Wednesday Morning $%&*@ Report

Yes, I altered this photo.

Sometime it's great to tinker with reality. Sometimes it's not. When I read this morning's New York Times, I saw that of the top ten trending stories, all but one had to do with $%&*@. Almost the same was true of the most read stories and the stories selected just for me (a long time subscriber.) However, there were only or two stories about #$%&@ in the most emailed stories. Friends don't let friends drive drunk and they don't email one another about #$%&@. I'm not going to be blogging about him or linking to articles about him on FB. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. 

There's a lot to read. A lot of very important stuff. How about this heartbreaking blog post by my friend Elizabeth Aquino? 

Or THIS? There'a a very pretty picture there.

Or read about THIS BOOK, then maybe buy it.

Or instead of obsessing over $%^&* follow this hot advice:

1. Go buy a box of those Trader Joe's peaches right now. Seriously. Get up. Go. 

2. If you want to put texture on your walls, maybe don't use that powdered pour in the paint can texture. I have no idea what you should use instead.

3. If you are a MAC user and you're doing an online search on your state website for unclaimed property (well, California, for sure) use your CAPSLOCK key when you type in your name. Seriously. 

You're welcome.

I don't know what the quote of the day was in the New York Times today, because I often don't see it now that I read it online. But I'd vote for this from the article on Las Vegas real estate wherein the reporter interviewed this guy who is losing his shirt. “I just don’t know what this world’s going to be like in 90 days. I have never been more confused about my country.”

Minnesota: Land of 10,000 Tears

This post comes to you from my condo in St. Paul, Mn.--a condo I bought back in 2008 pre-economic downturn against the advice of my trusty financial advisor. He was right.

But post-divorce, I was making all kinds of crazy plans. I would have taken out a jumbo loan and financed the Taj Mahal at an interest rate high enough to reach the moon if I'd thought it was the solution to how shitty I felt back then. Daughter M was not doing the best in those days either, and I think living here was some sort of balm--as much balm as a physical thing can be for a hurt that's not at all physical. She lived here for three years, and now the other daughter, C, is living here with her husband. With my mom in a nursing home in northeast Iowa, the Twin Cities are now a good gateway to visiting her.

The frozen rural place/a.k.a. Iowa--taken on the road trip with C and her husband to see my mom

Photo of my mom and me taken yesterday. 

It was -28 degrees today in St. Paul. I went out for a walk. The sidewalks were dry and clean. With my eyes watering from the cold and my frozen tears sticking my eyelashes together, I thought about  my complicated history with Minnesota. I came here for college in 1970 just weeks after signing the final paperwork relinquishing my son for adoption. The next year I had major surgery on my spine and a month later my father died suddenly of a heart attack. The following year there was another back surgery. Thirty years later I came here again and again post divorce. I've walked in every type of weather. I've walked in deep into the woods and on country roads in the pitch black winter night while the sky was ripped apart by shooting stars. I've walked ankle deep in the mud on a lakeshore, along the Mississippi River in driving rain, in downtown St. Paul bathed in Christmas lights. I've walked drunk. I've walked sober. I've walked wailing out loud, talking to myself, while plotting mayhem, and while plotting my own destruction. Today I just walked, glad to be out under the sky.

Today, walking in St. Paul

Walking is what I do. Sad, happy, mad, glad, tired, wired, here, there. 

And while I've shed plenty of tears in California, somehow I always feel happier there.

Last month walking on the beach in Cambria, CA

And tomorrow, I'll be back in Margaritaville (a.k.a. Ventura County)

Though I have to disclose that this photo was actually taken in a Mexican Restaurant in Dubuque, IA

Another road trip photo--just because.

I didn't die, but maybe I'm delusional (see previous post)

I didn't die from eating the inedible gill of a rock crab (see previous post,) and while I am completely annoyed with the pending real estate transaction in which I may or may not sell my house, I did find a trillion dollars lying on the grass outside my condo complex today. HOORAY!

And while the IRS still hasn't let me off the hook for a teeny weeny misunderstanding, which I was sorely reminded of this afternoon when I paid my quarterly taxes, I was not carried off by pelicans during my five-mile walk on the beach the evening before last.

And while I may soon begin to introduce myself at parties as a failed writer, I have for some inexplicable reason been invited with a nice personal note to resubmit to the literary journal that I regarded as the creme de la creme on the list of journals that comprised my last batch of multiple submissions (all but two of a dozen have sent rejections, and one journal actually rejected the same piece twice.)

And while I am currently shuttling between  two half-furnished houses where I never seem to have what I want or need, I am fully aware that this is a problem of the 1%.

And while manufactures of nice lingerie, do not seem to understand that a woman my age might actually want to buy and wear such undergarments, I have succeeded in finding a couple of matching ensembles which have underwear that conceal about 80% of my stretch marks, though the enthusiasm regarding that success was mitigated by reading recently in a New Yorker short story a description of an unattractive older woman who wore "lurid lingerie."

And while I am tired and unusually cranky this evening, I am counting my blessings.
Margaritaville is a much better locale than Divorceville.

Earthquake

There was a 4.1 earthquake here a few moments ago. My windows rattled, something or another thumped, and my heart did its panic dance. Ooooh noooo, earthquake, I said, even though there's no one here with me. But before I could do anything other that hold onto the edge of my desk, it was over.

In the aftermath of the December windstorm I was so rattled I lost my keys, my cell phone, the saw, and the pruning shears, and whatever else I needed a dozen times. I decided the most important emergency item I need is a waist pack so I can keep track of the essentials while my brain drowns in adrenaline.

C. made fun of me. She's at her best when there's some adrenaline around. She said I never would have survived in primitive times. "Help! Here comes a mastodon! Help! Has anyone seen my spear?!!!?" would have been the last words I spoke.

I have an emergency backpack. I have two of them. I have battery lanterns and a battery cell phone charger. But now that my house is scraped to the bone, polished, and ready for its anorexic glamor days on the real estate market, I don't know where my emergency backpacks are.

Help. Has anyone seen my emergency backpack?

The Hollywood Complex

We are all waiting for our moment of stardom here in the City of Angels. People, houses, cats, dogs. I wanted to be a star once. Well. At least a working actor. That's what I wanted. And I was. I put Mr. Ex through law school on the money I made acting. He didn't have to work a single minute of his academic life as a law student. No, he did not.

And the last house we lived in together had its moment. It was in a TV show. They used the front hallway and the living room and the exterior of the house. I think we made three or four grand just for that one day, and when her dad got home that night, the younger daughter told him the front door made more than he did.

So. My townhouse survived its photo shoot. Me running around like a maniac gardener this morning sweeping, raking, hosing grevelia leaves from the patio, juggling artwork around with my real estate agent, turning all the lights on, changing this bowl for that bowl on the dining room table, removing the dish towels from the kitchen, and stowing Piper the cat's sleeping bag (don't ask) and her bowl of Catsure from the living room end table. The fancy embroidered towels were out strutting their stuff, and the perfumed soaps were shaking their little French asses in all the bathroom soap dishes.

You wanna be a star? You wanna be famous? You wanna make the big bucks? Let me tell you what you have to do.

Ready for My Close-Up

The real estate agents just stopped by. There's still a tweak or two to be done. Some artwork to be changed out. A new orchid for the dining room table now that the one I bought at Trader Joe's for my New Year's Eve Party has decided to crap out. But I've done well, they say, despite the fact that the powder room is still turquoise, and my big antique armoires are still taking up space, sucking a little too much oxygen out of the air. But the photo shoot for tomorrow morning is on.

How did this all start? Staging. For real estate. Do they do this shit in Iowa? Nebraska? I want to know.

So the upshot is--I don't really live here anymore. Some alternate me lives here. Some uberhyperneatnik that has embroidered towels, perfumed soap, and only the most tasteful arrangement of books on her bookshelves lives here. How about that, daughters?!?! Could your mother get any scarier? I am now truly your worst neat-freak nightmare.

Maybe I'll sleep in the garage. With my stuff.
Oh. And, um, now is not a good time to visit.

How to Move: Part 2

The first car load is ready to head north. Cleaning potions. A mop. A vacuum. Wine, coffee, tea. Yes, I remembered the corkscrew. Two wine glasses, two plates, two bowls, two sets of silverware.  I'm taking an air bed and linens. A little portable radiator. Beach towels. The rest of the packing is not so well thought out. I'm under strict instructions from my trusted and savvy real estate agent to de-clutter here at what will soon (I hope!) become my former home.

I bought this place where I currently live at the absolute teetering peak of the market and will not be able sell it for what I paid for it. Not even close. But we're going out with guns blazing. A website with the real estate equivalent of glamor shots. A holding period after it's put on the market after which sealed bids will be accepted and opened on a scheduled date. Maybe they'll serve caviar and Vueve Clicquot at the open houses?

No paperback books, family mementos or photos are to remain here on my shelves. The dog bed which has become a napping cushion since the deaths of Lola and Layla must go. My desk will be cleared and polished. The art rearranged by a more discerning eye.

So the rest of what I'm pitching into my car has nothing to do with what I'll need to spend a day or so at the new house. It's a matter of,  where in the hell am I going to put this--oh!--the car, yes, let's drive it to the new house! Oh!--yes, I think this will fit, too. And that! It's a jumble. It makes no sense. But it's all going north. And, oh, I mustn't forget the blue camp chairs so I have something to sit on up there. 

Those blue camp chairs were the only living room furniture I had when I moved here after the divorce. There was a pile of sand, remnants from some beach trip, in one of them, and at least a week went by before I had the wherewithal to clean it out. Someone would come to the house--the cable TV guy, or the phone guy, or someone delivering something. "Have a seat," I'd say to whomever was gripping his clipboard looking for a place to sit. "It's okay," I'd say. "I'll take the chair with the sand,"as if having a nylon camp chair with a pile of sand in it in the middle of the living room was the most normal thing in the world.

Damn you, Paperwork. You're poo, I tell you. Poo!

How many emails does it take to buy a house? 183. This does not include the numerous emails exchanged in the house hunting process.

How many pieces of paper did I sign or initial in the process of applying for the loan and closing the deal on the house? 51.

How many pieces of documentation did I provide to my mortgage broker? 43. Pieces. Not pages. The page count is probably four times that.

How many pieces of paper did I have to sign, initial, and "read" at the escrow office yesterday? 78.

How many more pieces of paper has the escrow office emailed for me to sign and return subsequently? So far, two.

How many trips does it take to Bank of America for them to successfully complete a wire transfer? Two. They just called. While they have assured me that my down payment has "gone out," they forgot to have me sign something and need me to return tomorrow.

How many seagulls sit on your parked car in Margaritaville? One or two. Or an entire flock. It's up to the seagulls. They call the shots.

Hi There, 2012...is that fluffy towel for me?

I'm considering a change of scene in 2012. 
Here's the first real estate description on my list of places to consider:


"Spacious live and work loft in the historic...downtown Los Angeles' fashion district...Shared amenities include swimming pool rooftop and spa patio, Jim and more... large bathtubs, large walk-in closet, and lots of charm."


My prediction for 2012? It's going to be a good year.


'Photo credit: www.pinkheartsociety.blogspot.com