Why I Can't Stop Crying

I don't usually blog while crying. This isn't my diary; it's a public forum, even if my public is somewhat limited. People don't want to read about whatever spat the husband and I just had, at least not until the point when I gain some perspective and see a little bit of humor. Today, I am making an exception. If I waited till I stopped crying, it might be a very long time indeed before I posted.

You may remember that we're selling our condo. On Sunday, we had an open house. Only two or three people came, but that's not why I'm crying. We found out that our buzzer is broken, but that's not why I'm crying either. That evening, while I was finishing dinner and the husband was talking on the phone to a friend, he started noticing little bugs with big wings. They were all in the vicinity of the south wall of our living room. They looked a bit like ants, so we were a bit worried, but we killed all the ones we saw, and didn't find any more. All was right with the world.

Until today. In the past hour, I have killed at least 15 of these little bugs with big wings. And now they are along the north wall of our office. I put some rubbing alcohol in a bowl and dropped a few in, and googled "ants big wings". And guess what? Our ants? Not ants at all. In fact, it looks very likely that our ants are termites. Termites, you see, have big wings when they go out to seek love and shelter. They will shed the wings after mating, and then settle down to lead a happy of life of destroying the lives of wood-owning humans. I have already found two with no wings, and am hopeful that they are genetic freaks and not freshly sated lovers. Yes, that's right, I am at a point where I am just hoping that the swarming insects in my house haven't gone all the way yet.

They may or may not have been brought in through the cocoa shell mulch that our slovenly neighbors purchased and left in the main entryway. They may or may not be the kind of termites that eat houses. (Apparently there are kinds that don't). Does it really matter? Would you buy a condo with termites crawling in it, if the owners promised that the termites were just visiting and totally didn't want to eat the beautiful vintage wooden hutch or the gorgeous hardwood floors? Oh, and by the way, your visitors will have to throw rocks at your windows to let you know they want to come in. But really, the place is cute!

I am trying to stay calm. The internet has led me astray before. The husband is still at work, and there is a chance he will come home and convince me that I'm loony. But I've killed five of these things while typing this, so I think we might have some kind of problem regardless. So I'm sorry to blog while crying, but you know what? It's my decaying condo, and I'll cry if I want to.

Weirdest thing ever? You decide.

People, I just saw something so weird, I just learned how to embed YouTube videos so that I could share. Check this shit out.



So that's Mark Bittman (the ever so awesome food columnist from the New York Times), Mario Batali (the red-faced, Crocs-wearing, Iron Chef-competing TV chef), Claudia Bassols (the, well, I don't know what she is, but she's pretty and seems to be foreign), and Gwyneth freaking Paltrow (dude, if I need to tell you, you should probably not be wasting your time on my plebeian ass). On PBS. On a reality show. That takes place in Spain.

The preview (in case you don't watch the whole weird thing) features Michael Stipe and an architect who the husband would have recognized immediately but I didn't. Am I alone in wishing that this was on right now so that I could stare at it in joyous wonder? It's just so weird!

Full blog post in the works, by the way. I was out of commission with a really bad cold for the first part of my first week of freedom. When my sinuses get pissed off, they pin me to the couch.

The Unemployment Chronicles, part 1

As of last Friday, I am officially unemployed. Yay? Yes, yay! Unemployment, when it is voluntary, is awesome.

My last days were great. Really, for the most part, I liked everyone I worked with. There was an exception, but why dwell? I got a very kind letter of reference from a co-worker who also brought her kids to storytime. I got three gift cards, two potted plants, a box of chocolates, several photos, and several cards, handmade and otherwise. I had a very nice party, at which I was given a duck puppet (a very nice, expensive Folkmanis puppet - hey, it's a professional resource, people) and a few other sundries. I won't even dwell on the fact that they made me take the balloon arrangement home, causing me a very stressful drive home, as I am inordinately afraid of the sound of balloons popping. It's a lovely balloon arrangement, and it is still decorating my car, because I was really hoping the balloons would die out there while I'm safe in here. (I don't know if it's happened yet. Unemployment means never having to use the car.)

Now I'm done, which has been great, except for the fact that my first three days of unemployment would have been sick days regardless. It's lucky for the husband that he's still working, because I am terrible to be around when I'm sick. (I know that it is not at all lucky for the husband that he's still working, but I am trying to Stay Positive.) I become obsessed with my symptoms, checking on their progress at disturbingly short intervals and updating anyone stupid enough to fake a small bit of interest. I looked at my throat with a flashlight about a thousand times last week. I even looked up my nose to see if I could figure out if my sinuses were swollen. (They were, I think.) I could write a dissertation on the progress of my mucus. Don't worry though; I won't. I feel better now, and my obsession with my vital signs dwindles with the symptoms of illness.

Anyway, I had a week of blissful unemployment. This week is the beginning of more industrious unemployment. If we want to continue eating when we move to CollegeTown, I'll need to find employment. And if we want to have shelter from the elements, we'll need to start exploring housing options. So that's my job now. But I still get to do it in pajamas.

One Condo For Sale! (Do I hear a dollar? A nickel? A penny?)

All right, people. Just so you don't think I have both neglected and forgotten this blog, here is a list of post ideas I began writing in my head, but never got around to typing:

- The plumber seems confident that our bathroom fix-up will be super quick! Maybe we won't need a hole in the wall!

- There is a hole in our wall, and the kitchen cabinets are on the floor.

- How hot is it that the husband knows how to use dry-wall, and did so, rather than heeding my suggestion to call a hole-fixer-person?

- Please buy our condo!

- No, really, please buy our condo! There are no holes in its walls any more, I promise.

So you see, I have only neglected the blog, not forgotten it.

To bring you all up to speed, the condo is on the market, my last day of work is next Friday, and we don't know anything about where we will live or where I will work in the summer or beyond.

The thing that is stressing us out and taking over our lives is the condo. We have re-caulked the tub, re-grouted the kitchen tiles, re-dry-walled the giant hole in the wall left by the plumber, and re-painted the kitchen to be less salmon and more limey-lemon. We have learned that selling your home is a process designed to make you feel that everything about your day-to-day life is abject and worth hiding. "You hang your clean laundry to dry in your bathroom? Gross!" You leave your dishes in a plastic rack to air-dry? Ew!" "You own a knife block? Don't let anyone see!" And, best of all, "Half of your windows are exposed to the outdoors? Oh my god, you guys, what's wrong with you?"

Before this, the concept of cleaning windows was an abstract one. I thought of it a bit like I think of bikini waxes - I understand that there are people who do that type of thing, and I have nothing but respect for their desire to keep a tidy appearance, but I never thought I would be someone who would spend my time in that particular manner. Our realtor had other plans. The windows were pretty much the first thing she mentioned. (My bikini area has yet to be commented on, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it was on her list somewhere.) And since the husband did all of the kitchen-painting, I got to clean windows.

We are lucky to have windows that you can pull forward out of the frame to clean the outside, so it really wasn't that bad. In fact, the worst part is that since there is no screen on the top half of the window, when you pull that top half into the room, there is nothing between you and the outdoors. I spent my cleaning time humming loudly, talking to myself and occasionally yelling to try to scare off any birds who might be contemplating a visit to our condo. In the process, I think I managed to scare off any neighbors who might be contemplating a polite greeting the next time I walk by their home, but really, I didn't want to talk to them anyway.

So that's where we stand. Now that we are leaving it, our home is cleaner than it has ever been before. Every day before we leave, we hide anything that might cause a potential buyer to think we are dirty people. We also hide the knife block, which, in fairness to the realtor, I will admit is done so that weirdos can't use its knives as weapons. I would say that that's a sad commentary on our times, but let's face it, there were probably people in the '50s who would jump at the chance to attack a realtor. It's probably better that it's hidden anyway. If the realtor asks us to clean or fix one more thing, I might be tempted to do some (non-fatal) attacking - of myself, if nothing else.

A Heartfelt Plea

I hate to use my public forum to take care of a personal problem, but I need to take a minute to straighten something out with Johnny Depp. Allow me to explain. Last week, the husband and I were on vacation to celebrate our anniversary. I use the terms 'vacation' and 'celebrate' lightly - we spent most of the time doing things to ready the condo for sale, looking for houses in CollegeTown, and hanging out with family. These things had left us more stressed out than we were before the vacation. So when Melinda emailed to see if I could come watch Sweeney Todd, I declined. The husband and I were going to be all couple-y. In the email, I uttered (typed, really) the following ominous sentence, or something like it: "Perhaps Johnny and I are not meant to be." That was a mistake, and I realize it now.

Before I get too far ahead of myself, I should explain what I had in mind for the remainder of the vacation. I thought perhaps we would find a beach and walk along it hand-in-hand. (Yes, this is the Midwest in early April, but dream with me, people.) I thought we would find a coffeehouse and engage in spirited but intellectual debate before lapsing into silence and staring lovingly into each other's eyes. I did not think we would get a lesson in plumbing, Murphy's Law, and why you shouldn't live in a building from 1911.

On Friday, while I was in the shower, the husband noticed that our desk lamp was acting weird. When he examined further, the bulb exploded, and popped the circuit breaker. The husband went downstairs to fix it. And thus our adventure began. Rather than finishing my shower in peace and sitting down to a relaxing evening, I watched as the bathroom light went off and on and off and on again. (Our breakers aren't labelled.) Then I heard an "oh crap." While the husband was downstairs he had seen water dripping. After a lengthy series of tests involving taping over drains and turning on and off various configurations of faucets, we determined that it's the shower. The shower pipes are ensconced behind the wall. To fix this problem, we will either have to remove the bathroom tile and put a hole in the shower wall or take down the kitchen cabinets and put a hole in that wall. Bear in mind that we figured this out over the course of our last two days of vacation, and that solving this problem will require either the spending of $1,000+ dollars or an entire day of the husband working closely with his father. Neither appeals to anyone involved.

Now, Johnny, I haven't forgotten about you. We need to talk. My husband says that the paint being worn away near the drip probably means it's been happening for a while, but I know that you are behind this. You were, after all, in Crown Point, IN shooting a movie recently. That is right over the state line, and very near to where my parents and siblings live (parents and siblings who could tell you my address, I might add). And your exposure to movie set design and special effects would make it relatively easy to fake some eroded paint.

Look, I know that it must have hurt when I said we weren't meant for each other. But Johnny, here's the thing. I'm married now. And you've got a little thing going with that nice woman from France, right? You just can't spend your free time shimmying up my shower pipes and committing vandalism any more. Plus, Johnny, you were never really mine, were you? You belong to all of the people of the world who like men (and especially the aforementioned French woman). I belong to the husband, and that's for the best, since he also belongs to me. We've got the papers and everything.

Johnny, you'll always have a special place in my heart. I'm sorry to have hurt your feelings, and I forgive you for causing us a giant headache. But you need to leave the husband and me in peace. It's really what's best for everyone.

Actually, Johnny, wait a moment. If you want to make it up to us - and I'm sure that you do - I know of a beautiful 2-bedroom condo for sale. It's in need of some small repairs, but what's a little plumbing between former soulmates? Call me; we'll work it out.

Major Life Changes

Goodness, but I've been a horribly negligent blogger. I apologize for that. In my defense though, Major Life Changes are afoot.

The husband has gotten accepted into graduate school with a tuition waiver and a stipend. This is super exciting, of course. For too long, we have come home after hellish commutes, tired from our jobs - of which mine is frustrating and his is soul-crushing - to a dog who is sad because he's been alone for nearly 10 hours. But no more! Now we will live in CollegeTown in the central part of the state. We will own a house! We will not deal with traffic! We will own chickens!

Have I shared about the evolution of our dreams? Remember alpaca? That was so four months ago. We moved on to thinking we wanted a few acres with some sheep. (They are more affordable, among other things. I'd be happy to elaborate, but I doubt that you care.) And while we always wanted plants and chickens, those things became more important. So we visited CollegeTown to look at land, and the thing that we realized is that to buy an affordable plot of less than 10 acres, we are probably going to need to be a bit too far from campus. So we talked and drove around and eventually decided that a house in the vicinity of campus with a relatively large yard for a vegetable garden would be fine, so long as we could have chickens. Shortly after resolving to Google "CollegeTown chicken ordinances" when we got back, we drove by a house and saw two chickens, strutting and pecking and generally looking chicken-y. Sure enough, Google confirmed that chickens are allowed in CollegeTown.

So we're pretty excited. We will be more excited if someone buys our condo and/or I get a job. In my weaker moments, I get entrenched in the more negative, anxiety-ridden aspects of it all. But life is about risk, right? And someone will buy the condo and someone else will hire me. It will work out. And when it does, we will be much closer to our Beautiful Life, in which we are hipster hippies who buy nothing from the Man but implements with which to screw him.

Can You Fire a Dentist?

Why am I posting the horrible tooth photo again? I'm glad you asked. Let me tell you all about it.

On Saturday, my temporary crown fell out again. That is not a huge deal in and of itself; I would abandon my mouth if I could and I don't expect dental implants to show more loyalty than I do. So I called the dental office's emergency line on Saturday evening and left a message, but no one called back. That was strike 1. I called back again and sent a page. No one called back, not that evening and not Sunday. Strike 2. It wasn't causing any pain as long as I kept it from the cold, so I figured I'd wait till Monday. On Monday when I called, which was after the office had been open for 90 minutes (I was in programs most of the morning), no one was even aware that I had called the emrgency line at all. Strike 3 - you're out a patient.

Actually I was upset, but I would have been somewhat mollified if someone had explained or at least apologized when I came in to get it fixed on Tuesday, but no such luck. I am getting my permanent crowns put in there - they're already paid for - but after that I'm done with that office. Of course, that would be a greater statement if certain Major Life Changes weren't going to force me to find a new dentist anyway, but I can say no more about that right now. (I will say that I almost changed that "force me" to a "force us", but screw the husband and his stupid mouth. Mr. 'You Do Have a Cavity But It's So Small We'll Just Fill It Today Without Novocaine' can tag along to whatever dentist I pick.)

Anyway, my mouth is better for the moment, but my mood seems to have been damaged for the week. Probably not the best condition to enter the annual ritual known as Staff Institute Day, but what can you do? At least this library has the decency to close for the whole day, unlike some other libraries I've worked for. Today was all about self-improvement, as we learned about recycling and did yoga. Actually, it wasn't so bad. The absence of mostacholi nearly gave me a heart attack. I was afraid the midwestern food police were going to burst in and give us a citation. Perhaps we got a pizza exemption. Actually the administration's efforts to force us to interact with people who we don't normally see meant that I only had to bite my tongue a few times around the one person at my workplace who drives me batshit crazy. And really, that's a very good thing - until I get my permanent crown, I am trying to avoid biting anything.