After the busy Pride month of June, Camp always takes a break and skips a July issue. Instead, we do a combined July/August issue. This year was an exception, however, and we skipped the month of July entirely. The reason: I moved.
I realize that everyone moves, so that’s usually not a big deal. For me, however, it meant downsizing from a single-family home with a walk-up attic and a basement garage, where I had lived for 20 years. With all that space and all those years, you can only imagine how much can be accumulated. Because I was downsizing to a much-smaller townhouse that has no basement, the move meant a lot of purging, donating and giving things away. It was the most stressful thing I’ve done in many years.
I used an auction consignment company that took away two U-Haul trucks full of stuff. After the company’s 50% consignment, it didn’t net much. It was ridiculous to see how cheap many of my things and my furniture sold for at auction.
My friends Terry and Craig helped me bag and box things, and I donated more than 20 huge bags to Big Brothers Big Sisters. I sold what I could and gave stuff to friends. I used movers to pack and move me – I’m too old to lift and carry that much stuff. I even used a service to help me unpack boxes and put away items in cabinets at my new place, and they were worth every penny. (Who knew a company like that even existed?) I know this gets expensive, but since I was downsizing from a house to a townhouse and my realtor sold my house for a great price, at least I was fortunate to have the funds that many do not have when moving.
On top of that, per the great deal struck by my realtor, Joseph Pinter, I was able to leave behind stuff for the new owners of my house. And I did! The new owners wanted to live on my desirable block in Brookside, and they were planning to gut the house and make it totally new inside. So they were prepared to bring dumpsters for anything I left behind.
My advice to everyone is to start planning your life like you’re moving tomorrow, even if it might not be for a few years. I could have made lots more money selling stuff on Nextdoor, Facebook Marketplace, Letgo and Craigslist if I had the time to plan my move. For me, the process happened quickly.
My realtor had found a couple who wanted to buy my home, so we never had to list it or go through open houses or showings. The downside was that I had barely six weeks to find my next home. In this seller’s market, I lost offers on two townhouses before my offer on a third one was accepted. That was barely four weeks before I had to be out of my house.
I’m still living with boxes, which seems somewhat worse when you work out of your home like I do. I had boxes of back issues of Camp that had to go to storage and many other office items, including computers, scanners and printers, that all had to be moved to my townhouse. Even trying to mail out invoices for advertising was difficult when I couldn’t even find the box containing envelopes. So I just bought new ones. Maybe I’ll find that box of envelopes the next time I move – but I sure hope that doesn’t happen soon.
A move for Missy Koonce
Speaking of moves, the legendary (and I think that word is appropriate) Missy Koonce is leaving Kansas City for her new home in Indiana. She and her partner, Stacie, are leaving in August for Stacie’s new job. Missy has been a key person in the Kansas City theater and cabaret circuit for her entire life. Rarely a month went by without seeing Missy Koonce involved somewhere, whether it was performing at bar Natasha – the nightclub that she ran and co-owned with J.D. Mann – or acting and directing at venues such as the Unicorn Theatre or Late Night Theatre. She also tirelessly worked for AIDS Walk – as a volunteer, as the AIDS Service Foundation president and a board member, and on stage to entertain us at the Walk and other AIDS Walk fundraisers with her theater brother Ron Megee.
As for me, I was honored to have had Missy help us out with Camp by modeling for a few of our covers and always giving us a great story to write about.
We will dearly miss Missy Koonce. We hope she and Stacie can come back home and visit us as often as possible.