Gloriaperpetua’s Weblog

I’m utterly distracted today.  Christina’s mom showed me a single family in Weymouth last night, and I didn’t sleep much, thinking about ways to improve it.  It was an old house, cute on the outside, corner lot with a good size yard.  Some aspects of it weren’t ideal, but thankfully, it wasn’t another comically bad property.

Today, I’m not preoccupied by that house specifically, so much as the whole house-finding/house-buying endeavor.  I’m popping out of work for an hour in the early afternoon to meet with a buyer’s agent; I think it would be smart for me to work with one.  Have someone else on Team Angela.

As for considering Weymouth, taking the drive out there last night made me further agree (with myself) that it would behoove me (love that word) to situate (myself) in a more central location within my scope of travel.  The furthest point South I need to access is Quincy, and the furthest points West I need to access are Newton for work and Watertown for Mom.  There’s a lot of expensiveness along that route — 128 — that falls in-between, but who knows — maybe the worst house on the block somewhere will end up being my diamond in the rough.  (I can’t use that expression without thinking of Aladdin.) 

I’ve flip-flopped a lot on the condo vs. single family question.  There’s certainly more in my price range with a condo, and there’s the fact that lenders will give you slightly more mortgage money toward the principal since the master insurance and other maintenance things will be covered in the monthly condo fee. 

I know my heart prefers a single family, but I think that just like with most things in life, you can’t always get what you want right out the gates.  Sometimes you have to put in your dues while gaining the wisdom of life experience, and in this case building ownership equity.

Reasons I’d prefer a condo:

• Less worry about things I don’t know shit about (roofs, freakin boilers, furnaces)
• More affordable (price of property, but also other expenses like water and sewer that it’s easy to forget about)

Reasons I’d prefer a single family:

• Privacy
• Remodeling freedom
• No pet restrictions

Too bad townhouse style condos are as ungodly expensive as they are, because I think that’s what I’d like most.  I really like stairs, that is to say, I really like my living area consising of more than one floor, regardless of how narrow each floor may be.

I’ve been thinking about buying for so long now.  It’s been my plan since I graduated in ‘05 and my dream for just about as long as I can remember.  There’s something so sentimental about having a place to hang your hat, a place to call your own.  Through my experience of having moved to different apartments throughout my childhood, and also worrying about us being able to make rent even as a kid, I’ve come to value two things most: permanence and investment.  Permanence, because I’d like to stay somewhere for a while, really make it mine, and investment, because is there any bigger slap in the face than paying rent every month and ultimately having nothing to show for it?

I’m lucky that at 24, just when my goals of buying have started to become a financial possibility, the market is so turned in my favor.  I feel like it’s a sign to me that this really is the time for me to buy, and that it would be a missed opportunity not to take advantage of it.

Anyway, at this very moment I’m thankfully to WordPress for giving me a forum to get my thoughts out.  I think the biggest thing I need to have as a potential buyer (aside from money) is a solid sense of what the hell I’m looking for.

So, I follow Oprah.  Those of us who truly watch Oprah do not just watch, we follow.  She says a book is good, and we know it is, so we read it once she tells us she has.  She eats the ultimate soft yogurt, tells us about it, and two days later we’re in the grocery store buying massive quantities of Columbo.

Due to my loyalty and love of Oprah Winfrey, I happened to “meet” Barack Obama some time before he announced his presidential candidacy.  She had him on her show to discuss his book, The Audacity of Hope, which I then purchased and tried to read.  Not being too interested in the ins and outs of politics, the book lost me after I had absorbed the chapters on his moral standpoint and opinions about America.  I found his writing to be very intelligent, exceptionally honest and forthcoming about sensitive racial and socioeconomic truths, and I believe he truly loves America and has concrete ideas and plans for this country’s improvement.

That said, I recently recieved one of those mass emails that people who sit at desks all day are all too familiar with.  This one was forwarded to me by my aunt, who is fair and liberal-minded in many ways, but she’s also an old-school type who thinks making meatballs with ground turkey instead of beef is “communist”.

I’m sure she wasn’t particularly attached to the contents of the email she forwarded to me and 6 other people, especially since she then forwarded two more — a dirty joke about an Irishmen and a set of golf clubs, and another joke featuring a husband and his wife’s fat ass.  Either way, I was irritated that she chose to foward this particular email to me, since I couldn’t have disagreed more.

Here is the content of that email, followed by the enraged reply that I promptly sent her:

Subject: Sincere “Thank You” note

 THANK YOU

 To this, I immediately sent the following rant:

From: Angela  
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2008 2:19 PM
To: Laurie
Subject: RE: Sincere “Thank You” note

Um, I think this is completely ridiculous.  “Americans are tired of things having meaning. If things have meaning, then that means you have to think about them.”  Meaningless talk basically describes the ridiculous flow of nonsense that defines our current Republican president.  I think if there’s one thing Americans are tired of, it’s meaningless talk.  In fact, I think this country has been somewhat unified by how fed up they are with talk that lack of meaning. 

This almost sounds like it was written by George Dubbleyah, too – it’s just that stupid! 

 The cherry on the sundae of ignorance here would have to be the signature, “Barack Hussein Obama”, as if not wanting to support this candidate means it’s okay to associate him with a tyrant who flagrantly executed people.  Obama is half black, half white, was born in Hawaii, is not Iraqi, and has studied and done political work in LA, NYC, and Chicago.  I’m not sure how he could possibly be related to Saddam Hussein.

The campaign’s not over, and I’m not entirely sure who I’m voting for.  However, I do not see Obama, or Oprah, as lovers of “meaningless empty platitudes”, and frankly, I’m more compelled to vote for Obama if it means I’m less akin to the author of this crap.  Whoever wrote this should spend more time thinking and less time spouting out slander.

 </end rant>

Now, I’m not one to get heated about politics, particularly.  This is because I typically choose not to discuss politics (especially not while drinking, but that’s a side note).  But when I am targeted via my email with this attack on both Obama AND Oprah, shit’s apt to get hectic.

To my rant, my aunt replied, “so I take it you don’t agree?”

To which I simply replied, “no”.

I have to say, I am disturbed by some of the anti-American connections Obama has been said to have had.  But honestly, these claims have come off to me as rather “Fox 25″.  You know, inflammatory, and designed deliberately to incite “terror”.  I read Obama’s response to the statements made by the candidate’s former pastor, Rev. Wright, regarding his violently anti-American sermons.  Obama totally disowned Wright, and very honestly discussed the fact that conversations and opinions go on behind closed doors within every different racial group.  His point in saying so was that these issues, stereotypes, and false beliefs should be discussed more openly, so that they don’t lead to more division in this country.  (I won’t go into too much detail else I’ll feel compelled to cite the actual transcripts.) 

Anyway, I might not have felt so strongly if it wasn’t for the incredibly dumb “Barack Hussein Obama” line, or the unneccessary slander of my beloved Oprah.  I’ve been known to call the candidate “Osama bin Barack”, but I was kidding!!

I’m directing this to anyone who knows the horrors of house-hunting.

Let me preface my telling of this experience by saying, this isn’t my first go-round on the tilt-a-whirl… I’ve seen places with 6 layers of cat-piss saturated carpeting; I’ve seen places with linoleum on the walls; I’ve seen blocks of foreclosed condos in Dorchester with pimps in couches on the front lawn; I’ve seen places just slightly bigger than some dorm rooms; I’ve seen basements and attics and bathrooms that would make your metaphorical dick fall off.  I know that hundreds of gross and weird places are out there, previously inhabited by gross and weird people, and I know that in the Boston area, you still have to borrow hundreds of thousands of hard-earned dollars to have the luxury of owning them.
 
Yet today, putting all I know and all I’ve seen aside, I went to look at a 3brdm/3ba single family on Hough’s Neck in a whirl of excitement.  It was listed at 197,000, built in 1920, and I — like a fool and knowing better all the while — got my stupid hopes up, thinking I would be planting a tree in the front yard of 133 Darrow Street in the very near future.
 
First, let me share with you the pictures that lured me into this unfounded and cruel sense of hopefulness:
 
Ooooh…..

Aaah….

 
OoOOooh….

 
(Wood panelling and an ugly leather chair, but) Aaaahhh…

 
So, when I approached the place, it seemed to be about a third of the size I assumed it was from the picture.  But no matter, I pressed on.
 
We walked in, and the first thing I noticed were the holes.  There were holes everywhere.  I said to the agent, “what up with these holes?” and she said, “well, look at the walls”.  I use the word walls here in quotation only, and for lack of a better word.  There was not an inch of sheetrock in the entire house, rather, the walls were made of some sort of cardboard a la 1920.  They were sort of textured, and literally crumbling. 
 
Instead of the sunlit entryway I had been lead to expect, there was a dark and penetrating gloom about the place.  I was soon told that the house was currently inhabited by the 40 year old son of the previous owner, who died there.  I walked into the living room, turned my head into the dining room, and I swear somebody stuck a cattle-prod to my chest.  There was the old man’s wheelchair, standing straight and at attention, as if to say, “get the fuck out of my hovel”.  My heart literally stopped, and I would have to say this could have been my first encounter with a potentially evil spirit.
 
The kitchen, if you can call it that, had no cabinets or counters.  A free-standing stove on one wall, a sink, a washing machine and dryer (that was a plus), and many dirty plates were scattered about the room.  The linoleum flooring was ripped everywhere, and though there were hardwood floors underneath, it was more just like, wood.  The pantry, whose walls were exposed brick, had this odd glass window, and it looked into the hallway.
 
Speaking of windows, there was a stained glass window at the bottom of the stairs, and this might have been lovely.  But in the center of this was a picture of a woman in a fancy Victorian frock, with a little white dog on a leash, both of them staring straight forward, unsmiling as if they too, had seen a ghost.  It was sort of interesting, yet truly creepy.
 
I was hesitant to ascend the stairwell, thinking I’d probably fall in, but I have to say the old house was pretty level, I’ll give it that.  The stairs seemed rather sturdy, and were even.  As I alighted, I first noticed the “walls” were oddly black.  I now see this in the picture of the entryway, but hadn’t noticed it before.  The agent then told me that the house had no furnace, and that the old furnace, upon its death, had experienced a “blow out” — wherein black smoke fills the entire place.  This would explain why 3 hours later, my hair still smells like soot.
 
Upstairs, where the 40 year old son of the ghost was “living”, squalor prevailed.  He seemed to be staying in the room with the matress on the floor, surrounded by loose change, sneakers, magazines, and wire hangers.  I think I may have noticed a cup o’ soup.  There were two other small bedrooms, one painted lime green wherein a fleece blanket and pillow made a sort of bed on the floor and there was a tiny floral wallpapered closet that an 8 year old could’ve barely fit in for hide and seek, and the other I was too discouraged to look in. 
 
The bathtub held the most evidence of grime any bathtub could possibly hold — approximately a tubful.  It looked like the soot explosion had eminated from the tub itself, but since that’s unlikely, I guess it was just dirt.  From the looks of the place, I doubt the resident(s) was/were showering regularly.
 
I think that pretty much covers it.  I was way too scared of spooks and black mold to look in the basement.  I left feeling so utterly disappointed and victimized by the agent that had described these repairs as a matter of “sweat equity”.  I think what she ought to have written was “contractors only please”. 
 
I require emotional consolation.  I’m at the end of my pitiful house-hunting rope.  I want to buy, but how many more of these horrorshows do I have to see?  Where is the Prettyhouse Fairy, and why doth she withhold her gifts from me?  So, a question for you…  How long did you actively house-hunt before you found your place, and, did you know it was “the one” when you saw it?  I wouldn’t call myself very actively looking.  I get the MLA listings from about 3 sites every day, and I look through them all, but only when I see something that seems really good do I bother to schedule an appointment. 
 
Sigh.  I’m going to take a rinse… the smell of exploded furnace is starting to get to me. 

Thanks in advance for your reply.

Hello, I have a serious problem. 
I think I may be in extreme denial of my physical appearance.
 
You all know me well enough… you’ve seen me.  Would you tell me if I was clinically obese?  I mean, if I asked?  Well, I’m asking…
 
…because…
 
I JUST GOT HAMBURGER IN MY EYE.
 
You know, it really doesn’t even matter how it happened.  I flicked it off a fork into my left EYE, but at this point it’s irrelevant.  The thing that I think matters is that nobody who’s not an extremely fat kid could possibly manage to get BEEF in their own eye.  It stung and I think there’s still some in there.  My vision’s slightly blurry and the eye is producing tears like it’s on the payroll of a third-world sweatshop.
 
Anyway, there are mirrors in the world; I’ve seen pictures of myself; my neck is capable of craning downward, but I fear I might suffer from some sort of reverse-anorexic dysmorphia.  Like, I look in the mirror and I don’t see a 500 pound person, but maybe it’s just because my eyes are too filled with BEEF to see properly.
 
Please let me know, okay?  I promise I won’t hold your honesty against you.  I need to know, it’s for my own good — I should probably find some sort of program, or support group, so that this kind of thing doesn’t recur.
 
Thanks a lot,
Angela