My new column at GetLegal.com, The Law In Real Life, kicks off with an explanation of why you can’t make a license plate proclaiming people’s faith in Christianity, SOUTH CAROLINA. I do like reminding myself that I still know what a constitution is.

Seriously, the reason I love this story is that there’s been a fight over which of two legal approaches should be taken to license plates, back through all that “Choose Life” stuff, and they managed to find a way to make a Christian plate that’s illegal either way. Bravo.

In one of my new cobalt blue glasses (on sale for seven dollars at Target for a set of sixteen!), this is iced coffee I pressed and chilled myself, with star-shaped frozen-coffee cubes, made in a silicon star-shaped ice tray from Ikea that I could not resist when I saw it. I was really unduly proud of this preposterously twee concoction, but I’m going to tell you: I hate it when I make iced coffee for myself and it gets all watery, and this is much, much better. The stars, though, are just me amusing myself.

First, understand that I come at this as a person who lived in Minnesota for about ten years. I’m used to booing Brett Favre kind of instinctively, not only because of where I lived but because my bestest friend is not only from Wisconsin, but one of those really weird Packer fans with (no lie) a giant pile of VHS tapes of old Packer games that are being saved for literally no reason except that they are tapes of Packer games, and you do not get rid of tapes of Packer games.

It was already a running joke between us before this most recent round of Brett Favre nonsense, the way he spent years playing the “maybe I will retire, and maybe I won’t” game, dicking around the team and the fans and enjoying — it seems to me — the constant attention generated by vaguely threatening to quit and then watching as everyone fretted about the possibility, and then doing the “well, twist my arm, ow, ow, okay!” dance, and watching everyone rejoice.

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Some of you may remember a couple of years ago when my friend Expat Mike was blogging from Amsterdam. Well, now he’s in Italy, and his blog is alive again, and it’s already wonderful. He’s settling in, but before you get to that, you can read about his adventures with Tina, the worst person to sit next to on the plane EVER:

Tina has a few health problems. She has diabetes, gout, severe asthma, sleep apnea, and fibromyalgia. She also suffers from claustrophobia, depression, and anxiety attacks. She has a pinched nerve, a ruptured disc, and a bunion. She is carrying medicines for all of these. We discuss each medicine in order and their associated side effects. I worry that in Italy I will be declared her common-law primary care physician.

For those of you who have never read his work, I think you will agree that Michael is wasting his talent as an academic. My ultimate goal is to harangue him into blogging even when he’s not traveling, so maybe if you doggedly follow his adventures, it will inspire him.

So…wow. Since the last time you saw me, I have spent an insane amount of time packing and unpacking boxes from various vehicles, and I have also spent an insane amount of time unpacking boxes in general. My kitchen is just about functional (it’s so huge! so very huge!), but the bedroom is still under construction and needs…furniture.

For the most part, my biggest challenge right now is that I seriously pared down my possessions while living in Brooklyn, and I don’t really have enough furniture for this place. I got rid of the couch, of course, but I also need to buy a new bed, and I just…yeah. I need stuff. Right now, the top thing on my list is trashcans.

I spent a lovely July Fourth watching the fireworks at the National Mall from the balcony of LTG’s place of employment, which was AWESOME. All the glory of the fireworks without any of the horrible crowding. I’ve already spent some time with my sister and with my friend Ames and with Music Stylist Stephen, and things are good.

I have also been writing. I wrote about wedding television for MSNBC.com, I’m at Vulture for another couple of days, and I wrote about the gay marriage decision for my pals at GetLegal. Hopefully, I have a couple of big projects launching in the next little while, now that I’m relocated, and soon, I will provide plenty of pictures in which I obsess about trying to get all the things that my substantially bigger apartment requires.

1. Wow, I worried way too much about getting out of town. With help from Sarah, I figured out that it would be MUCH easier to get on the BQE in a manner slightly less direct but INFINITELY less complicated than the one suggested by the mapping assistants. It was so easy, I actually made it too hard and had to correct a little. It took me a HALF-HOUR from my door to the New Jersey Turnpike. Even though I left at four in the afternoon, there was essentially no traffic that affected my progress at all. I did notice that just as I was leaving town, the sky was darkening like there might be a storm later.
2. What the hell is Delaware’s problem? Is the fact that they have no sales tax (or they didn’t when I was a kid) their excuse for charging me FOUR DOLLARS to drive through their state for like ten minutes? Shut up, Delaware. Go tax DuPont. They’re good for it.
3. I stopped a little more than halfway here to get some food and a Starbucks iced coffee. As I was putting sugar in the coffee, I dropped the sugar pourer, which fell onto the coffee, knocked it spectacularly onto the floor, fell itself (the pourer, I’m saying) onto the floor and broke into bits, throwing the sugar all over. It was a p Almost immediately, I heard some buttinsky lady say loudly, “Wow, THAT was bad.” Shut up, lady! Like I don’t know! Fortunately, the Starbucks lady came over right away, she assured me that it was fine, she had it cleaned up, and she replaced my drink. Sweet, sweet Starbucks.
4. I got dinner from Roy Rogers. I didn’t even know there still WAS Roy Rogers.
5. When I arrived at Music Stylist Stephen’s, where I’m camped out for a couple of days, I opened a Leinenkugel’s Sunset Wheat, which is officially the bestest beer I have ever had in the history of having beer.
6. As soon as I got inside and got situated, it started thundering outside. THAT’S RIGHT, NATURE. I outsmarted you.
7. Tomorrow, I empty the truck and return it. Monday, I pop up to New York on the cheap bus for the day so I can finish cleaning, do the walk-through, and turn in the keys. (I know this seems roundabout, but believe me, it was FAR better this way.)
8. But really, I’ve moved.

The update!

I was supposed to leave first thing this morning, at like five in the morning. Ha ha! Yeah. Oh, I really did try, but ultimately, I had to give up on the super-early traffic-free departure and admit that I was actually going to leave this afternoon and have tons and tons of traffic instead.

It turns out that this is a really, really, really big job. Cleaning the apartment is a big job, packing everything I own is a big job, packing it into the truck is a big job…frankly, I’m exhausted, and I’m only most of the way through the first of THREE TIMES I have to move my stuff (it has to be stored, unfortunately, for a couple of days before I can get into the new place). I had to drag to the Time Warner office yesterday lugging three heavy cable boxes and a modem, standing in line for half an hour while the lady behind the counter took her sweet time waiting on people while hassling someone in the lobby to change the channel on the lobby television, which she was apparently more interested in watching than she was in helping anyone in line.

I can totally see the light at the end of the tunnel — my target departure time was originally two this afternoon, and now it’s three. So there will be horrid Saturday-afternoon traffic, but I will sit in it happily, because by then, this part will be over and I will be sitting in an air-conditioned truck. Oh my God, you guys, am I tired. But I have just experienced that moment where you realize that your place looks mostly-empty instead of mostly-filled-with crap, so I’m totally almost done. But I also just had the moment where you realize you need to drink more water and force yourself to sit down for fifteen minutes before you continue. Thus: this entry.

Okay. More later.

When I’m trying to get to sleep and I’m stressed out, I like to watch unchallenging DVDs. Thus, I was just watching an old episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman. THAT’S RIGHT. I’m the one who owns it on DVD. Don’t take me on.

Anyway, I was watching this episode where Lex Luthor’s new nuclear power plant causes a catastrophic heat wave in Metropolis (hey, something had to), and at the climactic moment, Superman tries to intervene to stop the plant from cranking up to full power (hee hee), and Lex Luthor gleefully announces that the process has already started (hee hee). “Can your men shut it down?” Superman demands.

And then the delicious Lex Luthor, played by the really-perfect-for-this-part John Shea, says, with great relish and delight, “No! Once the sequence has started, it’s physically impossible! It’s one of the safety features!”

That DOES sound like a kick-ass safety feature on a nuclear power plant, you have to admit.

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD.

I found the mouse poo graveyard, and I think I am scarred for life.

It’s better than finding the actual MOUSE graveyard (Joe and I agreed that the landlord could be responsible for checking the glue traps he insisted on sliding BEHIND THE STOVE after our first mouse sighting), but the mouse poo graveyard and the volume contained therein has made me think absolutely terrifying thoughts about how much time mice were spending between our refrigerator and the wall.

Clearly, this was where they had their parties.

OH MY GOD.

I know you think you’re tough, with your DRIED SOAP BITS and your occasional SMOODGE OF PETRIFIED SHAMPOO and your GROUT FROM THE 70s, but you know what? I am tougher than you.

Do you hear that, bathroom floor? I have Tilex Mold & Mildew, and I have a bucket of soapy water. I have a scrub brush and a sponge and some paper towels and even with my WEAK GIRL ARMS, I have already taken five years off the life of your pitiful ’70s grout. It may be 2008, but IT’S 2003 BETWEEN THE TILES, you hear me?

You are NO MATCH for me, Bathroom Floor.

You either, Kitchen Floor, so you BETTER run.