A moving story, but not a story that will move you.

We're moving to a new place in a couple of weeks.

Hmmm. Somehow, that doesn't illustrate the situation well enough.

We are TWO GAY MEN and WE ARE MOVING IN A COUPLE OF WEEKS.

Nope. Not quite there yet.

We are a GAY COUPLE who has to PACK UP EVERYTHING AND MOVE IT TO ANOTHER PLACE in a couple of weeks.

Still lacking that certain something.

WE'RE A COUPLE OF HIGH-MAINTENANCE, MARRIED QUEENS WITH WAY TOO MANY TCHOTCHKES AND OH HOLY JESUS WE'RE MOVING AND WHY THE HELL DO WE HAVE THREE PICNIC BASKETS AND YOU SHUT UP, YOU'RE THE ONE WHO INSISTED WE NEEDED A TRIFLE DISH NO, YOU SHUT UP WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO START MAKING THE NEW CURTAINS AND YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO PICK UP BOXES AND WE HAVEN'T EVEN PICKED OUT THE PAINT COLORS AND WHEN THE HELL ARE YOU GOING TO GET THE CABLE SHUT OFF AND I KNEW YOU WERE TROUBLE THE FIRST TIME I LAID EYES ON YOU!!!!!

Aaaah. Perfect. At least our neighbors can take comfort in one thing: when long term gay male couples fight, we do it at a pitch so high it only annoys bees.

There's one question that keeps repeating itself in our minds: Why the hell do we have so much stuff? Actually, that's not true. There's a second one, loathe as we are to admit it: Was our taste really that bad back in the '90s? Where did all this faux-Tuscany, ivy-painted, gilded, Bombay Company bullshit come from? Were we high? Or were we just giddy with the whole "We're getting MARRIED!!!!" euphoria that gay men lapse into when it comes time to pick out the china, fooling them into thinking that a hand-painted ceramic rooster is just the thing? Thank God for ebay.

This has been a bigger challenge than we thought it would be. We've been in the same place for almost nine years now (a record for both of us) and we just didn't realize how settled we've become. Picking out fabrics and paint colors was a delicious adventure nine years ago. Now it's a chore. Oh, we'll be thrilled once we make the new place our own. It's the getting there that's so dreary. As much as we'd love to just hire a bunch of shirtless 25-year-olds to take care of all the painting and wall-patching and installing of light fixtures and re-grouting of tiles, the kind of common sense that comes with middle age prohibits it. Not entirely, though.Thankfully, the days of renting a truck and getting all our friends to help us move for pizza, beers and a couple of joints are long behind us. We will happily fork over the cash to let a bunch of moving guys ruin their knees and lower backs for us. Age may slightly dim one's sense of adventure, but we'll take the tradeoff of paying other people to do the grunt work.

But seriously, a crystal trifle dish?