All My Little Words

Today, I should be sitting here surrounded by a bunch of full packing boxes, ready to be loaded into a truck to be moved to a new home. Instead, I think we’re firing our mortgage broker because we still don’t know if we are moving or not, and if we are WHEN. We’d have both had a 4 day weekend this weekend, if we were moving. Instead, I’m stuck working tomorrow, because I may have to save that extra day off for if we do move. If we don’t, so much for my extra day. If we do move, it could be costing us more because of the timing, I really couldn’t tell you at this point, because we’re not being told anything. I decided yesterday I was done with it when I was informed (of something) that we were right back where we were a month ago. Which is when we were told that we couldn’t get a loan for the amount we applied for and needed to put more money down. The money was made to appear, and that should have solved the problem. Instead, we were still waiting. On what, I didn’t know. I guess they were trying to make it go with less money down, and paying off more stuff and having more money in the bank.
At the time, I even asked why – why didn’t we just put the full amount down, and have a lower payment? I was informed that it would not significantly lower the monthly payment, so wouldn’t we rather hang on to some to do some stuff around the house? Well, I guess so.
But I would have just as rather seen it over and done with, which if that would have just been done, we would have closed on time and been moving this weekend.

I wouldn’t care that I am listening to JACKHAMMERING right now, because it would be the last time I’d be listening to it right next door before 9am.

So hopefully, the new mortgage broker that we were referred to calls Alex back today, and can do something about this.

On a lighter note, I did wake up to some emails indicating that my review of the new Paseo in Yelp is a review of the day today, which is kinda cool.

But I’m pretty sad about the fact that I feel like my weekend has gotten all screwed up by this. I have a bunch of birthdays too, one of which would be a lot more fun if I didn’t have to work tomorrow. One of which is my parents, and would have been better for me for them to come over to a new house for dinner. And, of course, I am madmadmad.

Watching Obama’s speech – where the hell is the LiveSlog on this one?

Obama says Thank You about 1,000 times. The crowd won’t shush.

Flag pin!

Obama thanks Hill and Bill, Kennedy, and the “next President of the United States, Joe Biden”.
Huh? Next after Obama?

And Michelle! The crowd goes wild! Shout out to the kids!

Obama sympathizes with people with gas guzzlers and bad mortgages, and too much credit card debt. Hmph.

The crowd is SO. In Love. With Obama. Tears, boos, cheers!

Eight is Enough! Great slogan! Hahahahaha!
Respect for McCain and his military service. But of course!

Boo for McCain voting with Dubya 90% of the time.
But I hope he takes the high road soon and starts talking about his strengths, not McCain’s weaknesses.

Ooh, he pulled out “A nation of whiners”! More booing!!!!
Some laughter at McCain being out of touch

“Ownership Society” = You’re on your own!

Shout out to Bill for all the new jobs he created during his term! Shout out to Mom for raising a family on food stamps while in college! Shout out to Grandma!

Standing O for the zinger to McCain about “celebrity” lifestyle.

(Whoops, tiny fumble there on “drive”!)

Clean water, safe toys!!!

“I am my brother’s keeper”
(subtle shout out to Samuel L.???)

A lot of promises – that concerns me just a teensy bit…
American built, AFFORDABLE, fuel efficient cars no less.
Jobs that can’t be outsourced, even.
An army of teachers, that will be paid higher salaries.
Affordable college education for everyone. Sheesh, where was Obama when I was 18?
Ooh, a personal vendetta against health care, ouch.
Equal pay for an equal day AND I’m still gonna get my social security?

Oh, there’s the debate challenge – it’s on motherfucker!

Accusations of wagging the dog, snap!

Oooh, another debate challenge. DOUBLE DOG DARE!

But srsly, everybody stop bagging on patriotism, y0.

Omg, he said abortion. And “gay and lesbian brothers and sisters”.

Happytalk? Trojan horse?

“It’s not about ME, it’s about YOU.”

Enough!

Mr. Change goes to Washington.

I am pretty sure at this point that they are going to end this with Neil Diamond singing “America”.
Nope, sounds like some Travis Tritt bullshit.

I might be the only one, but I didn’t think the speech was THAT great. Far better than any in 2004 for sure, but it didn’t make me cry or anything.

Making my usual news reading rounds, I was shocked to see that an article on MyBallard about Ye Olde Wicker Basket becoming Thee New Take Five Market has garnered an astonishing 53 comments. Once I read them though, I realized that I should not have been so surprised. Afterwards, all I could think was:
“Dear New Owners of the Dear Little Market on the Corner, – I hope you have been reading, so you are prepared for what you have unwittingly gotten yourselves into. I feel terrible for the fact that you have bought a run down Ballard institution with the wonderful intent of making it something useful again, but because some of the newer residents of Ballard feel the need to rub the noses of Old Ballard folks “in it”, I wouldn’t be surprised if you have some lovely squabbles inside your business.
As evidenced by the comments, I am sure that your opening day will bring a bevy of New Ballard “yuppies” out to conspicuously sit behind widely unfurled copies of the NYT, while drinking the most expensive coffee that you have, in hopes of drawing out the Old Ballard working class for a bitch fight. I don’t think Old Ballard bitch fights. Old Ballard bare knuckle boxes.
Some of the New Ballardites seem to think that whoever has the most money wins. I don’t think Old Ballard has any less money than New Ballard. Blue collar people actually make a really good wage. They just don’t see any reason to blow every penny they have on a Cheapshit Condo.

Old Ballard demands affordable housing – the quaint little Craftsman charmers they’ve been occupying for the last 100 years or so, unsullied by designer paint and granite countertops – in favor of overpriced cardboard boxes filled with bright shiny surfaces that will only look awesome for so long, so that when they die, they have something to leave to their kids. More money, because even if you are making $100k a year, why would you be gleeful about paying a half a million for something that not too long ago would have set you back only $150k? And a dwelling that will stand the test of time, instead of some crapass bullshit that in 15 years will look just as dated as the buildings of the 70’s and 80’s look to you now? 

Anyway, the war between Old and New Ballard rages on. And unfortunately, their battleground may well be your new shop. I hope they don’t break too many bottles of wine.”

In other news, my good friend G seems to be taking a bit of a beating over on the Slog.
Honestly, the two situations are strikingly similar. Some people are into cult classics, but other people want to kick their teeth out for it because being into movies other than art house indie must make you a dirty hipster. Better than a damn movie snob.

So in the end, it all comes down to people who like good, solid, classic stuff that withstands the test of time vs. of the moment snobs who can’t appreciate anything that isn’t brand new.

I thought when I got out of high school this would all be over, but some things just never change.

It is really quiet at work today, which is totally okay with me, seeing as how it is yet another day of interminable waiting, and I have a hard time thinking still. Several times today, both before I came to work and after, I have thought of things I should do, or look up, and then promptly forgotten what it was three seconds later. I don’t have much to say except that this whole experience (home buying) has left me feeling like crying but completely and totally unable to. I had a fit of rage on Friday, and when it was over, I didn’t feel anything, and haven’t since. Can I sue the government or at least the underwriter for driving me crazy? For making me manic depressive?
I have a living room full of boxes that I can’t bring myself to fill with our possessions because I don’t know how I would handle unpacking them again, if that is what the situation dictated.
I finally related the whole sordid story to my mother, only because I felt like I had to because it was relevant to the scheduling of upcoming family birthday celebrations.
I feel even more constantly ill than I have for the past month, if that is even possible. I’d like to really just stop thinking about it, but the waiting is still hanging over us. It is oppressive.

I woke up this morning, after 8.5 hours of nightmares about being able to move in time (or not as the case may be) should we end up doing so, in a kind of minor panic because I had forgotten to do the shop laundry last night. So I dragged myself up earlier than usual to do that.

When we started this whole home buying process, we should have known what was going to happen quickly enough that if we were moving, we would have PLENTY of time to pack. That time has been whittled down to two short weeks. I can’t bring myself to pack anything because I am stubborn, and because I am afraid that I will get half my life packed up only to be told that despite all the hoop jumping, sorry, we’re just not loaning people money for the American dream anymore.

Today has to be THE DAY. It has been THE DAY so many times now, up to and including pretty much any day this whole week. I’m sure somehow someone will manage to stretch it out through the weekend though, just so I can have another busy Saturday at work in which I can barely think straight, so that there is no way Alex could possibly enjoy his birthday, so that the patience that I have never really had in the first place could be stretched so much thinner.

At this point (and at a few others in the past few weeks), I would be so relieved to just be told NO, as long as I was told so TODAY. As much as I have grown so tired of the layout of this house, the weird closet locations and lack of access to them, at least I could resign myself to having to live here indefinitely and resort to extreme measures to make it liveable. By which I mean tossing a bunch of stuff I’d rather not, and spending money I don’t really want to spend on a new bed and couch that would fit better in THIS house.

The one good thing that has come of this, which I began to realize a bit ago, but has really become almost set in stone is that Alex now understands why I didn’t want to buy a house and live in it for 5 years and then find a “better” one to upgrade to. He understands why I said I want to buy a house and move into and never move ever again. He understands that it’s not just the packing and moving, but it is also the pain of the process of choosing a house and trying to make the financing work. Yes, maybe someday circumstances will change and we’ll just be rolling in some much cash that we can just buy any house we want without asking anyone’s permission. Until that time comes though, I am sticking with my plan to move one last time in my life, into the house in which I will live out my days.

I can has margareeta now, pleeze?

Yesterday, I did so much on my day off that I don’t even feel like I had a day off. On days off in which I get nothing done, I feel equally cheated out of a day off because I wasted it. How do I find the balance of the perfect day off, one in which I get enough done to not have wasted it, yet not so much that I didn’t have any fun?

Honestly, I don’t know how I got anything done at all, as I still have not regained the ability to focus or concentrate. The fact that I made it out of the house at all was an accomplishment. I amazed even myself by not only going all the way to the other side of Ballard for the new Paseo, but by later going all the way to Capital Hill to sell clothes.

I also remembered why I do not sell clothes. I lugged two bags of clothing, each weighing roughly 487 pounds, to 2 clothing stores to sell a grand total of 5 items for the amazing sum of $21, which I then proceeded to trade for an incredibly cute pair of shoes. I always forget that no matter what an amazing mix of designer and thrift store and vintage items I put in these bags, I will never sell my stuff as well as a 19 year old girl whose hair hasn’t been brushed in 18 years and who is wearing a visibly and tragically torn dress. Since I put those clothes in bags to sell 4 months ago and haven’t looked at them since the new fall magazines started coming out, I discovered yesterday, that as usual, I should probably keep some of those things that stores did not want because in a month they won’t look nearly as dumb on as they did 4 months ago. I also learned that some of it should just go to Value Village and who cares?

I also managed to have dinner with friends, although just barely. A friend I don’t see often called and asked if I wanted to kick it (yes, some of my friends really do say stuff like that). Of course I did, I never see him, and for once, the timing was opportune in a way I simply cannot explain at this time. We decided to go to Cafe Presse, even that is all the way on the other side of Capital Hill from where we were. We got there and while we were waiting to find out that there would be a 30-45 minute wait, my friend managed to have a small seizure and knock over some tiny pots of mustard that are inexplicably perched on a little table by the door. We decided to go elsewhere. Quinn’s was just as crowded. Since when do so many people go out to eat at 8 on a Tuesday night?? We finally ended up at some “Bar & Grill” which had a tiny menu consisting of a bunch of entrees that all ran around $20, a few salads and some “bar food”. I did not really need a cheeseburger, but it seemed like my best option. We had a good time, and I’m sure the rest of the bar enjoyed his stories about crazy bitches trying to take him home after they offered him some random mystery pills. This is what happens when you live in Everett (him, I mean!).

Back to work today. Ugh.

I do not have a traditional work week, but I still think Mondays are pretty stupid.
I’m not a morning person, but I feel like I am up before almost everyone else.
Anyway, my work week sucks too, because I still have to go to work on Monday, and I’m still tired from Saturday. I have Tuesdays off, and the theory with having split days off is that your week doesn’t feel as long because you only work four days in a row. That is definitely bullshit. The stretch from Wednesday morning to Saturday evening still seems like forever.

So there ya go. Its Monday morning and despite plenty of sleep, I am still tired as shit. I didn’t make it to a friend’s birthday party Friday because I was too tired, and even though I got tons of sleep Saturday was kinda miserable because I was still tired. Plenty of sleep Saturday night/Sunday morning, but I was dragging on the way to see The Dark Night at 3 pm yesterday.

Things are slow and dull and we are having to spend too much time waiting for things. I know I am tired more from stress than lack of sleep, and that is more of a bummer than anything.

Ugh.

Reading about the “BlogHer” conference and subsequent “fallout” a bit this morning made me think. I’ve been doing “this”, such as it is, for 9 years now. Back in the beginning, there was no blog software, and at first it was more about having a pretty website and putting stuff on it that people wanted to look at, rather than writing something of substance (or not, as the case may be), and eventually some of us began writing, in html, there was no blogging software. Then we had Livejournal, and then I guess it was Blogger, and the Blogspot, and then it was all over after that.

Insert in there somewhere message boards, and there you have it. At one point in time, I was a bit more well known in some aspects of this world. Now, I don’t really know anyone just from the interwebs. Back then, we all just wanted people to read whatever crap we were spewing that day. Now, I enjoy the freedom of not having an audience. I’ve said a number of times, it’s just for me, so that I’ll remember it all someday when I start losing it big time.

I was think about this conference, and how I could very well have been someone who went, but as usual, I became displaced along the way, and although that was a world I was a part of, I’m not so much anymore. I don’t really belong there, just like I don’t really belong anywhere, never have never will.

It leads me right back to this thing with the house, and how the experience of trying to get approved right now makes me feel like a second class citizen, if you will. I feel like it should have been done with by now, yet I’m still teetering, wondering, waiting to start packing, knowing that if I do, it’ll all be for naught, if I don’t it will be a stress case race against time to get packed and moved in time.

I wonder over and over, why did I want to do this again? It’s not for the reasons most people wanted to, because that is what you are supposed to do, because they wanted to buy a big house, a pretty house, a status symbol. For me it is the simple things. When I plug my laptop in and I get that message about how the ac adapter cannot be identified, and I know it is because, oh yeah, THAT plug isn’t grounded – I want to be able to say “Hey, fix this fucking outlet” and just do it because it is mine and I can. I want to hang a coat rack on the wall and not have to worry about the fact that I’m gonna have to spackle over what is left behind in a year. And most of all, I am tired of moving. These are simple reasons. I am a simple woman, trying to buy a simple house.

Every day, I look at the listings in “our” “price range”, to reassure myself that it is ok, we are not making a bad decision. I look at what is there, knowing that none of those houses would suit me as well as the one I’ve chosen, and seeing that there are rarely any new ones, and that the prices are not dropping. They will, but from what I have seen, there wouldn’t be anything better than what we are trying to get. I feel better knowing that even though there are less expensive houses (not much less, though) that this one doesn’t NEED much of anything, which is worth a lot.

I am so tired. I just want it to be over. I want to think “This is the first day of the rest of my life” for real this time.

Yesterday – my day off (precious, precious day off) – was filled with all kinds of promise. So many thing to get done, and I was ready to wake up and do them. Instead I woke up, and the world spun and turned upside down, and all I could do was roll over and try to sleep through it. When it was wake up time for realz, I thought the spinning had stopped, but realized I was wrong by the time I reached the living room and stopped to pick something up, and almost fell down. this went on all morning. Most of the time, I was ok, but try to do anything crazy like bend over to pet kitty, and my world dipped and swooped and made me feel like passing out.

Sadly, this was not even the side effect of waking up still drunk. It has happened a handful of times in past year or so, for pretty much no ascertainable reason whatsoever. I have developed some sort of acute vertigo. Not that it is terribly surprising. When I was a child, I used to get horrible earaches, I don’t know why. I just remember crying until I was screaming, and then going to the doctor and getting some sort of drops that were heated in a pan of water on the stove, and then put in my ears and the pain went away.

I don’t have that anymore, but I might trade it back if I could get rid of this. Yesterday was the worst it’s been. it wasn’t so bad until later in the morning, and suddenly, no matter where I sat or stood, everything in my vision was moving in a weird, circular fashion, and I couldn’t help but feel dizzy, and I actually thought I might throw up for a long while. I ended up lying down and falling asleep for about 45 minutes. I discovered if I lay flat on my stomach with my head turned to the left, it was ok. When i woke up, I thought it had all passed, but I was wrong. I didn’t fully realize how wrong until I tried to leave the house to go shopping, and had to turn back after the two quick errands. After that, all I could do was lie on my right side on the couch, which I did for hours. Eventually, much later in the evening, it was just….gone.

Today? Nothing. Some aching in my right hand, in the joints which may or not be related, I don’t know. So I got very little done, which was very disappointing.

We still don’t know for sure about the house. There was definitely an issue that came up this weekend, but it seems as though Alex may have fixed it. If so, he is amazing. I’m not counting on it until I know for sure though. that stresses me out a little, as I am the kind of person who needs to know everything for sure. And here it is, the 6th. That means if it is fixed and we are moving, I have 23 days to pack. Ouch.