Monday, June 28, 2010

Pods Again

Yesterday several people helped Kij Johnson load two pods to move her belongings to North Carolina. This involved carrying things down three flights of stairs, lugging them across a parking lot, and arranging them in a pod under the capable direction of Shelly Rae Clift. Here are Elizabeth Bourne, me, Mark Bourne, and Jack Skillingstead engaged in this operation:


According to the last census, forty million Americans move each year -- roughly one in seven. This includes local moves, most of which seem to occur in and out of my apartment building. With all this shifting of population, you'd think someone would buy my house in Rochester, New York. No such luck. Six months after I put it on the market, it still sits a-begging.

In the evening, Jack and I had dinner with Eileen Gunn, John Berry, and Gardner Dozois before Gardner flew back to Philadelphia. Gardner had some interesting suggestions on how to sell my house. These included (1) commit a murder there to attract people who want to live in a house with a ghost, and (2) establish it as the Nancy Kress Museum. Since the first of these ideas is not practical and the second laughable, we drove Gardner to SeaTac and put him on a plane east.

5 comments:

EFKelley said...

Laughable ideas get one deported. Got it.

bluesman miike Lindner said...

There's a germ of an idea there, Nancy.

Why not have your agent offer your house as a "haunted mansion"?

A=Agent
H=Husband
W=Wife

A--It's a nice place, isn't it? Just the kind of home for a young couple.
W--There's lots of closet space.
H--I don't know, baby. They're asking a lot.
A--Well, if it's beyond your reach right now...
H--I can afford it!
W--Look, dear! What a wonderful kitchen!
A--But I must tell you one thing about this house. It's haunted.
H--What?
A--Haunted. The previous owner is a well-known fantasy writer. She couldn't take it anymore. She got as far away as possible.
W--Why was she afraid?
A--Well, I guess screaming heads bouncing down the stairs gets old after awhile.
W--I love this place!
H--Whatever makes her happy...

TheOFloinn said...

In 2008, 48 people moved from King County WA to Monroe County NY and 77 people moved from Monroe to King.

Depending on how this comes through, you may need to then click on Monroe Co. in New York. This will show all moves into and out of Monroe.

http://www.forbes.com/2010/06/04/migration-moving-wealthy-interactive-counties-map.html?preload=11001

Nancy Kress said...

Mike-- Where do you find all this information??? I had no idea human migration was so closely tracked.

TheOFloinn said...

The truth is out there.
Of course, so is a lot of dreck.

One place is of course:
http://chartporn.org/
which is where I found the migration map.

There is also
http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/
which does not update as often.