Friday, April 20, 2007

well, I have figured out a few of things in the past few days

For one, throwing money at a situation doesn't fix things. I mean, I knew that. But I've been feeling a bit funky, and this just happens to be the week that the settlement check arrived (if you've been following along). All it brought was the stress of figuring out what to do with it and a 10 day holding period at the bank.

The next thing I've noticed is an interesting twist of my current emotional state: in my internal/emotional/personal life, buttons are being pushed that make me feel really little. In my external/mental/show the face to the world life, I'm signing escrow papers, hiring contractors, and opening investment accounts.
It's like a little rollercoaster.

And the last thing I know for sure is that I absolutely adore all of the comments I've gotten over the past week or two, and I haven't shown that be replying to them. I'm going to do that in a post this weekend.
But they really have been appreciated gang. Big smooches to everyone :-)

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

trying to keep at it

Well, it was my intention to write everyday for awhile to see what happened, and then on Monday I'd decided that I'd given myself the weekend off, and now here it is Wednesday, and I still haven't sat down to write something.

Why?
Because all I have to write about is this attack of insanity that I have been experiencing the last 4 days, and I really dont want to see it in print. But it's day 5 and I'm still feeling insane, so I figure whatthefuck.

Let me try presenting this as a math problem.

(auto accident induced fears of being alone + busy Boyfriend + visiting people at a convalescnet hospital who get no visitors)

~multiplied by~

(stress of buying a house + insomnia + raging pms)

~divided by~

(poor eating habits...sugar! salt! caffeine! chocolate! + too much physical work/moving/packing + not telling anyone that I'm not doing so good)

~equals~

Big giant mess, a couple piles of soggy tissues and a few anxiety attaks.


So what I've been doing for four days is this:
Functioning. And then when no one is looking, falling apart.


Pat me on the head and say poor baby, if you like...but please dont lecture me on what I should or should not do to make things better. I've had three years now to try therapy, medications, read self help books, gain the support of friends and family, listen to advice about it, write about it, meditate on it, talk about it, make art about it....

Sometimes this just happens. I know what my circumstances are. I know what sets me off. I know what to do when things get bad. And I know what preventative measures to take so that things don't even get bad in the first place.

But every once in awhile, the timing of the universe is just comical. I slip with my shoring-up-of-myself routine right at the exact moment when trigger-ish events push all of my (I have many, it seems) buttons.

I'll be fine.
Messed up for a few days, but fine.

And that's why I haven't been here in a few days.

Friday, April 13, 2007

dear diary, it's me again

I'm so tired I cant stand myself.
I haven't been getting long stretches of sleep for weeks now. Just little pockets.

Yes I know that buying a house is stressful and all that, but it's really the furniture and paint color crap that keep my head spinning.

See, I looked at a bunch of houses before making an offer on the one I just went into escrow on...and for each and every single one of those other contenders, I'd come home to "sleep on it", but in actuality I'd be arranging furniture around in my head while I was dozing in and out. I had to see if I could fit what I want in a room and still be able to get around in a wheelchair. I'd wake up at 4am and doodle on graph paper. It seems silly, but how else would I know if the layout was going to work for me? Oy.

Then when I had figured that out all, I'd start interior decorating with colors and whatnot.
Here's a little known fact about me: My entire life I have lived in a house with all white walls, except for a couple of years worth of wood panelling. Even the house I live in now, that I own, I've been here 8-1/2 years, and the walls are still white.
I've never done color. And I want color in my next house.
So I drift in and out of sleep picking out carpets and paints and window coverings and and and...*sigh*


I'm leaving now to go to an all ages dive punk club tonight to see Babyland.
I am very excited to see these guys, even though I'm dragging so low you wouldn't know it.
For sure they wont be putting me to sleep (click the pic if you don't believe me).

Thursday, April 12, 2007

dear diary...

Well, I haven't written in awhile, and lots has been going on.
Big things.
Like house hunting.
And making offers on houses.

Yeah, I know. Houses. Plural.

See, the first offer didn't work out so well. The seller decided to use their adult son as their real estate agent. They listed the house way over anything comparable in the area, which would be fine if it was in tip-top shape, but it is not, and it's a buyer's market out here right now. So I went in low, not neccessarily to stay low, but just to get them down a bit. Then they came down a bit. Then I went up a bit. And then there was only a measily couple thousand dollars between what I offered, and what they were "standing firm" at. But their "stand firm" price was still more than what the house was worth, and I was not about too budge.

Did I mention that they were trying to play me against another offer they said they had?
Poo-butts.

The more I thought about the whole thing, I was getting really annoyed for being played that way. I mean, I know that's how the game is played, but it still pissed me off. Top that crappy feeling off with the fact that I knew that my final counter offer was still for more than what the house was worth, and I felt like I was paying $3 for a pack of gum with a few pieces already chewed up, when I could have gone out and bought a new pack for a dollar. I like the house, but it's been come to be known as the ScheisterHouse (apparently I mispell shyster, but it's the trickle down of yiddish in me, sorry). And it was beginning to seem that moving into a house that I was always going to call that was probably one really big fat bad idea.

So after the sellers of the ScheisterHouse laid out the verbal, "we're not budging" bit, they never really did accept or refuse my final counter offer...they just kinda let it time out. My counter offer officially expired Tuesday afternoon sometime.

So I went on my merry way and looked at another house yesterday, one for less money and in pristine condition. Pristine condition (the I-Follow-The-Martha-Stewart-Homekeeping-Handbook sort of pristine). Seriously. This lady has planted her very own garden of fruit trees, one of which, "...makes the very best orange juice ever,"...."Oh, and this is a Babock Peach tree, and this is Asian Pear...and this..." But she wasn't a snobby lady. Very humble actually. Just a little Type-A, if you know what I mean.

The house is a little small, but it is laid out wonderfully, and even though it's small, it's still way bigger than the house I am in currently. This new house has layout where the diningroom and (most of) the livingroom open to the kitchen, which the trained chef in me adores (in my current house, the kitchen is isolated. Very isolated. Like me. When I'm in it. *frown*). Being in this house would mean that I'd be able to be in the kitchen, happily slicing and dicing away, and not feel like I'm in solitary confinement. I'm more the LifeOfTheParty-type, anyhow.


Anyhow, so guess who was going to look at the PristineHouse that very same evening after I looked at it?!
No, c'mon...guess.
Yeah.
The twit who was the other offer on the SheisterHouse.
And what wheel does that gear turn?!
The one that makes the InexperiencedRealtorSon of the ScheisterHouse call up and say (two days late), "Sure! We'll accept your offer and let's just forget about that coupla thousand we couldnt agree upon, eh?!"

Hmmmm. Well.
"That's really too bad, SonOfAScheister," my agent says (that's not really what she says, but you know what I mean LOL), "but I showed my client another house yesterday, and I'm not sure what she has planned yet. Oh. And by the way, ScheisterMan, her counter offer has officially expired, so thanks for signing it, but it's a null contract," (she didnt exactly say that either, but again...you know what I mean...and I promise you, she and I were both thinking it).

So.
I went ahead and made an offer on the HouseOfMartha and all it's GloriousGardenage.
And I shit you not, as I was just writing that paragraph abve right there, the one about what my agent wanted to say but didn't, guess what....
C'mon. Guess. hehe

my phone just rang and my agent says that my offer has been accepted!!!!!!!!!!!
wooooohoooooo!!!!!!


Duuuuudes (hi, Carol!) , I am finally going to have a house where I can actually get my wheelchair into my own bedroom, my bathroom, my laundry room, and (once I ramp a couple of stairs) into my garage. The only room I will have to use crutches for will be the guest bathroom, which will primarily be used by MyFavoriteKid, so guess who is going to be adding "cleaning the bathroom" to his chore list ;-)

I need to go get me a glass o' bubbly.
YAY!

and yes, I know it aint over til it's over and all that, but whateva........
*smile*

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

a whole new blog

I've come to understand something.
If I want to keep up this blog, I can't do it the same way that I have always done it.

Historically, mosts of my posts fit into one of these categories:

* Posts that are reflections (or prattleing) inspired by a visual image, and image that I would like to include in the post so I can keep track about what I'm reflecting or prattling about.

* Posts that are general updates, lists, records, etc...of whatever it is that is current at that moment, often supportd by an image to give it the feel of my handwritten journals (all stuffed with scraps and doodles and stuck together with gluestick), ie more like a personal scrapbook.

* Posts that are deep thoughts that I am processing right here on the screen in some feeble attmept to crystalize nauxious brainfart fumes it into text.

* Posts that I spend wayyyy too long editing so that I can make sure I am going to be understood, which is often is not accomplished anyhow (and you'd think with all that time editing, I'd at least fix the spelling and grammatical errors and maybe even remove a few elipses....but...nahhhhh.)



Well, two things are keeping me from blogging the way I normally blog.

1) I am spending almost all of my free time witih the house purging project, in piecemeal.

2) The ComputerGods are against me.

Let me elaborate on #2.
I can't spend alot of time with my darling computer right now because she is still broken.

Oh how I love thee dear computer for at least allowing me to check email and have the occasional online chat with those I love clicking away with.... (I'm trying to be nice to her so she'll hold out a few more weeks until she can be sent to the computer equivalent of horses going to the glue factory, and be replaced with a shiny sleek stallion).

I have no usb ports.
I think I mentioned it here before already, but it's something about a surge and a motherboard or something something. Whateverrrr...I just know that I can't upload photos from my camera, I can't print anything, and I cant download music or podcasts to my mp3 player. For some reason, I have no speakers either, so I cant even download stuff to listen while at the computer even. Gah.

But it still boots up. And I can still get online to check email and be on the internet. Unfortunately, part of the attempt to fix the computer involved changing out the power source, and the "new" (recycled) power source has a fan that is so damn loud, that when I sit at the computer it feels like I'm at the dentist's office getting a root canal. In other words, I don't like to sit at the computer for long. Not long enough to be happily editing away at my blog, that's for sure. And not long enough for me to be sitting and reading anyone else's either, I am saddenned to report.

The purging project and the poopy computer have created a bloggers block, even though my creative self is not blocked at all, and I feel like I have tons and tons of things to write about here.

And I miss it here.

And if I want to keep the blog, I am going to need to reinvent it.

Sometime this weekend, between purging and donating old sets of linen and disposing of expired vitamins, I realized that if I really want to be "one with my blog", I'm going to need to do it entirely differently than I'm used to doing it for awhile.

My goal is to come here every day for a couple of weeks, giving it a commited whirl so I can see what happens. I'm going to be writing here more in the style of how I would keep a paper journal, which in my case means less editing of thoughts.
Expect lots of brainfarts.
And typos.
And few photos.
Becuase if there are to be any photos at all, it will be because I've decided to take an old photo that I had wanted to blog about but had never made the time for. I cant get new photos off my camera yet.


Hang with me if you want to, and we'll see what happens ;-)

And hopefully in a couple of weeks it will rain new laptops pr something.