Knocked Down, Just the Way I Likes It

Ahhhhhhhhh...


I have been away so long from the blogbog that {blogger} has changed its format. It seems to be on a whole radical simplicity kick. So much white. It's like freakin' Space Odyssey in here.


So what's new with you, kittens?


Since last I monologued, there have a few changes here. Let me rattle them off by way of conversation.


1. I did sell the estate, after all! Man-child came and got his stuff in several shifts. It required a dumpster rental and much effort on my part (sure, unfair but whatchagonnuhdo?), but we did get it out. Then much cleaning and packing and moving and volia, I am homeless, mortgageless and temporarily rich! Didn't last.


2. I bought a new place! Yes, not that it hasn't been cozy living at my partner's place, and it has been generous of him to share his dwelling with me. But I am too old not to require my own territory. We got first dibs on abso-fuckin-lutely cool character house here in the Village, and leapt all over it like stink. We move next week. 


3. I'm unemployed! Though not in any tragic way, really. Earlyish days yet. With the move out and another move pending, it's been hard for me to set up an office in my partner's ex-workshop. It's filled with his shit and my shit and household shit, and is only heated by woodstove. You think this would be a problem in June coming on July, but it is because it is Junuary here and 15 degrees more often than not. 


Another factor in my jobless state is I went on vacation, and if you've read past posts you know everything goes to pot when I leave my duties for more than a few days. I went on Eurotour 2012 for three weeks in May--which was lovely but well-behaved to the point of narcolepsy--and I chanced fate by not doing any work-related activity while abroad. Sure enough, a new business partnership that had looked solid when I left went off the rails while I was away, and since my new partner a) did not tell me until asked and b) did so only grudgingly and yes, rudely and then c) did it AGAIN a couple of weeks later,  I figured it was best to abort this particular experiment sooner rather than later. Jeesh. I cannot abide unnecessary rudeness. 


Anyway, I felt much like a bewildered boyfriend who gets manipulated into a break-up, and finds himself blamed by a crazy ex. Honestly, I was like dude, what just happened here...? Ha! Yet another classic Bitches Be Crazy moment. Dang.


At any rate, it's not too bad. For once, I've got a nice bit o' savings to get by on. I've dusted off my shelved company and am launching a new website/company next week and starting the work-hustle-shuffle in order to procure consulting work by early fall, I hope. If not, I may have to overcome my morbid fear of sewing machines and and work in my honey's shop stitching together odds and sods. Who knows?  Life is a highway, I want to ride it. All. Night. Long! Yeah...


4. I've found a new sport to harm myself in! Kickboxing has been on hiatus during the moves and vacation times, but I've taken up mountain-biking since moving next to the trails. A few weeks ago, I gored my thigh on a log stub (12 stitches). Yesterday, I arced over my handlebars and drove my face into the (luckily soft) forest floor. I think I have the tiniest of concussions today as I'm spacey as heck, plus generally sore. Add a constellation of bruises and scrapes to those incidents, and you can see why I am growing to love the sport. I'm not very extreme but I like sports that kick the shit out of you if you're not careful, go figure. But no downhill or BMX for me, thanks. 


5. I'm not pregnant! Had a few days of growing unease recently where I was like, oh no, it's too soon, too soon! Only to have the menstrual express arrive a few days later than usual. The partner is more enthusiastic about the idea of an offspring than I am, but even he was worried at this early juncture. Me, I'm pretty much divided at the prospect ever materializing. Part of me is like Ew + Sounds Like a Lot of Work, the other part is like Aw! + Could Be Somehow Rewarding in Mystical Way Sleep-Deprived Parents Allude To, and He Seems Keen, Etc. Hardly a ringing endorsement, I know, but a long way from where I once was. 


The He refers to childless/child-free couples as being "kinda weird", whereas I see them as being a little eccentric in a lovable, independent way. They have time to take pottery classes in their 40s! They have nice furniture (if they're not into petspetspets). They talk about things other than children. All these things, apparently, make one seem "kinda weird" to people with kids. Sigh. He must be persuasive, as I've gamely thrown my old and depleting eggs into action as needed. If they don't take, well, we may adopt. Or not. Who knows? Not this spinster (I'm reclaiming the word). 


Now I must go broil meat and prepare to be agreeable. Hope you are well!


Spinster out --

In Which Gretchen and the Brood Ponder a Move

Good afternoon, all. Here it is west coast wet and grey. The cat lies in his usual narcotic state on the edge of the desk while one of the dogs dozes unsuspecting below. We are all huddled around the baseboard, not because it is particularly cold but because the humidity tends to settle into the bones, and none of us are that young anymore.

In people years, I am still the youngest. The Mexican dumpster-rat is enigmatic about his age, having come to us from a high-kill shelter in Little Rock, Arkansas. He doesn't like to talk about his time on the streets or his upbringing, but is suspected of being in his mid-fifties.

The Spanish bastardo, on the other hand, has been with me over 15 years. Since I got him as a wee black exclamation mark of an eight-week old kitten, I know him to be well-advanced into his 70s. I still encourage him to make the leap up and down the bathroom counter for his food-dish, a trip he still mostly makes solo.

We are all showing signs of age. The dumpster rat is sprightly, but has the yellowing teeth of a Dunhill-smoking senior. The cat is greying and has the slow, arthritic walk of an aging gunslinger. Me, I pulled out a long, black hair from the side of my neck the other day. It was one of those gross-but-fascinating moments, like squeezing a ripe blemish or marveling at the size of one's own bowel movement (a few I've saluted on their downward spiral).

Ah well, we're doing pretty well, all things considered. We do our little runs and eat well and get plenty of sleep. Still all making the counter-top solo, mostly.

We are now considering a move, dear readers. After many, many months of dallying with the real estate market, a Serious Offer has now come in. A Serious Counter-Offer has been made, and apparently I shall know more this afternoon. We may make one more pass, or the dance could already be over for all I know. (As I write this, a slow-moving SUV drives past, occupants' heads craned towards the house. The would-be owners? Potential stalkers?)

If they walk away, I have renters at the ready. I am moving to a nearby village in May, come hell or high water.

First, a note of explanation: I live in a Valley, composed of four distinct areas and governments. We have a rural regional district (where I currently live), a city which forms the commercial core, a seaside town and a village. The village is a former coal-mine hub in the foothills of the Valley, with a shabby-quaint main street and no perceptible industry. It has a kick-ass live music venue, good mountain-biking and character homes in various states of distress and resurrection.

My partner--yes, we have graduated to the stately and staid "partner" from fuck-buddy and gentleman caller, there's really nowhere left to go at this stage until we get hitched--lives in said village. He lives in an 830 sq ft house, but refuses to leave.

The Village claims people in this way. Once they move there, it is an imposition to cross the highway into the other parts of the Valley. Villagers only leave to forage for food, as they are limited to gas station pantries and a small, natural food store with prohibitive prices.

Relationships that Villagers build with outsiders end in either dissolution ("You're, like, 20 minutes away!"), or with the outsider moving into the Village. Hence, my inevitable move.

There are other reasons for the move, mind you. Mainly, it is unsavory to move in together into a house that one half previously shared with another half. I bought this place with my Ex, and although it is very nice and the animals enjoy the estate, it would be strange to live here with another. I also need to flip the Ex several thousand dollars, as per our settlement agreement, and he needs to remove his possessions, as it has been almost three years since our break-up. And so it goes.

Options are a) for me to move into my partner's hobbit-hole, putting some of my stuff into storage and transforming his detached workshop into an office or b) he and I to buy a place together. The latter would be preferable.

We've been eyeing a huge character home in the Village for some time now. Lucky for us from a price perspective, it is ugly and cold from the outside. Previous owners have raised it and sheathed it in vinyl siding. It squats on the edge of the street, a sulky giant retard of a house. One one side, a crude white church juts illegally into the side yard.

It has, however, that magic quality of potential. It has an unfinished ground floor which could convert to a two-bedroom rental suite. It has high ceilings throughout, original wainscoting, a good-sized fenced yard. (Together, we have four dogs and two cats, plus a part-time child and a fighting fish names the Godfather. We need some space.) It has three bedrooms (plus a good-sized office and a strange, narrow little den), and a huge unfinished fourth-floor attic with expansive views. Each floor is larger than my partner's entire house. There are two bathrooms. Very important, this.

We dare to dream. The church could burn down, one day, allowing our side yard to be re-instated. We could finish the downstairs and have a mortgage helper, finish the attic and have a cool hang-out zone/library/arty-place. We could build a cat door to the laundry room so the blasted felines could have entry and egress. Hell, if I have the eggs to spare we could even have a kid ourselves, we'd have room to put it.

All these things are very exciting. They outweigh the mild anxiety I have with regard to sharing my space with another. He is still, fourteen months in, the best man ever. And let's face it, none of us is getting any younger. We're both experienced enough to be truly appreciative of the other, and to know when something is good versus just good for a while. Besides, if my neck hair keeps growing I'll soon be shaving daily, and we can share lather and razors.

Will let you know how it goes, or doesn't.

Fingers crossed,

GR

And What is Up With the Blog?!!

"...And what is up with the blog?!!", was the second question from my dear friend last week.

My articulate reply was a hand-wave, swooping between helplessness and defiance. I dunno, I dunno, I dunno. There is nothing in my defense other than the usual stuff about the state of busy. For I do have things to write, not a day goes by without an observation that could use some remarking upon. Of course, the worst thing I can do as a producer of wordstrings is to make a mental sticky-note for later. Falls short of perfection as a system.

However, here are some random thoughts I remember:

i. There is a certain breed of person who mistakes making others uncomfortable with impressing them, or even worse, interpreting their discomfort as attraction. (NOTE: I've been guilty of this myself in the past, with much inappropriate humour to show off my tomboy coolness. For the most part, I've outgrown this tendency, and am happy to just alternately amuse and mortify close friends.)

There are at least two gents of my acquaintance that fall into this category.

One is a stiff-necked engineer who fancies himself to be a wild-and-crazy hipster kind of guy. He insists on prolonged hugs and robot-like cheeriness. His attempt to pull off suave is foiled by being an engineer (a Forrest Gumpian genus if ever there were one), and an unfortunate propensity to titter.

The other one is a Three-Named Thing Which Does Social Media. He tweets and facebooks and exhorts others to join the convo. I don't know how he makes a living. He is also a photographer. For municipal ribbon-cuttings, he lays on the ground full-length channeling Mapplethorpe and directs his models/town councilors in front of the new pump house, highway median, etc. I could enjoy him as a mere eccentric if he did not also stare, and ask ever-so thoughtful questions to show off his Active Listening skills. Creepy.

These two men make me uncomfortable. They ask impertinent questions. They mistake my unease for coyness, and whatever answer I stammer out as proof of our intimacy. Even if I mock the engineer mercilessly, he interprets this as sassy flirting. Yech. Luckily, my encounters with both men are sporadic and infrequent.

ii. The default for human behaviour is to follow the same negative pattern again and again until something breaks. It can be something relatively harmless, like making excuses for not exercising or eating better, etc. because of one's hectic life. The day of reckoning may be something innocuous, like hulk-shredding the ass of your jeans, say; or more serious, like a diagnosis of pre-diabetes from a solemn doctor. Whatever the wake-up call, it's up to each individual to heed or ignore it as they see fit.

Ignoring it leads to a curious schism, what Orwell referred to as double-think. It's the ability to hold two opposing ideas in your head--the one you know to be true and the one you know to be convenient--yet operate at will, according to the social context. Predictably, politicians and economists are masterful at this and vilified/admired accordingly. This is a societal cause for concern, or perhaps just a meta-indictment of human nature.

However, on a personal and moral level, we can control how deeply we sink into hypocrisy. Going in deep is a matter of choice. The danger of double-think as an M.O. is that it eventually turns in on itself, in a neat trick called cognitive dissonance. This is the risk one takes for the short-term rewards of suspending one's conscience.

Yes. All this serious talk of "one" doing something is my way of grappling with a friend's actions. While I have never thought her an especially profound or thoughtful person, I've always defended her as good-hearted. I've believed she tried to do the right thing, even when the results of her actions harmed others. Now I'm not so sure, or rather, I'm almost sure she is too far gone in moral relativism to understand or care about the results of her actions.

I'm raw on this point. My fellow's Ex's also has a pattern: meet someone/move in four months later/get him to buy a house instead of just paying the rent/get pregnant right away. It's helpful that she keeps the same four-digit phone number suffix wherever she goes, and decorates each house identical to the last. This has the distinct whiff of the black widow. It might only be cause for black humour, were it not for the existence of their wee and lovable daughter. It causes him great stress and uncertainty.

Well, if she holds true to her pattern she will explode her current relationship soon enough, and be on the move once again. Messy, messy, messy.

Other than those flashes of profundity, my other thoughts are along the lines of I'm so happy I'm back kick-boxing and I like skiing and I'm glad I deleted my facebook profile, I hate that shit and being gluten-free isn't that hard when you like to bake. Deep thoughts, indeed.

Another thought is that I like to write, and part of the reason I haven't written is wondering if it is frivolous and self-centred to write as I do, when I could be doing things like work and kid-time and book-keeping, etc. You know, grown-up stuff. Stuff that is satisfying on one level.

I do like to write, though. So as long as there's a person out there who likes to read, I suppose I should keep on a-bloggin'. For what it's worth.

Adieu for now,

GR