Pilcrow

Another quick post tonight. I stayed up stupidly late getting yesterday's project done, which threw off my plans for today a bit because I got up later than I'd intended. Still, I was able to get out to the grocery store for some things including cat litter, which I needed for the next task, cleaning the cat box and the bathroom. After that, I had to dust and vacuum my place—it needed doing anyhow, but I'm having friends over for Easter dinner tomorrow.

Vacuuming took longer than expected, as the small unpowered spinning brush attachment got jammed. After opening it up and cleaning it, I had a hard time getting it to go back together properly. Or rather, it was easy to put back together but somehow the fit was just slightly off, so that the force of the suction wasn't able to make the brush spin like it should have. That was very frustrating, as there was no obvious way to adjust things so it would work. I finally resorted to a '70s-style fix: yelling, swearing, and banging the stupid thing until it worked. Somehow I was able to knock it into the proper fit so that it worked again.

With all of that, I didn't start making myself dinner until 11, and I'm eating now. Once I'm done, I have to prepare some ice cream for mixing tomorrow morning. I'd wanted to have two different batches, but I didn't have time earlier in the week to make one, and I've found that the mixing bucket really needs more than a full day in order to refreeze properly after it's been used, defrosted, and cleaned. 

I decided that the Easter dinner party would be do-it-yourself pizzas, as I had a batch of homemade raw pizza crusts already made and in the freezer. I also figured it'd be easier on me to host the party that way. For some reason, probably tied in to my other issues and possible mild depression, I'd been dreading the idea of hosting a dinner and having to prepare a main course. Once I'd thought of the pizza party though, I became enthusiastic about it. And I figured it would be a very good thing for me to have people over for a party, something I haven't done since Easter two years ago. 

And with that it's almost midnight so time to post. Not sure whether I'll get a post up tomorrow or not.

For no particular reason, I've just started feeling freaked out about my home mortgage situation. It just really struck me suddenly that yes, my "second mortgage" really is a home-equity loan, and as a loan it really does have a fixed time period in which to be repaid, which is to say by the fifth anniversary of signing the loan, which is coming up in two months. So they really do expect me to repay that significant chunk of money within the next two months.

Well actually I suppose they don't expect me to repay it as such, since when this was set up during my initial purchase I was repeatedly assured that I would of course refinance the mortgage before the five-year period ended, so the home equity portion would just get rolled back into a single mortgage. I can't remember what the specific reasoning was in the first place for doing it this way, except that I was told it was the only way I'd be able to get the mortgage approved. Well, my agent was good enough to check in a couple times, during my third and fourth year of "ownership", to see how things were going and talk a bit about refinancing; both times he contacted some advisor who said it wasn't a good time because the rates hadn't changed much, so at best I wouldn't see much difference in what I was paying.

Here I am now nearly at the end of five years, with a refinancing effort not even started. I don't have a full-time job and I don't have regular reliable income to show from my freelancing work; instead, I have seriously mounting credit card debt from covering my everyday expenses while keeping my mortgage and bills paid over the past three years. I already talked to my current mortgage holder last year about payment assistance, and went through their process of providing my financial details, only to have them come back and state very simply "you do not meet our investor profile," which I understand to mean "we don't believe you'll ever be able to pay us." Their offer instead was to do a short sale of my place, which would let me get out of the mortgage without harming my credit rating. (And yes, they supposedly were taking into account the federal mortgage adjustment assistance program.) 

I like my home very much—despite the current external wall problem we're dealing with, that's making it that much harder to afford to stay here—it's a good roomy space in a good location. I don't want to move elsewhere, I don't want to go back to living in an apartment instead of a place I can consider my own, and again given my still precarious financial situation, I don't want to have to move to some smaller and remotely located apartment which is likely what will be affordable. But after spending all this time basically waiting for my situation to improve, I may have run out of any time and ability to do anything other than bail out with a short sale and quick move.

Although I enjoyed my job as an information specialist at the consulting company, I started to feel restless after a couple years. It became apparent that there wasn’t enough work requiring my skills and talents on a regular basis, and they moved me into doing more basic administrative work to fill in the downtime. That made me rather unhappy; I found that although I’m generally a fairly organized person and like things to be in order, I don’t actually like doing administration. Early in 2001, shortly after I had decided that I needed to seriously consider whether I should continue at this job, my boss called me into his office for a discussion on that very topic. He explained that there really wasn’t a path to advance my career in the company, and I should start looking for new employment; however, he was also very cool about it and did not lay me off, instead allowing me to continue working there and offering whatever support he could in my finding a new place.

Before that conversation occurred, something else significant happened in early 2001: I went out to Seattle for the wedding of my close college friend, Tony. I immediately felt at home in Seattle. In some weird, hard to define ways, it felt a lot like Boston: something about the layout with its occasional streets and intersections at weird angles, and the compact downtown core of skyscrapers surrounded by urban-village neighborhoods. In other ways it was different of course, having more steep hills and notably more trees and green space throughout the city. In a significant way, it was very unlike Boston: Seattle was overcast, rainy, and in the mid-40s all weekend long, but that weather felt great compared to the bitter below-freezing cold and five feet of snow and ice in Boston. I also enjoyed meeting Tony and Farida’s friends and had a great time hanging out with them before and after the wedding. Before the weekend was over, I was already thinking that I could see myself moving to Seattle.

So, back in Boston, I started looking for a new job. Once again, I didn’t have a very solid idea of what I wanted to do or where I wanted to work, and I still loathed the process of finding work, so my search was still half-hearted despite knowing I had to move on it. A month or two after having the talk with my boss, I mentioned to Tony that I was looking for a new job, and he suggested that I should move to Seattle and join the company he worked at, which basically provided marketing and training services for Microsoft—writing white papers and case studies, creating demonstrations on how to use various Microsoft software solutions for business, and other consulting-type services of that nature. The work sounded interesting and suitable for my skills, but mostly I was excited by the idea of moving to Seattle, spending more time with Tony, and getting to know a new circle of friends. So we talked about this for a while, with Tony recommending me to his boss, but unfortunately Tony had no hiring authority and after a while the opportunity fell through as the company got caught up in other things.

This time I tried to be smarter about my search. I knew that I wanted to do more work as a writer or editor, and I also had some experience with page layout and design both from my volunteer orchestra work and from creating reports and graphs and charts at my consulting job. So I tried to sign up with some placement agencies that specialized in creative professionals. However, my timing was bad: the dot-com crash had happened, there was a downturn in the economy, and work was harder to come by. The agencies didn’t have anything to offer me, or at least didn’t have any interest in calling me back. I carried on with checking want-ads and sending out occasional resumes, and let the year drag on. Occasionally I thought wistfully of how the Seattle opportunity didn’t work out, but I never looked for other opportunities in Seattle; I liked Seattle, but I already knew I loved Boston and had a lot of things going on there, so I wasn’t actively seeking to leave.

February 2002 came around and my boss called me into his office again to explain that he still wasn’t going to let me go but I really needed to buckle down and make a serious effort to find a new job, having let a whole year go by. I felt abashed and guilty of course, but still uncertain of what to do or how to find something when the agencies that seemed most appropriate weren’t talking to me. And then a day or two later, I got a phone call. Another college friend, Conrad, also worked at the same company Tony was working at, and his first question to me was, “What do you think about moving out to Seattle and working for us?” Conrad was now in a position with hiring authority and needed a new technical writer and software tester, so he called me. I later learned that one of the company’s co-founders was another alumnus from my college, and the company had grown in part by bringing in a succession of people from my college, including Tony and Conrad. Conrad and I talked for a bit, with me saying I was very interested in the idea, and I thought at one point he mentioned doing a phone interview, so when we ended the conversation that was what I expected would happen in a week. Instead, when he called back next week he asked how soon I could get there, and when I said I thought there was going to be an interview and hiring process, he said this was it, he was offering me a job.

Conveniently, an apartment was opening up in the house where Tony and Farida lived, and with their recommendation it was easy for me to get the place. Doug at this point was willing and able to take over my sublease in the Medford house with James, and also to inherit the bedroom furniture, which wasn’t worth moving to Seattle. With Doug’s help I packed up a dozen large boxes of books and CDs and papers and a few miscellaneous things, and dumped them in the mail to Seattle. Also with Doug’s help, because I was slow about packing, I got most of the rest of my belongings—clothes and linens and computer and compact stereo and some of my martial-arts weapons and my box o’ memories and a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff and boy, for having only a bedroom-full of belongings, I sure seemed to have a lot of stuff—packed tight into my car, with just enough room to spare for myself and Doug, who was coming along for the trip. The car rested so low from all the weight of my stuff that we eyed it dubiously and drove it cautiously around the block just to make sure it would at least get that far. And then, three weeks after Conrad’s first phone call; about 13 months after first determining that I needed to start looking for a new job; about 14 months after first visiting Seattle; about 18 months after moving out of my parents’ home, living on my own for the first time; after 32 years of living in the region where I was born, I set out west to live in Seattle.

Recently on the Sk8J forum, there's been a nostalgia thread for people to post old photos of themselves. This prompted me to finally pull out my photo album and shoebox of photos and to start scanning them. Instead of keeping them in the shoebox in my closet, unseen by anyone for years and years, I can put them up in Flickr, or at least have them available to email or display on my computer.

This is one of the photos I scanned for the thread:

It was taken some time in the summer of 1973, making me about 3.5 years old. My parents had gone to see a Red Sox game the night before, and they brought home a couple kiddie batting helmets for me and my older sister Liz. One of my oldest memories is of finding the helmets on the couch that morning. By now it's barely more than an impression, but I do remember being surprised at the helmets and wondering where they'd come from - I don't recall if I'd been told that Mom and Dad had gone to the baseball game, but if I had then I didn't make the connection for some reason (i.e., I was three and a half).

Another one of my oldest memories also dates from that summer, although I don't have a photo to go with it: the day my dad almost drowned. My cousins had an in-ground swimming pool, and we'd go visit them a few times every summer for a cookout and swimming, always a treat. My dad never learned how to swim, and would just wade in the shallow end of the pool. Apparently on this particular visit he stepped into a deeper part of the pool without realizing he was doing so - there was a steeper slope that he hadn't noticed - and fell under, swallowing a lot of water.

What I recall - and I'm not sure how much this is real memory and how much just reconstructed - is that I was out of the pool, eating a hamburger or something, and suddenly there was a lot of fuss and alarm. I really don't have any clear memory of the accident itself or the immediate aftermath. I know that Dad was fished out of the pool and he was taken to the hospital in an ambulance, although I don't remember any of that either. What I do remember is being back at home and asking my mom about what had happened: where was Dad, what was wrong, was he going to be all right, and most importantly why did we have to leave the pool? Obviously I was too uncomprehending to be that upset, but it's only in thinking back on this that I wonder whether this event was partly responsible for my later reluctance to take swimming lessons and in particular to put my face underwater.

I feel that I ought to finish on a cheerier note, so here's an older photo of me, taken the previous autumn:

I do remember the jacket I'm wearing, although again as no more than a vague impression of really liking it - you can't quite tell, but the design on the upper left is from Winnie-the-Pooh, though I can't recall whether it's Pooh, Piglet or Tigger. The house in the background is the neighbor's, our house is behind and to the left of me. We'd actually just moved in to the house that August, either right before or right after my younger sister was born. I believe my older sister remembers the trailer home that my family first lived in, but for me that's the yard of the only childhood home I ever had.

Yesterday was the anniversary of my closing date, when I officially purchased my condo. I didn't actually move in for another week, but as far as anniversaries go, that's no matter. I had a party to celebrate; the response was good, though unfortunately fewer people than I'd hoped were able to make it. I borrowed TonyD's speakers to use with my Mini, and that's really brought home to me how inadequate the Mini's built-in speaker is. I'm going to have to get some proper speakers soon, though it seems like I suddenly have quite a list of inessentials that I'm keen to get, and Christmas expenses are coming up.

Speaking of buying things, I bought a couple lemons and a couple small limes for the party, thinking people might want those for their drinks. Then I didn't remember to tell anyone or put them out. So, now I have a couple lemons and limes; what can I do with them before they go bad on me?

Nimiel was a lot more skittish than usual for the party. It may have been partly due to having her nails trimmed earlier that afternoon, which makes her a little sulky; it probably had more to do with the Dowlers' daughter attending the party, though she was as afraid of the cat as the cat was of her. Still, it was after the Dowlers had left that Nimiel stepped up onto Elizabeth's lap, but then hissed at her and John's attempts to pet her, finally making a not-playful jump and bite at Elizabeth's hand. I felt rather bad about that, it makes me feel I haven't done a good job of socializing her and teaching her how to play nicely, and of course I don't want my friends to be unable to approach her. I'm not sure what I can or should do about that.

My other friend John asked what I liked the most about having the condo, and what had surprised me about the condo after living here a month (or something to that effect). I'm really happy to have my own laundry machines, a dishwasher, and a garbage disposal; of those things, I believe the luxury of being able to do laundry any time and not have to leave my place was the most surprisingly enjoyable thing. But then, I intended to have those things with any condo I bought (I'd damn well have installed a garbage disposal if it hadn't had one, I never liked throwing food waste in the trash), so I don't feel like those are the most representative things for this condo.

I think what I like most about this condo is the layout, in particular the large open living space. I like that the living room's large enough to have two couches comfortably, with room to spare to use both of them in bed mode if need be. I like having the kitchen area open to the living room, so I can be doing stuff there without being cut off from guests. And I like that I can have all that and still have a separate bedroom to myself, making it easier for me to stay up later than guests sleeping over. As for what surprised me the most after I'd been living here for a bit, I think it's how much I like the location. I enjoy being able to walk to Fremont a lot more than I'd expected, and although I miss the ease of walking to Broadway on Capitol Hill or walking downtown, I've still found the area very walkable with a lot of interesting stuff nearby, and I'm not too far from downtown or Capitol Hill either. Thinking about this recently after getting yet another postcard promoting a new condo development on Capitol Hill, I decided that while I'd be happy to move back to the Hill if I found just the right place, I'm definitely happy where I am now and will gladly stay here for a long time.

So, what about my Christmas vacation, when I wasn't falling sick? It was pretty good, actually.

I've just realized that I didn't write about last Christmas (2004) at all. (I'm just going to call it "last year" even though it was 2004.) Because I had recently started paying for braces, I ended up deciding not to go home to my parents'. That was my first Christmas away from home, ever, and I ended up feeling depressed about it. I didn't actually spend it sitting at home alone (well, alone with my new cat), as I went with the Dowlers to one of their friends' for dinner; that was nice and I'm glad I was invited. Still, it just wasn't the same as the noisy LaRose family Christmas that I'm used to, and I really missed that.

So this year I decided I wasn't going to miss that again, even though I'm arguably worse off with about the same amount of credit card debt outstanding and a condo to pay for as well. Because I didn't buy my airplane tickets until Thanksgiving weekend, I spent a lot more than I wanted to. I'd already decided I couldn't afford a rental car, and I knew the transit strike in NYC was likely to happen, so I was also anticipating travel hassles; that plus the expensive flight made me grumbly before I left and second-guess whether I should be going. But I'm very glad I made the decision to go, because I really enjoyed myself.

The transit strike and jet lag meant that I didn't do much in NYC before Christmas, but it was good to visit with Andrea and Jen (my younger sister and her girlfriend) and see their new place. I wanted to check out the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company, but we didn't have a chance to go by there until after Christmas, at which time we determined it seemed to be closed for school vacation. (It fronts for 826NYC, a nonprofit organization for teaching writing skills to students. Rather annoyingly they don't simply list any kind of store hours anywhere on the site as far as we could tell; we had to piece together that it was closed for vacation from how the latest news was written.)

Up in Boston, I got to have some of my favorite pizza in the world, sausage pizza at the original Pizzeria Regina in the North End. I was arguably more disappointed the last time I was home for Christmas two years ago by missing out on that than I was by being miserable and sick all that week, so I was particularly pleased that it worked out this time. I also had pizza at Bob's in Nashua, my favorite local place, and that was good too. Ah how I miss good sausage pizza! It's just not the same out here.

My plans to hang out with my friends mostly worked out. Unfortunately, I managed to pass on the cold I'd picked up from Andrea to my friend Doug, so that he was sick on Christmas and wasn't able to come hang out with Scott and his family that night. I did have a good short visit with Scott and Lissa and Scott's parents and aunt, though it would've been nice to have some more time. Fortunately Doug was recovered enough on Monday evening to come over for a family game and little birthday celebration for me; and we also hung out on Friday and Saturday evenings, so I got to spend some good time with him. There was good family time too, mainly Christmas day itself, a family game of dominoes on Monday afternoon, and family breakfast on Tuesday before Andrea and I returned to NYC (driven by my younger brother bandtechiegeek, who stayed overnight).

Back in NYC, Andrea, Jeremy and I had dinner at a hipster place in hipster central, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. We didn't see any famous Williamsburg residents like John and John of TMBG, but I swear the attractive hipster at the next table (with the birthday party group) kept checking our table out. The next day after Jeremy left, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to meet a few of Andrea's friends for a dim sum lunch - and now that I've been I can say I have tried it and it's just not something I care for. Then Andrea and I went to the Museum of Modern Art for their Pixar exhibit, which was cool.

I had hoped to meet some of my VHive (ex-Delphi) forum friends for drinks while in NYC, but there was minimal response the first week when I talked about meeting after Christmas, and no response that Wednesday. I felt snubbed, but it was a very busy time for everyone, and I know at least one other person's party plans were being turned down on account of general tiredness, so I figure I shouldn't take it personally. Anyhow it's probably for the best, as spending the last evening quietly at my sister's place, reading a book (All Tomorrow's Parties by William Gibson) and repacking my luggage, was a good thing to do. Still, I realized that since my sister moved to NYC, I haven't spent an evening out on the town in Manhattan, and I'd like to do that.

That's about it for the trip. As I mentioned in the previous entry, my flight home took much longer than it was supposed to - first there was a delay leaving because of the weather, then a passenger with diabetes fell ill and we landed in Minneapolis to let him off, and it took about two hours to get back in the air - so I got home very tired, which may have contributed to my illness over the weekend. I also didn't get to see all the friends I would've liked to; I really need a trip with more time, and a rental car so I have the freedom to travel around to my friends' scattered homes. Overall though it was a very good Christmas holiday.

Last Friday I went to a "bonus" concert, to see my friend Tony Sacco's band Library Science, who played along with Matt Corwine (opening) and Kanda (headlining). I was feeling somewhat mopey and tired again, thinking that I was faced with another whole weekend in the apartment by myself, and I almost didn't go to the show, but fortunately I overcame that. The show was downtown in the "Jewel Box Theater" at Rendezvous.

It was a pretty good show. Matt Corwine was a guy with a laptop doing a continuous mix of electronic dance music. It made me want to go out dancing. Library Science, who play dub-based instrumentals, played a new song, but embarrassingly I failed to pick it out from the rest of the songs. Some of the songs I'm really familiar with by now (though I'm still shaky on the names), the rest tend to blur together. Tony tells me they'll have more new songs at their next show in June, I'd still like to see their sound branch out a little more. Finally, Kanda were new to me - a trio on guitars and bass, with a drum machine, some miscellaneous percussion including a glockenspiel and a toy xylophone, and melodica. Apparently the band is actually a duo - cute Asian girl and nerdy white guy - and the third guy was just a backing musician for the show. Anyhow, their set had some problems with sound and generally things seeming to be not quite together, but they won me over by the end with their very catchy pop. I suspected that they would be better recorded than live, and bought a CD, which I was pleased to discover proved me right. Actually I'm sure they can be just as good live, just this show was somewhat ragged.

The rest of the weekend turned out fairly well. Saturday I slept really late, then went for a walk downtown to pick up a couple tickets for Sarah Vowell's book reading at Elliott Bay Books next Friday (the 29th that is). Though I've been here three years now, this was my first time going to Elliott Bay Books and I was quite impressed, it's very big and cool. That night I went out to dinner with the Saccos - we tried going to the new fancy pizzeria, Via Tribunali, over on Pike, but it had an hour wait so we ended up down Broadway at Charlie's - and that was a very good evening. So, in a much better frame of mind, I was content to spend Sunday basically doing laundry and reading, and also hanging out with TonyD for a while.

I also picked up some garden stones to put into the flowerpot my tree is in, as Nimiel recently took an interest in gardening and has been digging at the soil. The pot was covered with aluminium foil for a week or so, which did keep her from digging, but she kept pawing and biting at the foil instead, and even nibbled off a bit. Now she just goes over and paws at the rocks, but at least that means there won't be soil all over the floor. Next I have to get a bigger pot and transfer the tree - not that that will keep Nimiel away, just that the tree needs that.

This weekend is my board game night for April. Also, I did decide to redo my media center, so it's back to IKEA tomorrow night. Fortunately I don't need much and it's not expensive, because money's been getting pretty tight. Next week, I've got plans to watch The Incredibles with a couple friends (one who hasn't seen it yet), and then Sarah Vowell on Friday. And The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film opens next weekend. And it's John Harper's birthday mid-week.

Well, Easter went well. Yesterday (= Saturday), Pam helped me prepare the chicken cordon bleu. Surprisingly, it took nearly 3 hours to do, and that was with two people and using my neighbor's kitchen so that we wouldn't have to deal with Nimiel getting in the way. Of course, we did prepare 27 of them, but still it was a bit surprising to be reminded how labor-intensive it is, for something fairly simple.

Because we didn't get started until around 5, I didn't go to the Easter Vigil Mass this year, but that was okay. I was just as happy really not to have to sit through the 3-hour service. Instead I went to the 11 AM Mass this morning. I didn't manage to get up early, in fact I skipped breakfast and only just made it in time to get a seat and a lot of people had to stand through Mass. So when I got home at 12:30, I still had to vacuum the apartment, spruce up the bathroom, wash dishes, and wash up a bit and change - and I hadn't eaten yet so I wanted a little breakfast. I had told everyone they could come over any time after 2 PM, and fortunately everyone reliably followed the normal practice of not showing up until at least a half-hour after the time I tell them they can arrive.

Nimiel was a good kitty all day, even though we had a couple toddlers along with the dozen or so noisy adults. My friend Clara brought a new toy mouse for Nimiel, as well as a bag of cat treats, which was very cool of her. Everyone enjoyed the chicken cordon bleu (well, except the vegetarian, who brought a veggie dish that some other people ate as well) and the other dishes, we had birthday cake for Orkgrrrl, and lots of good conversation.

After everyone left, I did all the cleanup, then I thought about eating something but I wasn't really hungry yet, so I caught up on my checkbook as I knew I had to mail payment for a couple bills tomorrow. And then it was after midnight, and I was hungry, but I didn't really want to make anything at that point. But Brandon had made mini corn muffins and there were a couple left, and I thought, well, I can just eat those, I guess. I went to get a drink out of the fridge and saw that I still had a lot of strawberries, which both Brandon and Donna&Chris brought, and I thought well, I should have some strawberries with the muffins. And then I remembered the vanilla ice cream that I'd bought to go with the cake, and thought ooooh, vanilla ice cream AND strawberries AND corn muffins in a bowl! Excellent!

And that's how you end a good holiday.

Oh, almost forgot: Orkgrrrl took some good pictures both of Nimiel and of the chicken, but I think I want to move them off Shutterfly before linking to them.