Like a whole bucket of stars

Tomorrow afternoon I will carry myself across the threshold of home ownership. I have ordered custom "I moved" announcements; this seems appropriate as it isn't fair for us single girls that we have to wait to get married and have a baby before we can announce anything. I did this on my own and I am damn proud of it.

I am visualizing cleaning out my cabinets and lining them with pretty oilcloth. Washing and stacking the Fiestware that has been packed away, patiently awaiting the day that it could fulfill it's dishware destiny. Buying a refrigerator was so exhilarating one would have thought Ryan Gosling himself sold it to me.

I need a chimney sweep but I won't let him in the house unless he looks like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins.

 

I have more shopping to do; I have a dining room table but no chairs. I have carpeting but no vacuum, I have highball glasses but no liquor to put in them. 

I feel so calm now. So free and calm. 

May the bridges I burn light the way.

Timing is Everything?

I made the mistake of telling a total stranger that I met at a bar how I felt about an old guy friend. The stranger was also a man and I am telling you this so as not to cause any further confusion. He was around in the years I was here before and we were very good friends then and very good friends now. I care for him dearly and now I am back and the 'olden' days are cropping back up and I feel as if I am standing, yet again, at square one. For someone as forward as I am it is totally unreasonable for me to just keep my mouth shut about it...but I do. As much as I know my body begs for a kiss from him it is almost uncanny how I am able to restrain myself; I don't want to be hurting anymore and I don't want to hurt myself with him. I get angry about it too because there was about five minutes five years ago where I could have put down the tray of Everclear jello shots and just laid one on him and it would have been totally called for. Now...now I think I almost prefer to be at arms length...we are very different from eachother, I broke away from that life for the most part and although I am still friends with that crowd mainly I just want other things. When I told the stranger this he got so irritated with me because he felt that men today were made to feel like they have to make the first move and that is unfair because "we aren't mindreaders" blah blah blah. I am not saying that at all but honestly, beginning to start anew with someone is more than mildly terrifying to me at this point. i feel as if I was reaching for something and my hand was repeatedly slapped away to the point where I know better now...I anticipate the sting so I don't feel the need to try. He is kind...he was always kind. The life I thought I wanted for myself really wasn't the life I needed. I am much to independent and that ubiquitous characteristic will always be the first thing any intelligent man will see. Is that the reason I told my ex that if we ever lived together that I would need my own room? Do I really do much better on my own? I have proved this already by fighting fiercely for what I have now. Do I really need a companion to help make my life more vibrant and meaningful? No, I don't think so. I have always wanted a lover who was my friend; I have only had this once before. After many years of hurt and anger I have finally let it go and now we talk regularly on the phone and it is much more fulfilling to me than his lust obsessions of the past ever were.
I can remember laying in my bed on an insanely sweltering summer day listening to Etta James on my player, thinking about him. Wondering when I would see him again if only to smile and have him smile back, hazel eyes dazzling me like diamonds. I think this is all a moot point, I love him and he loves me and yet maybe we would just be better off never acknowledging this to each other.

Self-made homemaker

I am 7/10ths of the way through the home buying process and wow what a mindfuck it's been thus far. I was warned...warned and lectured and warned some more and realistically I think I have had it easy-ish compared to other horror stories I have heard. Let's re-cap shall we?

8/12:
 A. Start the home search, see the "perfect condo" but it is just too expensive for me right now.
 B. Move on to other spaces; find one in the coveted "Avenues" neighborhood. I take Oma to see it and she flips out in a major way. She hated the building, thought the Avenues were dangerous (which is beyond ridiculous), hated the windows, hated the living room, hated the price (which was affordable and I had already been pre-approved).
9/12:
 C. Because she saw the alternative she decided that she did in fact like the other, way expensive condo (See Fig. A) so she decides to tell me 3 weeks later "I guess I can give you your inheritance money now so you can get the other place." WHAT!? You KNEW I couldn't afford that place for WEEKS and NOW you decide you want to help because you saw what was realistic for me. So, of course, the other unit already had an offer on it and the owner had countered and they are probably closing on it right this very bloody minute. Thanks Oma.
 D. I decided I needed a break. A break meant looking at a cottage in a shitty neighborhood.
 E. Just when I had given up real hope of ever living downtown and playing out my fantasy of a warped, punk rock version of a Charlotte/Samantha SATC lifestyle: IT APPEARS.
 F. I went out with a guy named Brian who used to live in the building. We worked at Starbucks together, he was a divorced bisexual (or so he told me). Whatever, anyway:
I walk in and the first thing I think is "1970's Treehouse." Vaulted ceilings, orange Preway floating woodstove, floor to ceiling windows, cast iron tub, new carpet and tile. Two blocks away from TRAX, across the street from all I will ever really need. What is the price? PERFECT. Was my offer accepted? YES. Just as I was about to float away on my cloud of homeownership, a terrible hurricane blew through in the form of inept loan officers and office assistants.

10/12:

 G. First it was "Oh you missed one hour of work on your paystub and the underwriter doesn't think you are really, truly gainfully employed for forty hours a week...so your mom needs to cosign." Then it was "Oh the realtor quoted the taxes incorrectly, they are really $200 more a year." Then it was "Oops we emailed you another couples paperwork and we sent them yours (real response from a grown ass woman coming up...wait for it) MY BAD!" After that it was "So, it turns out they made a mistake in your VOE form and your mom probably didn't really need to cosign for you...your credit score is better than hers..." and the BEST one of all!? "So, um, it turns out that 30% of the people who live there are renters and 70% are owners and we really don't think the condo is warrantable (READ: they don't think they can finance me), we would like the ratios to be 80/20..." After feeling like I am going to break the neck of the Listing Agent my mortgage company decided "Weeelllll, I guess we can make an exception...maybe." So I had the inspection done and the appraiser is coming next week. God willing nothing else stupid as shit happens I should be closing on November 19 and I swear to god the minute I get those keys in my hand I will run my ass over there and collapse on the carpet and cry for how this year has been. What I did and what I left behind and what I gave up for this piece of mind.



I want to come home to serenity. I want to make a cup of tea and coax a fire and sprawl on my $$$ofa I prematurely bought myself from Macy's. I want to have guests who can sleep in a real guest room and not an air mattress in the living room. I want the only thing I utter words too be Baby Kitty if I feel like it. I can't wait to have a special SLC DRUNCH! in my new place, making finger sandwiches and pouring shots of Jameson in the leaded crystal cordial glasses my parents got as a wedding present. I have such plans for it, I just have to hurry up and wait at this point.

Haunted house

I don't think there has ever been a moment where I was totally at ease in my Oma's house. In the 21+ years she has lived here I have been terrified for almost all of them. Besides the traditional creepy crawlies: tarantulas, giant caterpillars, piles of inch worms and mice, her home boasts a series of ghosts that make you feel like you are being watched 24/7. When they moved here in the early 90's, the home was trashed by the previous builder/owner. Apparently during one of her all night mountain-side glitter cocaine orgies a young party-goer fell asleep in the garage and later perished inside a vehicle (my young self would assume this was because he fell asleep in the garage in the summer time and died of heat stroke). Another theory is that the home itself was built upon a mass grave site of later (not latter) Utah settlers who died tragically fighting a mass of already settled Mormons. The other ghosts that inhabit this place belong to my deceased relatives, they are all over the place here and (in my thinking ((that is something Oma ALWAYS says and it drives me crazy)) )live quite comfortably in this very suitable already haunted house.

First, there is my great aunt Pearl. She knew me as a baby and I feel that I remember her but I know I was much to young to really know her as a person. I have many of her quilts (regretfully) held in my storage unit in a chest that belonged to My Uncle Bill (he's further down in this story). Aunt Pearl had a lot of costume jewelry which Oma keeps in my grandfathers office. I don't necessarily feel she is "around" in the traditional sense but her stuff is definitely everywhere. I wear some of her old pieces but trust me, if you open a box practically anywhere in this house you will find an earring or some other shiny bauble just aching to be tried on. Like I said, she isn't wandering around the place...just leaving her calling card.
When I was about seven my family moved here. We lived in the basement which cannot even be called a basement because it is extremely finished and has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, wet bar and dining room. If I remember correctly, we had lived here about a year when Omi came to visit. Omi is my Oma's mother; she had severe Alzheimer's and dementia. Picture it: a frail, stooped, old, senile German woman who smells like mothballs and fixodent. Maybe this is the reason why I do what I do? I don't know, anyway, Omi was a real character. She only spoke her native tongue to my sister and I. She called us Rosie and swore we were her daughter-in-law. I had many instances of walking in on her doing something that seven year olds do not understand as being mentally unsound. She would comb her hair with a serrated knife, she would hoard food under her mattress in the upstairs guestroom to the point of mice infestations, she was slightly terrified of my younger brother, and she once full frontal flashed my unsuspecting father while he was on the computer. I live in the basement once again and yes, I do sometimes feel I can hear her meandering around me, mumbling in German. Her husband, my Opi, is in cremains in a jar in Oma's bedside table.
My Uncle Bill is (was) my Oma's eldest child. He died of heart failure from(what I imagine was) a wild night of lonely drug abuse. Oma had a local artist paint a very large portrait of him with his dog Rooster and that portrait hangs in her living room and watches me eat breakfast almost every morning in the solarium. When I was younger I imagined him alive and what he would be like. I struggled with so many of the same things he struggled with and I feel like I came out of it so easy, I never really felt addicted to those things. Was that My Uncle Bill? I don't know...but I like to pretend it was. Oma used to have his ashes in an urn on her mantle but has since purchased a plot in Kansas where My Uncle Bill is on one side and my Papa is on the other side and guess where Oma will be? Yup, in the middle.
Which brings me to my Papa. If anyone has a right to haunt the shit out of this house it would be him. Papa is (was) Oma's husband, my grandfather. The things I remember about my grandfather: He was usually working in his office, he only EVER ate oatmeal for breakfast, he would sneeze so loud it would scare you to death I swear, he loved hiking and skiing and I am glad I got to do both with him. The only place he still hangs out in is his office. If you think I am crazy, come over and stand in the office and then you tell me he isn't there...you won't be able to.
Oma has pictures of my cousin everywhere too. He took his life at an absurdly young age and no one will ever be able to convince her that there wasn't something that she could have done. Those cousins keep a deeper distance from us, they always have. So now she eulogizes him the only way she knows how' by hanging pictures of him and donating money in his name to charities he himself would never have given a thought to. 
I really do walk around this house expecting to see someone. Every doorway, hallway, or out of the corner of your eye glance. There are animal ghosts too. Shiloh, Rooster and Frankie are all cremated and buried in the mountainside. They have a beautiful lambs-ear plant growing on top of them. Shiloh was my first family pet and Rooster and Frankie belonged to My Uncle Bill. I have Carly downstairs with me; I have looked across my half dark room to see the coppery glint of her name plate perfectly shining in some stray beam from the closet light.









I just read this and I sound like a total lunatic. But seriously, this house is hell of creepy! 

I could just die

This is straight from the vault. unedited too!

January 25, 2004                                                   

I could wait forever. I could wait and wait and wait. I wouldn’t mind. Its being alone. Not having anyhim to talk to. I know what I want. I know who I am today and who I’ll be tomorrow. It’s the days after that. The times in between. The people I want to know and the children I want to have. The husband I believe  in so much.  I see beautiful happy people everywhere. Glancing at each other, caressing the  waist, arms wrapped up tight, kissing with such conviction. Love is what I had once. I had someone to hold me tight at night, to whisper how beautiful and sexy I am while I was seconds away from ecstasy. I have felt the niceness of having someone to go on dates with, to watch late night television and scary movies with, to get high and stare at each other all night with. Someone to play drinking games and midnight top down rides with. Reading magazines and  playing jokes and being silly. Someone to claim as my own piece of breathing walking talking heart. An extension of myself. He let me feel that hot sting of a hand when I wouldn’t let things go his way. The beating of my heart when he hit himself over and over to prove that he loved me and he would beat himself to a pulp if it meant showing me he didn’t mean to hurt me. I remember when my heart broke and was repaired in the same night. I remember the look on his face when he saw me standing there. Waiting all sexy like. People talking to me, asking who I was waiting for. Saying when he came up to me how lucky he was to have a sexy girl like me waste my time. And him. He just. This is the end of this paragraph. When I can write one that isn’t lame and does make sense, I will come back and write one.

Part two

Now that I realize I am forever cursed with a “condition”, I have come to the conclusion that I should stay away from relationships and romantic encounters and  focus on the more important things.  Becoming a bona-fide spinster takes hard work and I need to bulk up for the forthcoming shit storm of my life. Being lonely is a process. It slowly wraps around  you and before one knows it, yr lonely. I remember a time when  I was so sure of my future…trailer park…babies…drugs…a “husband”.

“significant” other. What do they signify?

Qualities of the man of my “dreams”

1.       Tall\

2.       Limber

3.       Dark haired

4.       Excellent taste in music and art

5.       Sensitive, but not too sensitive

6.       Fabulous sexual chemistry

7.       Ambition and education

8.       Strange hobbies and/or  interests

9.       Very strong family values in a non religious way

10.    (left blank because one never knows)

Derek told me the first (before the last) time that we spoke, that we cared for each other because the sex was always great. Never boring, never stale, never bad. We loved each other. We yearned, we stalked, we lusted, we obsessed. But he also said that  we shouldn’t be together. I think that is the first remotely intelligent and selfless thing he has ever said to me. He said it because he has someone to hold his dick at night while he sleeps and dreams of the day when he will have a big free house and he’s sitting on a big free mountain of pot, and he is fucking in a big bed with a woman who freely lets him fuck her in the ass. I swallow my pride.

I try to stumble away , clutching the ripped and sewn and stapled pieces of my manifest of what a “man” is.

Goddamit if I don’t think about him every seconed of the day. He has once again left me… I AM 14 AGAIN!!!!! I am 14 with a heart as big as an apple and feelings so hurt…well, it hurts. I know that our paths will cross again. I just know. I trust with all my might that I will see him again. See that face…droopy a little…round tip nose…grey-blue-slate eyes. Long body and lean muscle. Skin that smells of soap and cigarettes and  sometimes even beer. “whatever differences our lives had been, we together make limb.” blonde hair that is so fine that even when tugged lightly during a romp in bed, he would cry out like a lamb looking for its mother. He has big hands and long fingers, dry from masturbation and  various work around the house. When he was on top of me and having an orgasm…his face would seem to melt. His eyes would lower and roll and his mouth would draw together and you could see his tongue a little and I remembered that I would never forget that ridiculous face. That  face that looked irritated but stern when  he made me a mix tape and sleater kinney started to play and he said “shhhhh!!! This is sleater kinney.” that face that electrified me like a lightning bolt straight through adolescence clear into adulthood.  I have said this so many times. I have thought this thought and contemplated every possible product of such.  “what I would give, to know what he was doing right now, at this exact moment.” he isn’t fair and life isn’t fair and I deserve to be deserving of someones love and affection and devotion and and and and…….someones everything. I suppose I will be pining artistically for the rest of this lifetime. I have no doubt. This operation was doomed from the beginning. Abort mission.

Don't think twice, it's alright

I am excited and anxious to say I am in the beginning stages of Phase 4. What is Phase 4 you ask? Dear reader, let me educate you. Every broken relationship you will have (or had) carries with it secret embedded lists that you may or may not know about. These lists commonly begin with "1. Don't call him." The hardest part of breaking up is indeed the "walking away" phase. I like to visualize my Phases as this:

Phases not Phasers

Phase 1) Break up with bad boyfriend.

Phase 2) Make a life altering decision to move across the United States.

Phase 3) Find your dream job in your calling and background.

Phase 4) Buy a home all by yourself.

Phase 5) Meet a companion that is all you have ever hoped for.

This may seem silly but you know that crazy ol Walt Disney said "If you can dream it, you can do it." It's true, it's on motivational posters allover the internet.

The first four phases are really the most important...the last one is thrown in there for good measure. I have never been a "dater." I am not good at it and I probably never will be. My relationships tend to blossom from happen-stance and who-knows-what. I figured that five phases is better than four; although I could just skip to Phase 5 1/2) Have a baby.