Have you ever been so tired that you can’t fall asleep?

That’s the only explanation I can muster for why I—a person who has just driven 400 miles on 3.5 hours of sleep, which sleep was immediately proceeded by the moving of many heavy objects and another 400-mile drive—is still awake.

I have always been proud of my self-reliance when it comes to moving. I’m loath to ask for help with all that lifting and driving and carrying, and I think this time around it backfired on me. When I told people of my plan to rent a cargo van, load it with all my shit, drive that van to Minneapolis, unload the shit, and return, all within a 24-hour period, the responses ranged from, “Wow, that’s a lot of driving,” to “You’re insane.”

Which is true. This is precisely the sort of thing I only tell my mother about after, because if I told her before the fact, she’d worry herself to death and/or somehow forbid me from doing it.

The only concession I made to outside assistance occured at the last minute when I called Chris, my only other unemployed friend, to help me move the eight-foot bookshelf of Hackbarthian lineage that Jason was kind/sadistic enought to bequeath to me. And so Chris drove down from Lakeview yesterday just to help me move that giant Ikea son of a whore down three flights of stairs, a struggle which gave rise to yet another Chris Ellis witticism:

JAKE: I can’t imagine being a professional mover.
CHRIS: I can’t imagine being a professional anything!

After Chris left, I spent a couple hours making interminable trips up and down the stairs and carrying various heavy objects through the rain. As soon as I was finished, the rain stopped and the sun came out, and I drove to Minneapolis, slowed only by the usual traffic on the Kennedy and an actual tornado near Madison. When I finally got to my new apartment, it was midnight and my roommate was already asleep, so I loaded everything into my new room very quietly. Even the goddamned bookshelf.

During the moving process I also parted ways with the desk that has served me so well since 8th grade. It was in pretty sad shape, covered in X-acto marks from years of personal projects and much of the fake formica enamel peeling away. I figure I can spring for a new one since a desk is ostensibly the most important furniture a grad student will own, besides a bed and a liquor cabinet. But people, in their enduring irrationality, form sentimental attachments to even the most inanimate objects, and so I spent a brief moment waxing nostalgic about all the good times that desk and I shared. It kind of reminded me of this brilliant commercial.

What’s worse is that the van only had a radio, and so—with exception of some Air America outside Madison and The Current once I reached St. Paul—I was stuck channel surfing through most of the drive, and let me tell you, south-central Wisconsin is a radio hinterland of commercial C&W and religious talk radio. I did, however, manage to assemble this partial list of songs I was pleasantly surprised to hear:

Tom Petty “You Got Lucky”
Roxy Music “More Than This”
Pearl Jam “Evenflow”
The Cars “Drive”
That one song by that Irish chick. No, not Sinead O’Connor
Phil Collins “I Missed Again”
Black Box “Everybody Everybody”
James Gang “Walk Away”
Stone Temple Pilots “Plush”
Black Sabbath “Iron Man”
That one song with the drums
Grand Funk Railroad “We’re An American Band”
Foghat “Slow Ride”
Genesis “In Too Deep” (interrupted halfway through by a tornado warning)
Elton John “I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues”
That one Sting song (not “Fields Of Gold”; it was actually good, from Soul Cages, maybe)
Def Leppard “Rocket” (twice)
Bruce Springsteen “Dancing In The Dark” (twice)
Tom Petty “Don’t Come Around Here No More”
Chicago “25 or 6 to4″
Stevie Nicks “Stand Back” (twice)
The Police “Sychronicity 2″
Depeche Mode “Police Of Truth”
Moody Blues “In Your Wildest Dreams”
Madonna “Open Your Heart”

Thank god for classic rock.

Okay. I’m starting to lose my mind, so I’m going to attempt a long nap on the double-wide papasan that, along with a loveseat sectional of Graverian lineage, comprises pretty much the only furniture left in our apartment. And then I’ll get up, take a shower, and begin my last weekend as a Chicagoan.

Speaking of which, I’ll be at Tuman’s tomorrow starting at 8, if you want to stop by and say farewell.