing for another day of what he called “the repetition—the same speech at the end of every call, the same speech during every call.” The I.R.S., which was created during Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency and sits in the Treasury Department, collected $5.1 trillion in the 2024 fiscal year—“nearly all the revenue that supports the federal government’s operations,” the agency wrote in its latest annual report. It runs a hotline, in English and in Spanish, with interpretation services available in more than three hundred and fifty additional languages.

It was peak tax season, which meant that Mike and other C.S.R.s in the building were on the phones more than usual. Thousands of representatives across the country handled tens of millions of calls, with an average wait time of just three minutes. “What’s your Social Security number? . . . Thank you. Hang on, please,” Mike began. “You got a letter from us. That letter is going to have a long number with some dashes or breaks. Can you give me that number, please?” In the cubicles all around him, his co-workers were taking similar calls, their voices forming a choir: “What’s your Social Security number?” “Address?” “Date of birth?” “Where were you born?” “Are you expecting a refund?”

If a taxpayer moves, sees a dramatic change in income, or is the victim of a scam, they might receive a letter asking them to contact the agency before their taxes are processed. Mike takes calls from taxpayers living abroad, taxpayers who have received notice of possible identity theft (the Taxpayer Protection Program), and taxpayers with random questions about their returns. Taxpayer-protection calls can last as long as half an hour, and Mike has verified the identities of people all over the world, from Texas to Egypt. One impatient caller went through the verification process, then asked why his account at irs.gov still reflected a protective hold. It takes time, Mike explained, for the data to go from “green characters on a black screen,” as it appeared on his computer, to an update online.

Lately, since Trump’s reëlection, Mike had been thinking a lot about racism and history. Where he lives, in the suburbs, most people are white (like him) and Republican (not like him). But the office, and Philadelphia in general, is largely Black. His dad, who was Jewish, had fought in the Second World War and faced discrimination in his own platoon. Mike came of age during the civil-rights movement. It was telling, he said, that Trump’s first campaign had “cast Barack Obama as an enemy” through the lie of birtherism. “That comes around to what we have today,” he added, “where half the country is just plain wrong and racist.” He believes that this prejudice is driving much of the Administration’s agenda, including its offensive against the I.R.S. and other government agencies. In 2024, nearly a fifth of federal workers were Black. “They’re perfectly happy to throw Black people out of work,” he said.

Four hundred employees in the Philadelphia office had been fired in February, a week after the “elation” of the Eagles winning the Super Bowl, Mike recalled. The several thousand workers who remained were being pushed to resign or retire, despite the crush of tax season. Flexible schedules were cancelled. Remote work would no longer be permitted. Trump did away with the civil-rights office, the union contract, and collective-bargaining rights. “There was anger, consternation on the floor,” Mike said. “Rage against the machine.”

A terse e-mail had arrived on April 4th, warning of a reduction in force “that will result in staffing cuts across multiple offices and job categories.” Nationally, the I.R.S.’s workforce of ninety thousand was expected to be halved. Employees were told to “upload a current resume to HRConnect”—their credentials would be scrutinized. C.S.R.s with even more seniority than Mike were having to market themselves like new college graduates. He helped a colleague dig up the résumé that she had used to apply to the I.R.S. It was another humiliation, not unlike the “five things you did last week” e-mail that Elon Musk and Russell Vought were requiring all federal employees to submit every Monday, or else.

Mike took that assignment literally, listing general tasks for each day of the week: “Taxpayer Protection Program line,” “international line,” “work and close cases.” “Our dear pal Elon Musk seems to push this idea that public-sector workers are lazy,” he said. “But we’re evaluated constantly. My calls are recorded. The adjustments I make are reviewed.” Systems analysts monitor what every C.S.R. is doing: the length of time they’ve been on a call, the length of time they’ve been between calls, the length of time they’ve been on break. “If you go over your fifteen-minute break, the managers start sending you e-mails,” Mike said. “There’s a lot of accountability. That’s O.K., because we’re getting paid to do a job. They have every right to know when we’re working.”

In the late morning, Mike attended a weekly meeting with the twenty or so C.S.R.s on his team. Their manager acknowledged that the agency was “understaffed and overworked.” She also stressed that it was not the time to slack off. The Philadelphia office had given each employee ninety minutes of “administrative time” to work on their résumés. “Do your hour and a half,” she told the team. She also addressed the impending return-to-office requirement. “In two weeks, everybody’s going to be in the building,” she said. “There is not enough parking, so it’s first come, first serve.” The C.S.R.s groaned. She also talked about the imminent reduction in force. “We don’t know who’s being RIF’d,” she said. “We don’t know how they’re doing it. . . . All I can do is tell you guys to just keep doing your best.”

Mike returned to the phones:

Can you tell me approximately how much you earned working for that particular employer? If you just go to our website, www.irs.gov, right on the left side, there’s a link that says, “Make a Payment”—fast and easy. Nine weeks to receive your refund, whether it’s issued as a direct deposit or a paper check. Did you have any dependents, and can you give me the name?

It all blurred together. “Same thing with variations all day long,” he said.

After college, Mike had briefly worked with adolescents in a psychiatric hospital. In his twenties, thirties, and forties, he was a railroad brakeman, a Radio Shack salesman, and a guitarist in rock and country bands. He applied for an I.R.S. job when he was in his fifties, after answering a personal ad and going on a date with a woman who worked there. “It didn’t turn into a relationship,” he said, but it did turn into a career. He was hired as a clerk, a literal paper pusher. He placed forms in file cabinets and opened envelopes that contained tax-return forms and paper checks. He reviewed original passports and birth and marriage certificates from foreign nationals who wanted to obtain a taxpayer I.D. number. He developed a basic faith in the premise of taxation. “I will say to people, ‘How much do you think it takes to get yourself a hundred and fifty fighter jets?’ What a criminal thing it is when people who are making tens of millions of dollars pay almost no tax.”

Now, as a C.S.R., he still “does paper”—the digital kind. When he wasn’t on the phone, he was examining the digitized 1040-X forms of taxpayers who had failed to report foreign assets (Section 21.8.1.28.1 of the Internal Revenue Manual). In one recent case, he made sure that a rare hundred-thousand-dollar “self-assessment,” or penalty, paid by a taxpayer with three dozen accounts in the Caribbean, was deposited in the right place. Normally, “I enjoy moving money from the taxpayer’s account to the U.S. Treasury,” he said. “But I feel no thrill today, knowing it’s going into the pockets of billionaires who finance politicians that are going to fire me in a few weeks.”

In the past, he had felt that, for most of the I.R.S., “things just keep working like they have been working all along.” Nothing at the C.S.R. level seemed to change “on the basis of who’s in the White House.” President Joe Biden had infused the agency with tens of billions of dollars under the Inflation Reduction Act, with the goal of improving customer service and tax enforcement, but Congress subsequently rescinded much of those funds.

On April 8th, the Treasury Department agreed to share private, individual taxpayer information with the Department of Homeland Security, in an effort to locate and arrest undocumented immigrants. In response, the acting head of the I.R.S., along with three other top officials—all Trump appointees—resigned. “We have always kept I.R.S. data, taxpayer data, strictly for use in processing tax returns,” Mike said. “Now we’re sharing immigrant identities. I think it’s atrocious.”

Mike wondered if the I.R.S. would continue to function. Trump’s cuts, in the name of so-called efficiency, might not affect collections or audits this month, but they are expected to cost more than two trillion dollars in federal revenues throughout the next decade. “Are they going to continue bringing the law to bear on wealthy people?” Mike said. “I don’t know. I haven’t got an answer.” He drew a contrast between figures like Trump and Musk and the ordinary, wage-earning rich. “If a heart surgeon makes five million bucks a year, he might pay a million and a half or two of it in federal taxes; or an officer in a large construction company who’s making three hundred or four hundred thousand a year and paying fifty or sixty thousand dollars in taxes. These are the folks really floating the boat, because they can’t hide their income.”

He had finished doing his own taxes in March, by hand. “I just clear a place on the table and get out my W-2s and 1099s and some blank forms,” he said. He had never used an accountant. He took annual training courses to stay up to date on tax procedures, and reviewed weekly alerts notifying him of changes to the law. “There’s a ton of information,” he said. “These folks who want to destroy the I.R.S.—they’re going to succeed, because it takes years to learn how to do this.” ♦

The New Yorker is committed to coverage of the federal workforce. Are you a current or former federal employee with information to share? Please use your personal device to contact us via e-mail (tammy_kim@newyorker.com) or Signal (ID: etammykim.54).

[tmwwriting]

Snippets of a fic I’ll never write: (3/x)

Matt Graver x small town reader

The diner is small, nondescript: the standard four walls and a dingy vinyl floor, every surface peppered with dings and scrapes and carelessness. There's a sign for it just before the freeway off-ramp, generic and unpromising: a deep blue stamped with cartoon cutlery and a fuel pump for the gas station across the street. An H for hotel is on there, too. That one's a lie, but there is lodging, in the dingy strip mall motel further up or the RV parks stashed around the valley. The types that want cash, the paper per diem. All of it—lies included—make up the tiny little holler for passengers who can't wait for the bigger city just up the interstate. Families, mostly, on road trips with children who overestimate how long they can hold it. Some tourists—usually hippies with too much sense of adventure. Van life, whatever that is. Shirking the ocean for the mountain, waves for land. They all move on quickly, though.

No one ends up here on purpose.

The people that do are the people who get stuck. They stay and pretend it's a choice, like pitching a tent by the side of a car-wreck. There’re houses splattering the dirt roads that branch off from Main Street, fences made of wire, posts stuck haphazardly every so often. Bent and wrecked, a hit and run of neglect that means nothing ever looks new around here. It may have been a sparkling little town at one point, a postcard-cute sampling of good ol' country living. Now it's been painted over with a filter called Abandoned.

No police department, nor fire. The county handles all that. "Better for the budget", as though bureaucrats have ever concerned themselves with line items like Affordable Housing or Cost of Living. None of you are worth the investment, is what they mean. Even the YIMBYs and the NIMBYs don’t bother playing tug-of-war with this scrap heap.

But it's enough. It's a life, anyway. Small and boring, a persistent trickle from dilapidated water faucets, tinted brown with oxidized metal. Boil it, and you're good. You've always been an accomplished pretender, anyway. Daydreamer. You have to be, before the day-in, day-out monotony makes you forget what real music is supposed to sound like. But the chime of the diner door brings you back to reality with a thud each and every time, marks the end of whatever symphony was filling your head, like a conductors last grand flourish. By now you have a shorter distance to fall—you know not to stray too far away. Hurts less, this way, as you leave the towel at the half wiped-down table, and head out to the front.

He saunters into this life with the noon day sun, shoulders set like he owns the place. Modestly dressed, an untucked shirt that might have looked nice when he first bought it five years ago. It all fits well, though—certainly not new, but taken care of. No accessories other than utilitarian ones. Watch. Sunglasses.

He's handsome, is your first thought, even though the glasses’ frames cut harshly into the outline of his face. Strong features though, the ones that are visible. Proud forehead, arrogant chin. It juts out when he notices you staring, cheekbones widening in a little grin as he moves the glasses to his collar.

He doesn't wait for you either, just settles himself into a seat at the counter with a view of the parking lot. You wipe your hands on your jeans, hoping there's no damp imprints now, cheeks hot as you approach him like he's the sun. He slides over, eyeing you, and doesn't look away even as you set the plastic menu in front of him. 

He opens with, "Always this hot around here?" Not the worst line you've ever heard, and dropped so confidently you know that's just the way he talks; there’s no stakes in this for him.

"Not even real summer yet,” you counter. “Schools are barely out. You just wait another month, month and a half. Place’ll turn into a sauna. Now, can I start you off with something to drink?"

He doesn't hesitate. "Coffee, but—that thing it? Might need something stronger."

He tilts his head to get a look over the counter. The little drip machine looks as depressing as everything else in the place, but the bitter liquid it spews out can make a horseshoe stand upright. You don’t have time to defend the thing’s honor—just perk upright, hands on your hips. 

"The closest bar is ten miles down the road. Only thing stronger I've got is the bleach under the sink." 

"Stick with the coffee, then." He smiles. "No tiny little cups, ma'am. You bring that thing out in a punch bowl." 

Out of spite you search for the daintiest little teacup you can find in the place. It's certainly not a punch bowl, but he toasts you with it when you set it in front of him, like you've brought him the grail. 

You're bringing another table a refill of ketchup when you see him down the thing like a shot. Doesn’t even make a face, though you’ve seen grown men sputter and cough and choke on the bitterness. You quirk an eyebrow and go back to your cleaning.

He doesn’t want anything else—checking in a few times afterwards only gets you dismissed with grins and a wave of a hand. Finally, he asks for another cup, about thirty minutes after he finished the first. And then he stays, eyes now stuck to the TV up on the wall, wires duct taped strategically out of sight behind it.

Wiping down the counter a few spots next to him is a tad obvious, perhaps, but it lets you watch the news with him: big thick chyron about missing hikers; stone faced reporters with grim tones; a cut away to the grieving families issuing statements, huddled outside what looks like the county sheriff’s office. 

"Awful, all that,” you pretend you’re saying to no one in particular. “Didn't use to be so bad a few years ago. Now people going missing, just on trips to the Park. Even on private land, like a couple months ago. They find ‘em sometimes…after.” 

"Yeah, I imagine AKs shoved in their face didn't make it into the home movie."

He says it so flatly you almost wonder if you misheard. It’s the tone you’d have taken with a cashier who insists on chatting to you about your day, not grisly murders up in the hills. 

But then he grins and stands up, slaps down what you can tell is already a disproportionately high tip, and nods to you as the sunglasses come back on. 

“Excellent coffee here, though. Gonna remember that.” 

The door chimes again—it can’t tell an exit from an entrance—but this time there is no thud of disappointment, no bitter fading of your daydreams as reality bleeds through. Just a thin sheen of dampness in your palms, and a jolt stronger than any caffeine patch as you pocket the tip and the note he left, the news story still playing in the background. 

[blowflyfag]

WORLD WRESTLING ENTERTAINMENT/FEDERATION MAGAZINE: February 1994

personality profile

DIESEL

FROM: LAS VEGAS, NEVADA

BIRTHDAY: JULY 9

WEIGHT: 330 LBS.

HEIGHT: Nearly 7’

FINISHING MOVE: RIGHT-HAND UPPERCUT

Diesel is one of the biggest contenders in the history of World Wrestling Federation. He stands almost 7 feet tall and tips the scales at an impressive 330 pounds. Diesel is every bit as nasty as he is massive.

Diesel, who originally came to the Federation as Shawn Michaels’ bodyguard last June, has grown into a polished wrestler, capable of breaking records and other things, such as limbs, heads and bones of the opposition.

Although he tends to keep to himself, World Wrestling Federation Magazine discovered that Diesel has an interesting past. Unlike other superstars who often have established themselves in amateur and professional sports or other wrestling organizations before joining the Federation, Diesel shunned organized athletic competition. He says that he never has had any use for sports. 

“Football, amateur wrestling, competitive weightlifting and all the other sports other wrestlers participated in never appealed to the big Diesel,” he says. “My sole hobby and one point of interest was fighting–street fighting, not boxing, not karate, not wrestling–just plain old fighting.”

When he was a young tough growing up in the American Southwest, this publication learned, Diesel used to frequent truck stops along Interstate 10 and challenge the biggest and toughest over-the-road truckers to back-lot brawls. Over the years, he earned quite a reputation for himself. Soon, according to our sources, truckers, who feared a possible confrontation with the huge fellow would–and some do still–reroute their jaunts to and from the West Coast so that they bypassed Diesel’s area. 

Some wrestlers are carrying on that tradition in the World Wrestling Federation. They do everything they can to avoid a clash with Diesel. 

“Nobody wants to get in my face, if they know what’s good for them,” brags Diesel. “Just look at the damage I can do in the ring. My right-hand uppercut has busted more sets of ribs than I care to count. And just look at some of the guys I got rid of. Yeah, remember a guy who used to think he was perfect? Well, he’s not around the Federation anymore, thanks to the Diesel.”

Diesel admits that he doesn’t possess the necessary skills to match wrestling virtuosos such as Bret “Hit Man” Hart, Marty Jannetty or the 1-2-3 Kid. However, he says he doesn’t need these talents to succeed. He never has. 

“I don’t know the difference between an armbar and a crowbar, but I tell you what, I can break heads better than anyone in the World Wrestling Federation,” says Diesel. “That’s the name of the game–winning at all costs. If someone were to get me in a hold, I wouldn't bother with a counter. I would just pound the dude until he released it, and then I’d pound him and pound him some more. It’s as simple as that.

They say that simplicity is the key to ingenuity, and thus far, Diesel's simple and brutal approach to wrestling is paying off for the big man. One day, he says, it will pay off with gold when the World Wrestling Federation Championship Committee grants him a title shot. 

[x-v4mp3y3lin3r-x]

I honestly do like helping to educate people who just genuinely don't understand Hurricanes, prep, or evacuating. The problem is that we have these roundabout conversations year after year after year and it just never seems to stick. Evacuating can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. Cheap hotels fill up quick and even "cheap" hotels these days are $150+ a night. God forbid you own pets, expect to pay another $100+ deposit or fee.

When you're one of 10 million people trying to funnel through 3 interstates, it can take literal days just to get out of the state. Think about a 3 hour drive becoming a 10 hour long wait in bumper to bumper traffic.

And besides, what's the point of leaving if you know you're gonna come home to a destroyed house anyways? Then you've wasted hundreds of dollars and you have to hope that the government and your insurance will cover the cost of your repairs, otherwise you're gonna be out several more thousands of dollars.

It's just not as simple as leaving, that's my point. And it's not as simple as just going to a shelter, either, because shelters flood! They get destroyed, too! Not to mention that there's just not enough shelters for all of us. I see people say that shelters should only be for the homeless, and that's just ignorant. Counties will evacuate mobile homes only, sometimes, and those people need somewhere to go. People who have to flee their flooded, destroyed houses DURING the storm need somewhere to go, too. You can't plan for a tree to fall on your house (something that happened to our neighbors during Irma, they had to have others illegally break curfew to come pick them up)

And what about nursing homes, hospitals, prisons? People who can't be moved, or who the government refuses to move, who don't have the mobility to save themselves when the waters start rising? People on life support can't "just leave". Prisoners trapped in cages while the guards save themselves can't "just leave".

Not to mention something I'm hearing people up north in Appalachia: The storm path shifted! That's normal, it happens, but it means that people who do evacuate, who happen to evacuate to the "wrong" area, could easily end up right back in the path of a shifting storm. My mom used to say that I was a baby who could sleep through a hurricane, because back in 2005 my family tried to evacuate and ended up having to shelter in a hotel because the storm path shifted. Sometimes you just get fucked! Sometimes you spend hundreds of dollars evacuating and end up in a place where it's too damn late to evacuate again!

These are only some considerations. There's a thousand other reasons someone may end up in the storm. If you listen to interviews from Katrina survivors, some people say they stayed to hunker down with their parents or grandparents who wouldn't leave. Some people's jobs call them in until the very last minute, sometimes their jobs even force them to shelter at work, on the clock.

People have millions of reasons to do what they do, and none of them ever deserve to die for it. Whether they didn't get the evacuation order until too late, or whether they chose to ignore it, they don't deserve to die.

[bobthemole]

I have spent a full evening researching interstate moving companies and

(a) have developed a hyperfixation

(b) but am too lazy to type up what I learned

So I'm still useless. Sorry.

Okay here's a bunch of links in case you, too, are planning a cross country move and want to feel less confused.

Baby steps

Angi's List - How to get accurate moving quote https://www.angi.com/articles/how-get-accurate-moving-estimate.htm

Getting into it

Tips for successful interstate move https://avatar-moving.com/guides/interstate/ready-to-move-tips-for-a-successful-interstate-move

Rights and Responsibilities https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/protect-your-move/consumer-rights

Finding movers

How to find a mover you can trust https://avatar-moving.com/index.php/guides/choose/how-to-find-a-mover-you-can-trust

WTF is a van line agent, why is the local mover wearing a national uniform, and who's in charge around here? https://avatar-moving.com/guides/choose/what-is-a-van-line-agent

Search for DOT registered mover https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/protect-your-move/search-mover

Show you mean business

Order For Service https://avatar-moving.com/faq/what-is-the-movers-order-for-service-and-value-declaration

Cost Estimate https://avatar-moving.com/guides/estimate/how-to-get-an-accurate-moving-cost-estimate

Table of Measurements https://avatar-moving.com/guides/estimate/the-movers-table-of-measurements-cube-sheet-and-your-moving-cost-estimate

Yelling at movers

Holding shipment hostage https://avatar-moving.com/guides/estimate/mover-holding-shipment-hostage

[morethanmeetstheass]

Tell us the “sob story” 8O

lol im gonna put this under a cut so its not massive, but here u go, sob story!

so i think i mentioned that my former apartment got lit on fire, so i had to move to a new place because i was too fuckin scared to live in that place anymore. upside, the guy who blew up my furnace got fired, so W

lived in apartment 2 for a while, it was pretty good, but extremely lonely! i had no local friends At All and like, exactly 1 online friend, so i was wallowing in a sea of loneliness for like, a solid year and a half living there. woe is me, whatever. eventually decided fuck this place, i wanna move back to new york-- i went to uni there, i was born there, i loved it there so i wanted to go back. bought a house, WHEEE-- THAT was a hell of a nightmare, house had code violations, contract was a mess, it was a whole stressful thing. but we got it settled. i have a house now! so that's cool!

but it's also not! because i had a friend/situationship i guess? in new york and i invited them to live with me bc they needed somewhere to live, i'd feel more comfortable having a roommate bc im still afraid to cook and use heat or anything, it was a win win. we went on a few dates back in like, 2020, and i was like, we'll see where things go romantically! without really any expectations of whether we'd get together or not, since ive changed a LOT since 2020 and i really didnt know them all that well. but hey, potential partner! we'll call them jill.

wrench got thrown in THAT when i met a guy, oops! started modding for a pretty big youtuber who's also become one of my best friends, and met a wonderful guy. we very much fell for each other and are now dating. we'll call him levi. told jill hey, i met someone, so suna x jill isnt gonna happen. that didnt go well! jill was apparently much more under the impression that we were gonna date than i was, and was/is very heartbroken about it. whoops! so now i live with someone who is currently still in love with me, while dating someone else! yikes!

which would be fine if there wasnt also a shitload of drama about jill cleaning up their stuff! they've been here for almost 5 months and ive had to ask them dozens of times to please get their huge piles of stuff out of the middle of the floor bc i needed paths for the movers to get their stuff in, i need to unpack my own stuff, etc. they got so upset about me asking them to do this (bear in mind, literally the entire living room was full of stuff FLOOR TO CEILING, and i've given them plenty of warning on dates i was coming to renovate/paint/when my move-in date was) that they threatened to move out and i was like? ok? then move out LMAO. also their cat injured one of my cats and ripped a hole in his ear!

so yes, a lot of unnecessary stress and drama on top of already dealing with all the shit involved with interstate moving, new finances, job changes, relationship changes, all that. the upside being, im very very very happy with levi, im starting to feel settled in my new house, things at my job have calmed down, and things are overall pretty okay. im aware that im extremely privileged to be able to own a house (granted, in an area with a very low cost of living-- the house was like 150k which is actually a semi-sane house price, compared to my friends with 700k homes and stuff LOL) and that my problems arent really all that bad, but topped with the dystopian state of the world right now and the existential dread ive had for months because of it, its just Not been a good time in the suna world. but its ok. things are calming, im making the best of it, and we'll see how things go from here!