NASA's space rover, Spirit, has landed on Mars and is making good headway upon its surface.

After a dreaded incubation of six months, last weekend I uprooted my life from Cincinnati and moved to Dayton, a satellite city to the north one long hour. I had faced the following dilemma: an increasingly dissatisfying job (dare I call it a career?) with a two hour daily orbit on the highway; and a rental property here in need of fixing up. I made the decision to move: To fix the place up in preparation to sell; to live more cheaply; and to be more alert for the next step -- whatever and wherever that might be.

Once the dust has settled, it is time for Grace and I to unfold; to extend our limbs and make an initial scan of the territory. The wind roars past corners of the outpost. Inside, it quietly creaks and rattles. I bundle myself carefully: An old winter jacket, military surplus pants, a long black scarf and a wool cap. Grace wears a protective black coat and a collar with a brightly-beaded reflective surface. As we slowly span the horizon and take note of our surroundings, it appears that we are the only living creatures.

It is time to take our first steps. We spot our objective: A brown and grey crater that is a park two blocks away. The egress path looks clear. We follow the sun, the color of burnished copper, hovering low and full against a steel sky. The trees are placed in symmetry, blackened and withered like frozen arteries. Does water exist here? Grace burrows her snout into the surface, retrieving information. She snorts in pleasure, jerking me along behind her. Does she detect carbon-based material? We see rock forms unlike any seen before and move ackwardly forward in these strange surroundings.

We saw the first signs of life this morning: Trundling along the perimeter of the crater, two Canadian geese -- equally brown and grey -- flew overhead. They honked in panic as if they had lost their way. Can this place offer the potential for suitable living?

It is odd and surprising how, in facing the object of dread, things sometimes turn a corner in an unexpected way. In the most unlikely and desolate of places, and in the most unlikely and desolate of times. I feel myself grow stronger.

A new frontier.

Oh my, I'm exhausted! I now have a new address -- and a roommate!

Last week, out of the blue and in the midst of packing, I received an e-mail from some of my law school friends, married and both working for BIPC: Guess what! They trumpeted, We've gotten jobs and are moving there! And... might I know of anyone who had a temporary extra room for one of them until they sold their house and bought a new one here?

I got myself a roomie!

Yikes!

I haven't lived with anyone since 1996. Not since moving out from under the disintegrating confines of my relationship with J. Having made the offer to my friends, I immediately began dissecting how my living arrangements would look from the eyes of an outsider. And the results I collated weren't pretty.

I have no toaster. Ohmygosh, I realized, I have no toaster. I don't toast. I haven't toasted in years. Isn't that weird? What is my roommate going to think when he gets here and sees I don't have a toaster? So, even though worn out from a routine of packing, cleaning and painting, I bundled up in the frigid Ohio weather and sped over to the mall for the first time in long time. I found a toaster on sale.

My coffeemaker is pathetic! I bought it at Goodwill 3 years ago for $3. What is my roommate going to think when he sees the yellowed plastic, the permanently stained glass carafe, the cheapest-no-name-logo? I need a new coffeemaker! Into the shopping cart went a top brand name, with automatic everything and sleek 21st century styling.

I can't get cable! I can't get cable because my television is so old it doesn't have an 'input' screw. It's a 10" Magnavox my parents bought my sister when she went to college. At least it's in color. The duplex has cable, but I need a television that supports it. What else is this guy going to do when he's at my place? So, add a 13" RCA color TV to the purchases. Charge it please!

With my gleaming appliances unwrapped and ready for action, I greeted K, tired after a two day nearly-nonstop drive from the Rocky Mountains. "I don't drink coffee," he stated as I stood by my new programmable purchase. "I don't eat breakfast," he said as I motioned toward the toaster.

What are you, a freak?

Better luck in the Living Room, perhaps, where I had the TV user's manual spread on the floor, to figure out the programmable cable hookup. "Here, let me," said K, and within a minute, point-shoot point-click, he had programmed the channel-changer for all possible channels available on the (bootlegged) cable. HBO Here I come!

"Want to see what we can get?" I asked.
"Nah, I'm hungry. Know of a sports bar where I can watch the playoffs?"

After he had left, I unpacked my VCR. It had sat happily in a box for years. But it worked -- or at least at one time it did. I excitedly pulled out "From Russia With Love" from my stock of VCR Tapes, getting ready for an evening of classic Bond James Bond.

But even it eluded me. As I stabbed button after button, various program-y things flashed me. I learned, maybe for the first time, I could have programmed it to pre-record programs. Now I couldn't even set the time. I screwed it into the 'input video' on my sparkling new TV, and watched and waited and fiddled and pecked and.... nothing. 12:00 12:00 12:00, my VCR taunted. *sigh* Ejected and rejected.

With K still gone, I decided that I'd just pretend I never had a VCR to begin with. Back into the closet it went. DVD's are the things now, anyway. Right? At least that's what I'll tell K -- if he asks. And he will ask, right? Right?

And now, getting ready for an early bedtime, all that runs through my head is: Am I single because of my Luddite-like mastery of technology? Or, my ability to out Woody Allen Woody Allen?