Fuckin… today.

Today is a Tom Waits day.  I feel agitated. 

Bank of America approved me for the loan, which should make me happy, but the person I’m working with there fails to call me back to schedule an appointment.

Additionally, this guy at Radius Financial is doing cartwheels with flaming batons in his teeth trying to get my business.  He says he can save me 3K up front, which is basically the difference between my having some furniture or no furniture at all.  However, the application fee to even see if he can secure financing is $1,111.  This shit is fucking expensive.

I drew and photographed the tattoo drawing I came up with last night.  Forgot digital camera, will upload tomorrow.  Open wrought iron gate with climbing roses on it, and a hovering bright heart with a key in it.  Plan to send it to Mike Lussier at Art Freek to much-better-ify it, but not yet, cuz it’s fairly large and now is definitely not the time to pay for it.

Got good news yesterday — Laura’s most likely going to be in Boston for my housewarming party!  She and I have painted eachother’s bedrooms throughout the years.  Even though Laura lives in LA now, her presence still makes any place feel like home.  ”Real talk.”  =)

Just one “point” of knowledge today, on the subject of “points”:

• You’ll get a certain interest rate on your loan based on your credit score, everyone knows this… but what I just learned is you can actually pay down the interest rate by giving money up front in exchange for “points”.  This is my current problem with the B of A loan — the 5.5% insterest rate they’ve offered me is based on my paying 2 points (or $3,000).  This is why Radius claims they can save me $3,000 — because they’re offering me a loan at 5.5% with zero points paid.

 

Two new frenemies

Please allow me to introduce you to my two latest reasons to stay awake all night.

Miss 17 Proctor Street:

And Miss 17A Proctor Street:

As you may infer from their names, these two are related.  They share a rather generous plot of land, and Miss 17A resides behind Miss 17 somehow or another.  I haven’t seen them with mine own eyes because the listing agent refuses to answer his phone, return voicemails, or respond to pages, from both me and my semi-vigilant buyer’s agent.

Anyhow, let me tell you what I know about these two lovely ladies, the Proctor sisters.  They’re in Natick, and they’ve both been on the market for a year now.  Miss 17A’s listing price has come down 63 thousand dollars, and Miss 17’s has come down 50 thousand dollars… this is when you say “hmm”. 

Somewhere, buried deep, a rational minded person within me is pointing her index finger sternly, as if to say, “prepare thyself for the likelihood of extreme disrepair, you positively moronic child”.  

But “Ohhh” says the wistful dreamish inner-me that’s somehow taken over, “Ohhh how I would love to have my very own tiny precious house in Natick“. 

While I’m sure this is yet another instance in which I could most likely benefit from a hard slap and someone telling me loudly and with unfriendliness NOT TO GET MY HOPES UP, I, unfortunately have been duped by the promise of “move-in condition” in the description, a “nice yard”.  So for some reason I choose to believe that these houses aren’t selling because nobody else (besides me) can fit in them.  (That theory to be explained in the next paragraph.)

Miss 17 Proctor may appear fairly large, but you know how they say the camera adds 10 pounds?  In this case it may be adding about 1000 sq ft.  She’s only 880 sq ft of living space, but manages to contain 3bdrms and 1ba… this is a must-see to fully comprehend situation. 

Miss 17A does have a walkway under those fallen leaves, and does look much prettier in another photo of her where the folliage was full and the sun was brighter, but she too is immensely small at 550 sq ft.  The most hilarious factoid about Miss 17A is she comes with a shed in the rear, so she’s basically a shed, that comes with a shed.  (NOT that I’m making fun of her because she’s so utterly in my price range… and in Natick to boot: a seemingly impossible combination.)  Somehow this manages to have 2bdrms 1ba built into that 500 sq ft… another case of “must view to fully compute”.

If goddamn Patrick Lydon of Lydon Real Estate would kindly call me the fuck back so I could arrange a showing today, I would be a much happier person.  I might even get some sleep tonight.

 

Speaking of tonight, though not of sleeping: At 21 Nichols Ave in Watertown, at “21 Nickels Grill and Tap”, bluesy/rockin/soulful/amazing Jake La Botz is playing his gee-tar and sangin his songs.  No cover.  I expect it to be sensational.  Incase I don’t post anything before then, he’s also playing tomorrow at Brendan Behan’s pub in J.P.  At present, I intend to attend both shows.

 

Please include the Proctor sisters in your prayers for me tonight.  Not to insinuate that you regularly pray for me, or regularly pray at all, but maybe you could, just this once.

 

Book Worm

I finished reading The Godfather — so well written that it trumped the film.  I also liked Kay Adams so much better in the book, and there were such interesting side stories about characters that there wasn’t time for in the movie.  Mike and I watched it the night after I finished the book.  I definitely understood it slightly better having read the book, which goes into detail about all the different families, and better explains different plots.  So good.

Last night I fell asleep at like 6pm reading a new book, Tell No One,  a thriller by Harlan Coben that I borrowed from Mike’s mom.  I slept until around 10:30, then started reading again until midnight.  Communication from the dead, police chases — I was reading by the open sliding glass doors and got totally spooked — had to lock up the house.  I’m about halfway through, and the book’s pretty thick.  It’s funny how fast you can read some books.  I’m not a fast reader, but it’s proof that more complicated writing actually takes longer for the brain to process.

Saw a decent property over the weekend (an attached townhouse in Quincy) that needed a ton of cosmetic work — so much cosmetic work that it actually seemed like a fixer-upper!  It was covered in wood panneling and bad wallpaper, hideous paint, and not a single floor surface that could be left as is.  The place was pretty small for two people to live in, and not cheap enough that I wouldn’t want a roomate, but it did have some advantages, like two floors of living place plus a small basement with laundry and a little plot of outdoors off the EIK. 

A rehabbed version of this is selling for tens of thousands cheaper in Weymouth, tho it lacks the basement and outdoor space.   It does have a fireplace however.  That one I could afford to live alone.  Things to be considered.

Either today or tomorrow, I’m seeing a tiny house in Natick.  Tomorrow there’s an open house at a condo in Norwood.  With as dedicated to the search as I’m being, and it only being mid-August, I’m starting to feel like I have a decent shot at hosting Christmas this year.  We shall see.

 

Up to speed

Sometimes the reality of getting up at 5:30 in the morning doesn’t really hit until 7:45, at which point the entire body gellifies into a warm, rubbery sleepiness… the head heavy, the eyes stinging to be rubbed and begging to close.

I drove to work from Mike’s house in Quincy this morning, left at 5:50 in the morning, because if there’s anything I hate, it’s traffic on 93.  As a result of leaving so early, and taking advantage of my ability to speed on the open road, I got into work at 6:25.  This is very nice because I’ll get to leave at 2:30.

By 11:07, having been here so unnaturally long already,  I’ve already gotten a sensible half day’s worth of work done, so I figured I would bring the blog up to speed on the recent house hunt status.

I was right (and simultaneously wrong) about getting my hopes up for the Natick house.  It was in need of demolition (a gut job) had no appliances, severe water damage, needed new ceilings, floors, probably a new roof, etc.  Again, who knows about the basement because some houses are too scary to want to check out the scene “down there”.

Today will hopefully be more promising.  I’m doing a circuit of Hyde Park and Roslindale — seeing 7 properties in total.  I think only one of them is a single family (Hyde Park foreclosure) and the rest are condos.  Regardless of whether any of this pans out, it will at least be nice to check out the Roslindale area, which I’m pretty unfamiliar with.  Three properties are near the Arnold Arboretum, and I know the JP side of this to some extent (and I like it).  One other is right on the ege of Mt Hope cemetary (hey, at least it’s quiet with trees) and the three others surreound the Stony Brook reservation and George Wright golf course.  I used to think there were only golf courses in really ritzy places…

In other news, there’s been some email exchange about starting a band with some people.  I would be interested in singing again, even though this isn’t the most available time in my life.  I figure a good outlet for unproductive fun could be just what the doctor ordered.  In the words of Debbie Vallante (about me), “you don’t have an irresponsible bone in your body”.  I think she meant it as a compliment, but my inner rock star cringed with rebel-wannabe-ism.

Random thoughts:

• Elephunk is a great game, worth $5 on PS3
• Bob Drake talks a lot, and every time I type his name, I typo “Bob Drank”, then laugh
• I usually spend time with my mom on Thursdays.  I hope she will come see a place/some places with me soon.
• It would be nice if I found the one today.  It would always be nice if I found the one.