Half the house is packed. Things like super-fancy clothes and books and travel souvenirs and wall decorations and all my old sketchbooks – things I don't immediately need – are boxed up and slid to the side. We are ready to move and I am living with just the possessions I would have were I not a hopeless hoarder.

There are no shells and seed pods and kangaroo skulls on the desk. No embroidered ceremonial jackets hanging on the walls. No Aerosmith tapestry, no strings of foil stars, no stack of HST books and back issues of art magazines. No sliding avalanches of scrap paper sketches, no precarious piles of polaroids. No dried flowers hanging in the window, no Japanese fish flags and Icelandic post cards and Southwest serapes.

We are ready to move and I am ready to go.