Two-Timing the Cosmos

Today in Street Harassment

2010-11-12T15:41:00.003-05:00

[Scene: Waiting for light at 14th and U]

Old man sidles up to me: "Hey baby. It's no coincidence the sun just came out. I mean it, you're so beautiful. And that's no line, sometimes a girl just needs to hear it..."

Me: "Yeah. Don't you just hate when you forget your headphones and have to listen to every asshole corner you at the light and pretend like he's not just another dude harassing you in the street?"

[light changes on cue / end scene]

White Summer?

2009-07-14T22:05:00.009-04:00

I was very tempted by the Infinite Summer project that tons of my friends on all ends of the country are doing right now -- I attempted the book a few years back when my roommate had a copy and insisted it was his Favorite Book Ever. But I'm pretty sure I didn't get even 50 pages in before I stopped and I'm certain I'll never get through it without a good reason (peer pressure). In the end I opted out, but as a result ended up downloading White Noise on my Kindle. I've been on a bit of a crusade to get through the 100 Greatest Novels of All Time, or, more honestly, using the list to find my personal Great books that I never got around to reading, since, not being graded for the assignment, I'm not going to force myself to choke down everything just to say I did it (**cough**Lord of the Rings**cough**).

So anyway, I started White Noise a couple weeks ago, and barely 30 pages into it I knew it was going to be one of my top five favorite books. I also find myself wishing I'd read it in a college course, where we discussed it and were forced to sit and write papers on its themes. The dialogue and laugh-out-loud humor are enough to make it great, but as I'm reading it on the Metro (laughing embarrassingly to myself), or just speed-reading in bed because it's so good I need to keep going, I most assuredly feel that I am, well, not getting it the way I need to be. There are themes and innuendo up the wazoo, and I'm sure if I sat down and wrote a 10 page essay on it (or was involved in a nationwide sit-and-read), it would all come together, but as it is, I just want to keep plowing through to read more of his amazing/hysterical prose. Although it's on my Kindle, I suspect I may end up buying a hardcopy of this to re-read and dog-ear (I've been using the highlight feature on the Kindle copiously). I'll also be voraciously hunting down essays and cliffnotes on it when I'm finished.

Anyone feel like going through the 100 with me, or as many as you can? Here's the list, and don't worry, I don't have a very good head start. Feel free to recommend books you loved that I should move to my short list.

The Adventures of Augie March
All the King's Men
American Pastoral
An American Tragedy
~~Animal Farm~~
Appointment in Samarra
~~Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret~~
The Assistant
At Swim-Two-Birds
Atonement
~~Beloved~~
The Berlin Stories
The Big Sleep
The Blind Assassin ** short list; I've read The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake and loved them both **
Blood Meridian
Brideshead Revisited
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Call It Sleep
Catch-22 ** tried and failed a few years ago **
~~The Catcher in the Rye~~
A Clockwork Orange
The Confessions of Nat Turner
The Corrections
The Crying of Lot 49
A Dance to the Music of Time
The Day of the Locust
Death Comes for the Archbishop
A Death in the Family
The Death of the Heart
Deliverance
Dog Soldiers
Falconer
The French Lieutenant's Woman
The Golden Notebook
Go Tell it on the Mountain
Gone with the Wind
~~The Grapes of Wrath~~
Gravity's Rainbow **on my ambitious short list **
~~The Great Gatsby~~
A Handful of Dust
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
The Heart of the Matter
Herzog
Housekeeping
A House for Mr. Biswas
I, Cladius
Infinite Jest ** sigh **
Invisible Man
Light in August
~~The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe~~ ** heck yeah, the whole series! **
Lolita
~~Lord of the Flies~~
The Lord of the Rings ** no thank you **
Loving
~~Lucky Jim~~ ** thumbs down, give me his son anyday **
The Man Who Loved Children
Midnight's Children ** almost bought this the other day, but ended up buying Satantic Verses instead; close enough! **
~~Money~~ ** LOVE Martin Amis (hello I named my cat after him, sort of), but this was actually not my favorite novel of his **
The Moviegoer
~~Mrs. Dalloway~~
Naked Lunch
Native Son
~~Neuromancer~~ ** big thumbs up! **
Never Let Me Go
~~1984~~
On the Road ** short list **
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ** hated the movie, this will be toward the end of my list **
The Painted Bird
Pale Fire
A Passage to India
Play it as it Lays
Portnoy's Complaint
Possession
The Power and the Glory
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Rabbit, Run
Ragtime
The Recognitions
Red Harvest
Revolutionary Road
The Sheltering Sky
~~Slaughterhouse-Five~~
Snow Crash ** moved to short list on recommendation **
The Sot-Weed Factor
~~The Sound and the Fury~~ ** good lord, talk about needing cliffnotes **
The Sportswriter
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
The Sun Also Rises
~~Their Eyes Were Watching God~~
Things Fall Apart
~~To Kill a Mockingbird~~
To the Lighthouse
Tropic of Cancer
Ubik
Under the Net
Under the Volcano
~~Watchmen~~
White Noise ** almost done! **
White Teeth
Wide Sargasso Sea

Art spaces

2009-06-24T21:34:00.002-04:00

This morning I attended a business roundtable discussion hosted by Flashpoint, at Conner Contemporary (which is an incredible art space -- go visit if you haven't yet). I missed the first 20 minutes, since I decided to run a real time scenario on how much taking public transportation to H Street NE sucks red hot ass, but I managed to catch a lot of interesting discussion.

Philippa Hughes, Jayme McLellan and Karyn Miller led the talk, and it would probably be easiest for me to say that I usually agree with everything the three of these very smart ladies say. When discussing temporary art spaces and how to approach developers and managers, Philippa brought up the excellent point that it's important to talk in their language and focus on how hosting a show might benefit them. We can talk about the intangible benefits of art to a community and even how, long-term, artists change neighborhoods, but that's not going to convince a storefront owner with a $6000/month rent going unpaid to host your sculptures for free because one day, far from now, it might make him feel good. It's not a business person's job to "better the community," it's their job to make money, and it's the art community's job to succeed in the former by focusing on the latter. If anything, the intangible and long-term benefits of art is the ace up our sleeve. The attention and $$ we can bring businesses this weekend are our cards on the table.

There was a lot of interesting talk about how this common ground might be found, and some developers and BID members were there to bring some good points to the table about consolidating efforts through initiatives like "condominium-izing" gallery spaces, particularly when many galleries feel the rug being pulled out from under them over and over as rents rise and landlords seek tenants with deeper pockets. We also talked about forums to pair available spaces with art groups, like one the Cultural Development Corporation houses.

The obvious dysfunction is that these talks go on and then nothing tangible happens. What will it take to get arts orgs in town working together, focusing on the right priorities, and doing it in a way that's palatable to people with a bigger bottom line to worry about?

Resurrection

2009-06-24T00:55:00.003-04:00

Time to give TTtC its yearly dose of CPR. So many random, strange, awesome things have happened the past year, I'm feeling a little constrained by the 140 character updates, so I thought we'd give the blog another whirl. I feel reinvigorated by my recent dip back into the space pool and excited by all the goings on with Ten Miles Square, but I don't write nearly enough anymore (unless you count my temporary editorship at DCist in May, which is a whole other kind of panic-fear-writing-for-your-life).

Today I swung a press seat to the grossly sold out lecture at the Air and Space Museum featuring the Apollo 11 astronauts and Chris Kraft, founder of Mission Control. The lecture is next month, but I'd like some place to talk about it afterwards that doesn't consist of Twitter "OMG"s. So off we go. One more time!

Grandma joins the internet

2008-06-29T01:01:00.002-04:00

Oh ho, just kidding, it's only me. After signing up for Twitter eight months ago and promptly abandoning it, something strange came over me last night and I decided to give it a go. Maybe my love affair with Flickr was waning and I needed a new digital high, or maybe I was in agony knowing that there were people out there who wouldn't know instantly about the giant bug I just saw in my kitchen. Why wouldn't you want to know, right?

So you can now follow me where ever I may go, reading every observation I make, as I, um, tweet my way along under heathermg. Enjoy!

Today on the radio

2008-06-26T10:45:00.002-04:00

You can listen in today to hear me and Lenny Campello from Daily Campello Art News on the Kojo Nnamdi Show on WAMU, 88.5 FM. We'll be talking about what's going on these days in the art world and good shows you should check out. We should be on around 1 or 1:30 pm.

Call or email in with questions for us: (800) 433-8850 or kojo@wamu.org.

Turn Me On (All Week Long)

2008-06-24T23:44:00.003-04:00

Well hey. After abandoning the dredges of humanity in Vegas, I seem to be on an upswing. Tomorrow I'm scheduled to host a live chat with the fine people at Washingtonian.com, in lieu of my renovation column this week. Tune in tomorrow to watch me answer readers' burning questions about construction loans, kitchen cabinets, and managing my own little superbowl team of contractors. You're just gonna be sitting there eating lunch anyway, right?

The good Prince at PoP mentioned it on his site today -- and of course, he's the one who started all this craziness when he interviewed me last winter. A commenter joked that I've turned myself into renovator of the year, which, yeah. Judging by how much HGTV I used to watch, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that people find the renovation work interesting, but, whatever, I'm still totally surprised that people think my little ol' project is fascinating. I even have a small handful of new email friends, who've contacted me from PoP or Washingtonian asking for advice, and now we all regularly trade tips. What a strange little world this is.

Oh, which reminds me, if all goes well (and it will, right?), my kitchen will be done at the end of Friday. What's that? Yeah, I said DONE. DONE DONE DONE. Finito. Nada mas. Zip. (Okay, except for the painting.) Contractors are coming Wednesday to prep for the counters, the counter guys come Thursday, and the contractors come back Friday to install the sink/dishwasher/garbage disposal. WAAAAAHOOOOO.

One more very important thing: Today I got an email from a producer at the Kojo Nnamdi Show. Yeah, that one! Lenny, a frequent guest, threw my name out when they were looking to fill guest spots for their next local arts discussion. Check it out Thursday, either at noon or 1 (they haven't picked yet), at 88.5 FM.

Vegas Fin: Liveblogging from DCA baggage claim #12

2008-06-24T08:14:00.000-04:00

So let's just say this about me and Vegas:

Not once did I get to cash out when I left a table. Roulette, slots, blackjack, you name it. My mom, who last month won five grand during her slot tournament, was 500 down this time. After she walked me to the taxi stand last night as I headed to the airport to leave sin city, she stopped by the slots to pull a few on the way back to her room. She won 800 dollars on the third pull.

So if you were wondering if you should rub my head for anything, I'd just advise against it.

Vegas Day 3, Liveblogging from the pool

2008-06-22T13:32:00.000-04:00

So let's talk about Elton John. I have to say, not being a real active fan of the man, that was a pretty sweet concert. When we arrived we discovered it was his 200th performance in Vegas, which meant we were all treated to free feather boas to wear through the show, and which delighted my mother to no end (she'd seen one earlier at the gift shop, squealed, and vowed to buy one after the show). At least, they were pretty sweet until we left and realized they had molted all over us.

The music was accompanied by a pretty awesome display of films by David LaChapelle and giant blow up suggestive friuts and/or explicit body parts (pleased to refer you to Flickr), including the largest blow up stripper the world has ever seen. The films were largely modern/interpretive dance which was, let's be honest, a little gay. Except the film for Someone Saved My Life Tonight, which was spectacularly, amazingly gay. Like rainbows and fairy boy angels and unicorns gay. It was also the point at which we graduated from plain ol' naked fake titties everywhere to straight up flaming vag. Literally. Flaming.

No encore though, which is unfortunate. My mother had a blast, especially since it was essentially a tribute to the early 70's (and peace and protests for civil rights and hooray women and gays!), and so in addition to the bright orange tie-dye shirt she got for the hippie theme of her monthly slot tournament (for real, more on that later), and her neo-peacenik mentality generally, means this particular Vegas trip has been right up her alley.

Okay, back to the water to cool off.

Vegas Day 1

2008-06-21T03:04:00.000-04:00

So far marked off on my Vegas checklist: lost a hundred at the roulette table, another twenty at slots, learned some valuable tips for blackjack that I'll never use since I only have so much equity in my house to gamble away, drank from a humorously oversized alcoholic beverage, ate dry prime rib at the buffet, seen enough fake tits to float a bulldozer, melted in 107 degree heat, and had some drunk fuck throw up on me in the casino.

Gosh, what's left? See spectacular Vegas show (Elton is tomorrow), lose my house in a dramatic single hand of texas hold 'em, pass out drunk only to wake up in the white tiger den (with or without siegfried and/or roy), and, of course, abandon my dignity with a washed-up dot commer who flew in from Sacramento for the weekend with his boyz in another futile attempt to reclaim his glory days.

Til tomorrow!

Because it's what's next...*

2008-06-12T23:13:00.003-04:00

I've wanted to get back to the blog lately, but was waiting for something special to talk about. It came in the form of an email from Tom to a couple of his known space nerd friends, telling us that his company was holding a publicity call this Thursday evening with astronaut (A MAN WHO FLEW IN SPACE!) Gene Cernan, to talk about the awesomeness of the new Discovery Channel series, "When We Left Earth."

Of course I'm all over this (as my second astronaut meeting, which I'll happily illustrate with my 11 year younger self), and you can hear the discussion yourself in a few days once it's up on the internets (apologies in advance for my less than stellar performance, due to my short list of questions being answered by Cernan, who spoke in very great detail before I got up to bat, and then BWKP hogging the last question before time ran out). Regardless, it was pretty amazing.

Brief background: Captain Gene Cernan flew on Gemini 9A, Apollo 10 ("I painted that white line in the sky so Neil wouldn't get lost") and Apollo 17, as the last man to set foot on the moon. I thought the call would be mostly about the show, and of course I'm going to have to save up for the DVD (which, I will), but was excited to hear Cernan spend most of the time talking about his experience as an astronaut and his thoughts on the space program's place in history.

He touched on many topics, but he came back to this in everything he talked about: the space program is not just important for the tangible benefits (furthering science and technology, the place it put America in the world in a time of uncertainty), but even greater, for the intangible excitement that we, as a country, as a world, as humans, can achieve incredible, amazing things -- and that it that's spirit that moves us on to the next thing. Even referring back to the Wright brothers, their "biggest contribution wasn't the planes they built, it was the inspiration they passed onto the next generation" to achieve even more.

Though we know the story, it got the space explorer in me buzzing off the ground to hear Cernan set the scene in 1961 (slightly paraphrased because I couldn't get it all down).

Sputnik and Gagarin had just gone into space, and everyone was looking at [America] saying, 'What are you going to do about it?' Soon Alan Shepard went up, and right afterwards JFK said, 'We're going to the moon,' after we'd only seen 16 minutes of spaceflight! And we wouldn't just do it, we'd do it before the end of the decade, and before the other guy! That's the real legacy of Apollo: don't tell me I can't. Give me the motivation and I'll do anything.

Chills!

Interestingly, Cernan spoke about the presidential candidates positions on the space program, saying, dishearteningly (well, to me, not to him) that Obama has stated he'd slow down the space program over the next decade, instead putting the money into education. Cernan spoke adamantly about money not being the end-all-be-all to "education" in this country, and that if children have nothing to inspire them, why are they going to strive to learn anything? Speaking again of the Apollo program: "Today's candidates need to remember what that did to the American people."

I had a friend at my first job after college, back at the Ohio Statehouse, who was a self-described crunchy liberal. Anytime I talked about space, she used to argue with me that NASA should be wiped off the map, and we should give that money to the NEA instead. Naturally, I want the NEA to be as fully funded as possible, but that argument is asinine. With a little prompting from me (though I was actually joking), BWKP asked Cernan what he thought about people who thought the moon landing was fake, and after a good laugh, Cernan bounced back with the perfect statement: he felt sorry for them. That's how I feel for my old friend, I feel sorry that she gets no joy from the ultimate in human experiences. I mean, jeez, for people to create art, they have to be inspired by something, don't they? Maybe not the moon landing itself, per se, but by human emotions, by our history, by our possible futures, and that's all encompassed by our endeavors to travel outside our safe, snug atmosphere into the unknown of space.

I have just over seven pages of notes from our discussion, but I won't recap it all since they're posting the podcast of it soon enough. I'm incredibly intrigued by the Discovery series though. To make "When We Left Earth," they actually took the original rolls of film in NASA's archives and remastered them with today's technology, so you can see the decades old footage on high def. The series began last Sunday, but will continue for the next two Sundays at 9 p.m.

-----
*I feel like I need to apologize to BWKP for using this as the title, because he is the "owner" of all West Wing quotes ever spoken and he no doubt used it in his post, but even without his provoking I kept thinking of Rob Lowe's monologue from "Galileo" the entire time Cernan was speaking.

P.S. Also, this. Hard. Man, I miss that show.

Update: The Blog

2008-04-08T21:40:00.003-04:00

Ah, life is full of unintentional comedy these days. I went downstairs to my kitchen, not hungry enough to make a big meal, but not sure the tiny need to eat I had was worth making something in my kitchen filled with giant appliance boxes that are taking up enormous amounts of space but at least doubling as some -- any -- counterspace. Well anyway, that's why god invented Ramen, right? So I opened the cabinet to get a bowl....remembering that all my dishes have been sitting out on the kitchen table for weeks. I'm stirring the noodles in the pan and look down at my bowl. A spider had taken up root in it. Awesome.

Anyway, I think you can expect the blog to get a little sparse, as it has been for awhile. I'm in the midst of some crazy projects (one is a new side business you'll be hearing about soon) and all the home renovations -- well, now that I know I'll be writing them for Washingtonian, I tend not to need to run home and vent on TTtC right away. Especially when I can just live-flickr-pix it.

I did really want to get up here and write a very long thesis about why August Rush is the Worst Movie Ever, but sadly I have not had time. But believe me, it was comedic gold. If I ever get angry at the world again I might just sit down and pound it out (so expect it any second now).

Oh god, there was something living in the chimney

2008-03-31T21:34:00.002-04:00

You know my newly exposed chimney with the giant holes? Well I was standing by the stove tonight, cooking the last two eggs (last two anything) left in the house, and to my left I see something big enough to catch in my peripheral vision scurry like mad from the dining room and by the stove, back towards the chimney. It had to be a mouse -- nothing else is that big and moves that fast.

I know there are probably worse things going on my house that could happen, but I knew way before I bought my first place that *this* was the kind of shit that was going to freak me the hell out. Giant spiders, cockroaches, vermin large and small. I really cannot deal with unsanctioned animals of any kind inside my house. Remember the rat?? I do. And though I'm sure the mouse is snugly inside it's little coal-covered box bed tonight, you can bet I'm going to have nightmares about it running across my face for the next 6 hours.

Ugh.

Done and done...or, not.

2008-03-30T20:47:00.003-04:00

Just got home, in time to find out why my alarm didn't go off at 9am this morning...since it was set for pm. I'm a little shocked there isn't one single photo yet on Flickr from today's photo shoot. I took a few myself, but I have 500 photos from California, 300 from a behind-the-scenes shoot from weeks ago, event photos to put on a cd, and more, so they may not see the light of day soon.

Now I only have my Washingtonian blog to write, some news feeds to scour for post ideas, perhaps writing a few reviews I've had in my head for awhile, doing some of that work work that I bring home the bacon with, thinking up a name for my new business, eating this on-the-verge-of-going-bad grapefruit, and watching last week's Top Chef episode, all to do before I go to bed. It's 9pm according to my alarm -- go!

Hey look....

2008-03-30T09:58:00.003-04:00

Someone went to our Emerge Exposed panel and took lots of notes.

I know I've been slacking on the blog. I've been trying to catch up in real life and having marginal success. Today, naturally, I have to go to this photo shoot thing that I was asked to help plan (for, it seems, no apparent reason) and there's also no apparent reason for me to go except to serve as damage control officer, as usual. Either way, it's another 5-6 hours I'll spend stressing out that I could be at home getting shit done.

The good news is my kitchen renovation is heartily underway. The chimney has been exposed giving about 8" of new space, and I went to Ikea yesterday to scope out cabinets and hardware, and settled on the kind I plan to go with. Last night I graphed out the entire space, chose each cabinet, then went to Lowes.com to buy my new dishwasher, microwave, sink, faucet, and garbage disposal. Things are under way!

Remember you can keep up on my renovation adventures over at Washingtonian every Tuesday.

Overheard on the plane:

2008-03-23T15:41:00.003-04:00

My middle-seated neighbor on the plane (a defense attorney in central Cali -- if you'd like to know the rest of his life story, just give me a buzz) was accompanied by his 6-7 year old boy in the window seat.

As we took off after an hour delay, the kid got more and more excited, giving us a running commentary on what was going on, and then said as our wheels left the ground, "We're like Stephen Hawking!!"

Which, however inaccurate, just became my favorite moment ever.

Later, Bitches

2008-03-18T21:38:00.002-04:00

I'll be 70 degrees and mild for the rest of the week and into next. My voice is back, I'm done with project #2938490, and I'm headed on my virgin trip on Virgin America, nonstop to LAX. I'll be gorging myself on this and some of this. Doing a little work because God says it must be always so, but mostly visiting family and pretending my life will magically become calm and peaceful by the time I return to D.C.

Not likely, but it won't make the mexican feast any less delicious or the sun any less brilliantly sunny for the next six days. Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go find my bathing suit.

Whew!

2008-03-11T23:09:00.003-04:00

It has been a long, crazy week. Also, I'm beat. And it's not over.

I think we can say the opening of Exposed went pretty well. (Whew.) A decent number of folks showed up, even if you don't count the ones who didn't want to wait outside in a line in the rain.

I spent Saturday inside on my couch, cuddled up watching DVDs (The Weather Underground, Shawn of the Dead, and 12 Monkeys). The next morning I had a giant, almost 100% cheese omelet at Florida Avenue Grill, followed by a Vonnegut play in Virginia, promptly followed by getting sick. Ugh. It's sort of like run-of-the-mill cold meets mono. Anyway, I stayed home yesterday, mostly slept all day, and finally hauled my ass to work -- for the first time in four days -- around noon today. I'm feeling better, but I kind of just need a vacation, I think. And someone to clean my house.

Tomorrow we have our special Exposed event, which I'm excited about. The panel is pretty much sold out, but come by at 8pm if you want to check out the show during the post-panel open reception.

Oh, and my kitchen contractors emailed me last Saturday telling me they could start...Wednesday!! Wt heck? I thought we were on the same page about starting in late March, but maybe they thought I would like it if we moved it up a little. So in the wake of Exposed I was suddenly thinking about how fast I could unpack my entire kitchen, research and buy a dishwasher and microwave, and contact my flooring contractors....and I was like, no way. I called them up and told them we couldn't start until the 27th, when I get back from California, which they were totally fine with. Crisis averted, if it was one, which...it wasn't, but you know. What isn't these days.

Okay, time for more sleep.

Countdown....

2008-03-03T19:44:00.003-05:00

Only four short days to go before the opening of DCist Exposed. On the way home I lamented, "I have so much to do!" And my friend said, "Oh yeah, like what?" "Well....um, I have to go to Kinkos! And....um....wow, is that it?"

Yeah, pretty much everything is done, so really the issue is that now I just have four days to worry about everything that might go wrong, which is way more work than actually doing something. Last night I created a Facebook event for the reception, so join up if you get the urge.

Once again my biggest task left is deciding what to wear. Since I get my bonus Friday, I'm thinking about finding a few hours to go shopping this week and actually buy something new. Clothes! The act of buying them! It's been awhile, old friend.

Anyway -- you know where to be Friday. See you there!

And the Latest Epic Drama Comes to an End

2008-02-29T19:09:00.003-05:00

With heat! No thanks to Washington Gas though. I was hoping my week would end with a little less "crazy" than what it started with, but no such luck. And though this story is pretty long, it's all a little too weird not to be blogged.

The gas technician showed up a little past noon and I went outside to show him the meter. He asked me what was wrong and I showed him the note they left. "I can't fix that." "What do you mean you can't fix it?" "We don't do that." "What do you mean you don't do that??" "It's not our policy, we don't do that."

As you might imagine, this is right about where I got pretty livid. I wanted to know why the emergency person told me it was now a "service call" when he was telling me it wasn't, why the person this morning whom I told about the "flex connector" note assigned a service man if he couldn't fix it, and lastly, if he really couldn't fix it, WHYTF no one just simply picked up a fucking phone and TOLD me that instead of leaving a note underneath my porch for me to maybe or maybe not find. (Btw, my stove worked this whole time -- another reason I never realized the gas to the heater was off. I learned much later in the day that they're on two separate lines.)

He got all up in the blame-game, telling me that what they told me was wrong, and getting all upset that I expected him to do something, and I just started to tear him a new one. I'm freezing to death in my own home because Washington Gas can't get their shit together for four days to tell me I need to call my contractor? For real? He asked me if I wanted to talk to his supervisor and I said, "WHY? Is he going to FIX it?" "No, he can explain to you our policy." "I *get* it, your policy is to screw your customers over, why do I need your supervisor to explain it to me, seriously?" He did, at one point, tell me he was a Christian. To which I just started to laugh bitterly and ask, "What does THAT have to do with anything?" The one tiny step up from being a religious nutjob who foists their views on everyone, is a "Christian" who insists that they have some God endorsed right to be a jackass.

The weirdest part is that after I realized he really wasn't going to do anything I said, "Alright, so that's it??" And started to walk inside. He just stood there and kept rudely telling me how it wasn't his fault. I kept asking, "You're not going to fix it, so we're done, right?" And he just kept *standing* there. I finally just had to close the door in his face because he wouldn't leave.

About two minutes later I hear something downstairs. I'm like, "oh great, he's probably locking my gas lines or egging my house or something." So I go downstairs and he's walking down from the porch; he'd clearly come back and done something to my meter with a very long pole. I said, "Hey, can I help you with something?" And he said snidely, "No, you can't help me with nothing." Then said, "It was cement, I couldn't do it." I have no idea what that was about, except he probably needed to come back with some measurement to prove he'd been to my house.

Then I hear him again a few minutes later. This time I open the door and he's over the railing hunched by the meter, dosing it with some soapy water (used to find the leaks). He doesn't look up and I just kept watching him....I mean, what's going on? We just had a screaming fight on the porch, and now he's back here...checking for leaks he can't fix? I just let him do his thing until a few minutes later he pointed and said, "Yup, it's right there." I tried to play along, "Oh yeah?"

He got up and started to weirdly get into the same fight with me, about how this wasn't his fault, but he was speaking calmly, and so I just as calmly tried to tell him that it doesn't matter if it's his co-worker (he spent a lot of time blaming the first technician who left me the note), his corporate office, or the reps in Bangalore, it's all "Washington Gas" to *me*, and all I ask is for someone to take a little responsibility so I'm not sitting in an icebox for a week. We actually ended up having a good talk about it, and he told me how he hates the way the customer service phone reps screw everything up, to leave the technicians to deal with the then-pissed-off customers. Then he told me that after we yelled at each other, he got in his van and thought, "If I was without heat for a week, I'd be pretty pissed off, too," and so he came back to double check that there really was a leak, because if he couldn't find one, he could turn my gas back on.

He apologized to me for the service I experienced and told me that he didn't want to leave this housecall with a "bad taste" in my mouth. I apologized to him for yelling at him, though he kept saying at that point that he understood. And he left.

Yeah. That actually happened.

I promptly called my HVAC crew. Although it's true that this was their screw up (the leak itself), I still love them. They always, *always* pick up the phone when I call, are kind and polite (and apologetic if they have to be), they send someone over immediately, and if I'm not at home, they call me afterward to tell me the status. That's all I ask: a little courtesy. So when I called them today -- and I called the head honcho directly, he immediately got his #2 off a job and they both came over personally. The apologized profusely, embarrassed that I've actually had two minor gas leaks, when they often go entire years without any of their customers reporting one, and stayed as long as it took to make sure it was absolutely fixed and that my heat compressor and fireplace were working properly.

They used some new bendy type pipes on my house, and told me that although they're supposed to be high quality material, they're finding out that they get knocked out of place too easily -- which is likely what happened to mine, it got kicked or the incredible wind storms we've been having knocked it too much. They're going to come back in the next couple of weeks and replace those flexi-tubes with fixed (hard piping) tubes.

You know what? Shit happens. I understand that things break sometimes, and a little human decency in dealing with this stuff goes a long, long way. I still highly recommend these guys, so if you want their info, email me.

Update From Bangalore: My Gas Technician Will Be Here "Between the Day"

2008-02-29T08:55:00.002-05:00

Wow. I've had some frustrating calls with Indian customer service reps, mostly because I have a hard time understanding people with thick accents anyway, much less over my crappy Verizon cell phone. This guy was either hard of hearing himself or some kind of idiot, because I literally repeated everything, EVERYTHING three times, and not cause he asked, but because I'd say it and there would just be silence, and he'd then keep talking like I hadn't said anything.

Washington Gas has had my last name misspelled since I turned the service on, so I figured I might as well fix that. Oh -- wait, first, he was like, "That's not the phone number we have on record," and I said, "I only have one phone, so why don't you?" He then ran off some Maryland number I've never heard of. Idiots. Then we had some fun trying to spell my name. After five or six repeats, using military letters (alpha beta): "That's only three letters." "I SAID TWO S'S!! ARG!"

"Is that all?" "Uh, no, I already told you that's not the reason why I was calling -- why would I wait on hold for 45 minutes to change two letters in my name?"

So I explained to him the situation, which he did not understand, but put me on hold anyway. Then he came back, asked me to repeat it, put me on hold. Then he came back, asked for one bit of info, put me on hold. One more bit of info. On hold. And everytime he came back he said, "Thank you for your patience with holding," and...well you can guess what I wanted to say to that.

I read him the "flex connector" thing from the note. Which he didn't hear at all, even though it took me at least 10 seconds to read fully. Then he kept asking, "Is it fixed?" "I can't tell from this note." "Okay, but is it fixed?" "I don't know!!" Three minutes later. "Did he fix the problem?" "I AM NOT A GAS TECHNICIAN, HOW THE HELL WOULD I KNOW IF IT'S FIXED!!"

After my 20th time on hold he came back and said, "Okay we'll try to send out a technician today." "What do you mean *try*? I've been without heat for 2 days and it's 20 degrees outside. Send one over NOW. This should be your top priority." "Okay please hold." Then: "Okay a technician will be coming over between the day." "What?" "*unintelligible english*" "Wait, what?" "Between the day." "Oh my god, that is NOT an English phrase." "Please hold." Two minutes later, "Okay a technician will be coming over between the day."

[[smashes head on desk]]

They tell you at the beginning of the phone call that you should stay on the line after you speak with a rep for a customer survey. Of course I've never actually done that because my phone calls to Washington Gas typically end with me with hanging up angrily on the service rep and throwing my phone across the room. This time I held on: "Washington Gas is having technical difficulties." And then I got sent to the main menu.

Hate.

HATE

2008-02-28T21:24:00.002-05:00

The contractors who did up a little kitchen design and estimate came over today to go over them with me. These are the same guys who noticed a gas leak last week and said I should call my heating contractor. I did, and the heating guy said that he smelled it wafting from the ground, underneath the meter, which means I needed to call the gas company.

That in itself sucks pretty bad, because I've had nothing but incredibly rude, incompetent service from this bunch of buffoons since I bought this house. I called their emergency line and they said they'd send someone out as soon as they could. This was early, I was at work, and with the zillion things going on, I just forgot about it after a few hours.

That was last Friday. The heat stopped working on Tuesday.

As my kitchen guys were leaving today I said, "hey, do you smell any more gas?" Because I didn't smell it in the first place, so I figured they would if it was still there. They said they didn't, but they're typical touchy handymen and both went to inspect the meter. One of them said, hey, there's a little note attached here. I hadn't seen it, and definitely couldn't reach it. The contractor nearly fell over the railing trying to pull it off. It says: "FLEX CONNECTOR FITTING LEAKING. NO ONE HERE TO SIGN." And my contractor added, looking at the meter, "The gas is turned off."

Well folks, I guess we figured out the mystery of the programmable thermostat. THE GAS HAS TO BE FUCKING ON FOR IT TO WORK. ARRRRGGGJAOPERJIANJKE;FNA;EFJA;.

And no one at Washington Gas could have picked up a god damn phone and called me? I had to figure it out by freezing to death for 24 hours and waiting for someone with better eyes than me to practically crawl underneath my porch?? And maybe you can see how the four day difference between my "emergency" (if there was ever a use for scare quotes) call to the gas company and them actually sending someone out means I didn't make the connection about my heat right away.

So I called the emergency line back and was like, "Get over here and turn my gas on RIGHT NOW." After putting me on hold for five minutes, she informed me that this is now a service call, and I'll have to call back at 8am. Guess how much I swore in her perky little ear?

And the stupid part is, I know how to turn the meter back on, but I can't tell from this poorly written note if it's actually been fixed or not. But guess who's probably going to have to take a day off work to figure it out? And it's not perky "emergency" services girl, that's for sure.

Did I just singlehandedly disable my entire HVAC system with one push of a button?

2008-02-28T17:25:00.002-05:00

I think that I did. I have a fancy programmable thermostat that was installed with my new heating system, but taking 2 minutes to actually program it hadn't been in my schedule, so I just turned the heat up and down when I left and returned, no biggie.

But the other day I accidentally hit the mysterious "hold" button before I hit the "up" temperature. The compressor (the heat part) never came on. I changed the temp a bunch of times, took out the batteries on the thermostat, but I got nuthin.

So I was like, fine, I'll program the damn thing. I scheduled all four settings (wake, leave, return, sleep) and checked and rechecked them. The scheduled temp always went up or down on cue, but still, the compressor wasn't turning on (and obvs, the real temp wasn't changing). I tried turning the fan from "auto" to "on," and it came on, but still no heat was coming out. Even tried overriding my brand new schedule with the "temporary" and "hold" buttons (now I know what they do). I'm pretty much at a loss now.

A few days ago it wasn't that cold and my house was retaining a decent 63-65 degree temp inside, but today I got home and it was 59. I dragged all the space heaters upstairs, but...? I just flipped the breaker, no dice.

So I checked out the troubleshooting manual. Here we go, "Condenser fan runs, compressor doesn't." Okay! What do I do?

Possible cause / Remedy

Run or start capacitor failed (single phase only) / Replace
Start relay defective (single phase only) / Replace
Loose connection / Check for correct voltage at compressor - check & tighten all connections
Compressor stuck, grounded or open motor winding open internal overload / Wait at least 2 hours for overload to reset, If still open, replace the compressor (!!!)
Low voltage condition / Add start kit components

Well. Okay! My compressor, by the way, is on the roof with access only from a 30 foot ladder, and just to be clear, the compressor is the entire heating system. So, I'll get right on all that. Or I could just call my HVAC contractor, who will come over probably just to tell me I needed to hit up, up, down, up, down on the thermostat, like the manual says. Duh.

Keeping Up with the Who?

2008-02-26T23:25:00.003-05:00

Ah, the blog! Hi. Sorry. Shits been nuts up in here. Cliffnotes (foreshadowing!):

I got some very, very good monetary news at work the other day. Let's just say that March 7 is going to be on me. Like, all of it. Whatever you want boys and girls, you want that lollipop? Its yours. Credit cards? Be gone! Kitchen renovation? Yes plz. Guess what? I worked a lot of effing hours in 2007, it turns out. I kind of remember it.

Speaking of March 7. Exposed is almost upon us. It's bigger this year, which means a couple snags here and there, but we'll hit that finish line, I hope, quite awesomely. Though I'm not even kidding about retiring on March 8. Seriously. I'll be in Cabo with something frosty and no communication devices in sight.

My second article is up on Washingtonian. It's the dreaded mortgage column. It had to be done. Speaking of which, I meet a contractor on Thursday to go over three design proposals he made for my kitchen. As long as it includes cabinets that don't open the wrong direction, any counter space at all, and a garbage disposal, we're good to go.

Good news! The Sound and the Fury is finally started to make sense. Of course, it required going to Wikipedia and reading the entire synopsis of each chapter, but you know, I'm totally getting it now. Actually I'm glad I did that, because although I more or less got that Quentin killed himself, once I got to the third chapter and suddenly Quentin is a GIRL and SEVENTEEN and I was like "wtf my mind is exploding" because I totally did not get at all, even a little bit, that Caddy got pregnant, married, and dumped by her husband for cheating. I mean, not even a little bit. So I'm all caught up now, and Jason's hateful chapter is moving right along.

Which, I think I'll go read now. So long!

Bring on the chemical warfare

2008-02-21T21:37:00.002-05:00

I forgot to mention one other thing I did this weekend: tape my new insulation kit over the windows to keep out the wintery drafts. Obviously, this is not a permanent solution, but hunting around to find leaks and caulking up all the windows is the kind of time-consumer that's low on my list, especially when I have an easy temporary solution. (Note, however, that I did discover one of my upstairs windows has a bad, bad water leak, and will probably need to be totally replaced eventually. Someone put that on the list.)

I also imagined it probably wouldn't be as "invisible" as they advertise, but I had no idea how bad it would actually be. It kind of looks like I went to ready.gov, drank a couple gallons of kool-aid, hopped the first bus to the hardware store and bought out their entire stock of duct tape and plastic sheeting to prepare fully for the coming nuclear apocalypse with the terrorists. All I need is a stash of gas masks and a cellar full of canned beans and I'm good to go.

And somehow, amazingly, it's colder now. My only guess is that since it's not constantly drafting freezing cold air inside, the heater isn't running as much as it used to, so the hot air all kind of drifts to the ceiling (again: high ceilings aren't always so amazing) and the chillier but not freezing air left behind isn't replaced in a timely manner.

So. Another house issue resolved, like all the others.

Need food, sleep, vacation.

2008-02-20T17:24:00.001-05:00

Okay, I've started and stopped this blog post for like three days now. I am slightly overwhelmed, folks. I've always been one of those insane people who isn't happy unless she's working on 10 different projects, but sometimes I go a little overboard, and now is one of those times. But of course, it's all awesome and fun and I don't want to give any of it up, it's just that when snags or schedule shifts or other issues arise that everything suddenly turns to chaos. Like a race car going 150mph, happy as a clam, speeding along quite nicely, but all it takes is a tiny little pebble to get under my tires and....well you get it.

Anyway. I didn't want to mention this until it actually came through for sure, but the Washingtonian is now running a weekly column about my renovation experiences. So if you haven't gotten enough "ZOMG I BOUGHT A HOUSE WHAT AM I DOING" on the blog here, click on over for a slightly better written (with editing and like spell check n' stuff!) version every Tuesday. Big thanks to Catherine for opening the door there.

Dudes. I saw the freaking space shuttle this weekend. SPACE SHUTTLE. And it was awesome. Then I watched Atlantis glide its way safely back to Earth early this morning, before catching the total lunar eclipse tonight, and then logging on to Flickr to see that I can count on my nerds to get me some good pics -- look at the freaking DCist pool! And then I totally caught the destruction of the spy satellite on film! (Enquirer, call me.) So it's been a good week for space, folks. I'm all riled up, anyway.

So, this is what happens to all the High Life when it's drank, right?

2008-02-14T23:22:00.002-05:00

About a month ago I was strolling through Second Story Books (love) waiting for a happy hour to begin down the street and allowed myself one book if I could find a good deal. I bought four, naturally (but spent less than $15).

One of the books I got was The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. I've never read Faulkner, and it was $1, so obviously I had to buy it. (Formerly owned by Nicole Marie of the flowery handwriting, as the inside cover indicates.)

Now, I realize this is a pretty tough book in the best of circumstances, but I'm about 130 pages in and I'm starting to feel like I should be sitting in a chair somewhere drooling on my shirt collar. I'm seriously beginning to rely on the margin notes of a 10th grader over here.

I get that it's stream of conscious, but man, the lack of punctuation is starting to wear me down on my ten minute metro ride home. 300 words in and no commas and my stream of consciousness has moved onto what I'm going to make for dinner. And he actually uses the word fo'c's'le ferchrissakes. (The upper deck of a ship, if yr wondering.)

Here's a pretty good sample of how the entire book so far reads:

Why shouldn't you I want my boys to be more than friends yes Candace and Quentin more than friends Father I have committed what a pity you had no brother or sister No sister no sister had no sister Don't ask Quentin he and Mr Compson both feel a little insulted when I am strong enough to come down to the table I am going on nerve now I'll pay for it after it's all over and you have taken my little daughter away from me My little sister had no. If I could say Mother. Mother

And that's actually a pretty lucid paragraph. On the other hand, it's a pretty fast read since there's nothing to stop me. I hope there's not a brick wall at the end. (On the last page is an exclamation point!)

One p.m.

2008-02-13T21:17:00.003-05:00

The same associate comes into my office and talks about a case for awhile. Then:

Ass.: Have you eaten?
Me: Uhhh..no, but I usually eat late.
Ass.: Come on, let's get lunch. It's on me. We'll go to that place....[starts pointing in meaningless directions, because I have an interior office where one loses all sense of direction]...on the corner.
Me: Cosi?
Ass.: No! The other corner. [Excitedly] They have bourgeois food!
Me: You really like that word.
Ass.: But they do!

I almost forgot the best part of the weekend

2008-02-12T09:29:00.001-05:00

The moment I realized something like this existed in the world:

My Weekend: In Mini-Reviews

2008-02-11T23:34:00.000-05:00

Friday lunch @ Naan & Beyond: Samosas. A huge sack of them. Need I say more?

Friday lunchbreak @ National Geographic: Yeah, we went back to see the frogs because someone forgot his camera battery the first time, but I'm glad we did because they added more creatures this go around.

Friday night: BJ Novak! Around 4pm I got an IM notifying me that GWU had just released a small batch of tickets for the sold out show, and we quickly grabbed them up. He's just as cute in person and way more offensive. Here's a sample

So I went to the National Zoo to see the pandas -- aren't they so cute? They're SO. CUTE. [explanation of how pandas aren't going extinct because they're hunted, but because they won't mate] Doesn't that mean....that pandas don't think pandas are cute? Shit, if I was a panda I'd fuck the shit out of panda bears, man, just so we could cuddle afterwards [pretend cuddles a panda bear].

Did I mention we got a parking space literally in front of the Lisner auditorium door? Yes, I'm bragging about the parking space. It was awesome.

Friday night later: Black Cat, which I only mention because we got a parking spot literally right in front of the door of the bar. We had some serious parking karma going on.

Saturday afternoon: ACKC, the new chocolate cafe on 14th Street. Delish! I had a "breakfast brioche" that turned out to be filled with yummy scrambled eggs and cheese. I also got a box of truffles and so far the Cardamom/Blueberry and the Chipotle ones have been excellent. Importantly, I was meeting with some folks to lock down our Exposed event, which is going to be fantastic. More on that later.

Saturday later afternoon: Japan! So awesome. Just go.

Saturday night: The Red Derby. I've been there a handful of times now and I just love that bar. It's the perfect size, always seems to have the perfect number of people, and the bartenders are not only nice and interesting people to talk to, but they actually -- behold -- pay attention to the bar, so that they'll even see you if you're two people deep waving your hand for a beer. Plus I've been very, very drunk there twice now and haven't broken a single thing, so that's always a good sign.

Sunday morning: Oof. Hungover.

Sunday afternoon: Die Hard 2. Most totally awesome movie, but for a very different reason than Die Hard 1. Plot holes baby! Plot holes littering every page of that script, some of them big enough to drive a tanker truck through. I mean, hello? Land at National maybe? Also: Snowmobiles in Virginia!

Sunday later afternoon: Dying of hunger. Eat a concoction of stale tortilla chips, organic tomato sauce, onion flakes, and shredded cheese. And it was good! I clearly need to be more inventive in my cooking. Maybe tonight I'll see what I can do with a bag of ramen, half a jalapeno, and container of brownie bites leftover from christmas. I'll kill on Iron Chef.

Sunday later afternoon-late at night: Eight hours of Firefly. I made another convert, so even though I didn't do my laundry, write anything, pay my bills or taxes, or install anything in the house, I consider it a successful weekend.

I paid for my hostel with the firm credit card.

2008-02-08T00:02:00.000-05:00

After expressing my relief that, because I'd recently picked up a very busy project, someone else was staffed to a case that involves a shit ton of domestic and international travel over the next few months that I really don't have time for, the associate I was talking to exclaimed, quite seriously:

"But it's bourgeois travel!"

Wish List

2008-02-07T23:19:00.000-05:00

I did pretty good last fall. I pretty much quit buying things, anything, cold turkey. I haven't purchased a shirt, a piece of technological equipment, a new book, any kind of extravagance like flowers for the table or an expensive dinner out -- shit, I didn't even buy Christmas gifts this year (sorry fam). I've even cut my beer/entertainment (including the occasional case of coffee syrup) expenses by about 80%.

But to ease the withdrawal, I've been slowly making a list in my head of the things I need/want, and now that I have a teeny-tiny taste of money in my bank account, I'm bursting to run out and buy a ton of shit. Here's my list, in no particular order (certainly not "need"):

>> A haircut. omg I need a haircut. It's been, let's see, August, September...almost six months! ($200)
>> A new pair of jeans. I "grew out of" my good pair of jeans months ago, relying solely on the good people who grow cotton in the shape of winter sweaters to keep me from displaying it to the public en masse, but sadly, not from suffocating in them. (~$100)
>> Eye doctor appointment and new contacts. I'm so fucking blind, I can't even read this. What? ($200-300)
>> Prime lens and speedlight. Guess what? I'm shooting another wedding! I know, my friends are all crazy, but I love them. ($400)
>> Trip to California. I haven't seen my family in forever. :( ($300)
>> Artwork for my office. Really I just want to buy a bunch of prints from my awesome Flickr contacts and frame them, but that's still a buttload of framing. (maybe a few hundred)
>> A real piece of art. I think about this one a lot. I know exactly what I want and who I want it from, and I can even consider this one a little bit of an investment (sort of, at least in the respect that it will appreciate, but not necessarily that I will (or will be able to) sell it later), but we're talking a ton of dough for a totally non-functional thing. I want. (a few thousand)

You know what's not on that list? Um. A backyard fence ($3000), a kitchen renovation ($5000), a bathroom renovation ($10,000), and approximately eight thousand more trips to Home Depot (a million dollars + my empty black soul).

So I continue to not buy. But I did invest $200 into my brand new ING high-interest savings account today. Woo! And I'll be deducting $200 automatically from every paycheck (though I worry that's a little too much).

I'm going through the slightly agonizing process of refinancing right now, and it's looking like my mortgage payments are going to drop by ~800-900 big ones, thank the sweet baby jesus, and I'm still waiting for my tax refund and annual bonus.

Hello flattering jeans!

So nine and a half foot ceilings are really great....

2008-02-03T21:25:00.002-05:00

Until the first time the smoke alarm you just installed up there goes off and you can't reach it by standing on a chair and so you have to run around the house to find the six foot ladder all the while the oven is smoking and ahhh! Good times.

I've had lots to blog about but I find myself Trappd in Flickr lately and unable to communicate outside the venue of photo comments and pool discussion threads. Like blogging, I do enjoy how many good people I've met through that site; in fact I pretty much spent all weekend with friends from Flickr, one event which I'll blog about later (when I get the photos loaded, natch). Viva la intertubes!

Here are some mini-movie reviews:

Sunshine -- A+. It's only science "fiction" because it hasn't happened yet, but the science is so good and original and the storyline so fresh and kind of fucking scary, the whole thing will blow your idea of "good movie" out of the water.

Die Hard -- That's right, the first one, which I finally saw this weekend. Of course I always thought this was the one that happened at Dulles, so I kept thinking, "so when are they all flying back?" Anyway, it was spectacular and 1980's Bruce Willis was way hott. Like I have to tell you.

History of Violence -- Wha? The person who read that screenplay seriously thought, "Sounds like a great idea! It's so ridiculously predictable, but if we cast Very Serious Actors and write a musical score that screams 'Look Out For the Twist!' then people will be fooled into thinking there was a shred of original thought in it!" It's been a long time since I rolled my eyes that many times during a movie. I wish I hadn't sent Die Hard back to netflix already.

So anyway. Did my taxes today. Turns out I won't be getting a big a refund as I thought, but it will be enough to build the fence in the backyard. While digging into deduction land I found out that I can claim a portion of the $1700 insulation job I did in my attic under the Energy Savings Credit (which will no longer be available in 2008, because who cares about energy savings?). Also, I did my taxes by hand at first and discovered I'd be owing Washington, D.C. a whopping $4. I was, however, livid, because 1) the obvious, we don't get shit for our taxes in DC, and they seriously think I should pay more, and 2) I'VE NEVER OWED TAXES EVER. I still think of myself as a broke-ass student who can barely afford Raman (just take out the "student" part now). It freaked me out and I immediately looked up the forms to give my employer to take more taxes out every week. But then I did a little Turbo-Taxing and discovered I would, in fact, be owed a refund. I don't know why, though, which worries me, so I think I'm going to run the numbers through another calculator this week to be sure.

Speaking of which, do any of you guys use a CPA? With the job and the house and the investments I hope to develop in 2008, I think I'm really at or over the cusp of getting more benefits out of a using a professional then I'd lose at having to pay a couple hundred for it. Any recommendations? No, I won't be going to H&R Block.

It's been an exciting food day.

2008-01-28T22:13:00.000-05:00

First, I got a knock on my office door and I could have kissed the courier when I saw when he was holding.

Me and four other people freaked out in so much excitement that my whole work day was pretty much ruined.

Then on my way home I stopped by the grocery store and waited in line for 20 minutes so I could get the one crucial ingredient for dinner that I forgot over the weekend, balsamic vinaigrette. What would I put it on, you ask?

THE SALAD OF VICTORY RETURNS!

Third Best Holla Ever

2008-01-28T00:08:00.000-05:00

[An early twenties/late teens guy walks towards me on the sidewalk carrying a toddler.]

"Hey baby, how you doin? Looking for a momma. I'm looking for a momma, baby!"

I think we've found the point at which slang and normal English definitions meet and explode in a black hole of grammatical death.

***

This series could easily go on indefinitely. Living in DC, you just get used to being hollered at, but it's so much worse in Columbia Heights. I met someone at Mayorga coffee Saturday morning...a four block walk from my house. I was honked and/or hollered at no less than 12 times there and back. Today I was honked at three times waiting for the light to change on my block. It's beyond absurd. BEYOND.

My excitement over appliances is contagious

2008-01-25T21:36:00.001-05:00

I have to say it's been a pretty stellar week. Not like, for sleeping or resting or anything silly like that. First of all, I think that Exposed Winner's Announcement Day is quickly becoming my very favorite day of the year. Unfortunately this year I was out in the middle of nowheresville Virginia at a client's office with only my little blackberry and no real way to watch the insane commotion get set in motion. It's such a joy to see all these people get so excited over our little shin-dig. (To wit: they blew the roof off our page view counter on Wednesday.) I set up a discussion board for them, so that I wouldn't be fielding tons of emails this year, but it's actually backfiring a little bit because they're filling up threads so fast I feel like I have to check on it every hour or so to see what questions need to be answered, and I fear them losing touch of the whole "fun" part of this by getting bogged down in the minutia of printing color spectra or some such, so I gotta nip the seriousness in the bud. No matter, it's a totally great time and I get the warm fuzzies just being involved.

What else? Yeah, so I think I blogged about this already, but on Monday the inspector came to make sure I did all my repairs, and he totally approved it and sent the paperwork off to the lender. Today in the mail I got the form I need to sign to state I acted as a general contractor and assured all the work was finished. We're getting very, very close to payday, folks.

Oh, today actually was payday, the regular every-two-week one. So I celebrated by buying some fresh pitted green olives and an Amy's frozen pizza (spinach!) at Giant.

And, oh, this is very exciting! I got a trash can! And I didn't even have to call Councilman Graham's office this time (though it did require a call to the Mayor's hotline). Nevertheless, it was only a mere three weeks without a trash can this time, and not three months like last time. Trash goes out tomorrow!

My fireplace is working! I still need to paint that tubing black and add all the rocks and embers, but it's pretty sweet right now as it is.

Tomorrow I'll finish the week off by doing some light fixture installation with my renovation helper. Hooray for light bulbs not dangling from wires!

P.S. More good news! I just went over to Flickr to cut and paste links into the post, and on my contacts I saw this little sweet thing! Congrats Jake!

I'm about to get to know 45 people really well.

2008-01-22T22:18:00.000-05:00

I just wrote up the final list of 2008 DCist Exposed Winners, and it now waits patiently in the queue to be published around noon tomorrow. If it's anything like last year, this should mark the beginning of a flurry of emails between me and these talented folks, all trying to figure out what the heck we're doing. I'm really looking forward to it, and think we have an amazing show lined up. However, I think I officially wore out the copy & paste feature on my computer trying to write up that post. And now I'm all excited-stressed and it's 10:30 and I've neither eaten dinner nor showered (was gonna blow dry my hair so I don't have to deal with it tomorrow).

I was going to write a long update on the house, but I am totally worn out and can't go into detail. Bullet time:

Everything gas-related in the house works: stove, heat, fireplace. woot!

Disassembled and cleaned the blockage out of my kitchen faucet.

Put it back together correctly.

Made my first real meal in my new home.

Scrubbed clean and organized the kitchen.

Waded through the swamp of paper that comprises my bookkeeping records, organized it and put it all away.

Purchased window wind treatments to seal up this fucking house and get some heat up in here!

Greeted the appraiser on Monday, who approved all my work and sent the paperwork to my lender. In about two weeks I should be looking at some cold, hard cash in my bank account (which will then be immediately syphoned to the credit cards). Payday!!

Second best holla ever.

2008-01-21T16:45:00.001-05:00

"Oh baby, you want some coffee do you? I've got some coffee for you. No cream, no sugar."

In which I question the sanity of the "average american family," again.

2008-01-20T14:15:00.000-05:00

There's a good article in the Post today about the new energy bill signed into law in December (though I haven't read enough about the law to find out where the "catch" is -- I mean, how it ever got passed under Bush). It's nice to see our lawmakers acting to reduce energy usage finally -- especially when the article is full of statements like "[X Company] has been working on this technology for awhile, but hasn't released it," in other words, they knew they'd be forced to eventually, so they developed these excellent products just in case, but electric companies kept buying shares of their stock so they'd yet to put it on shelves for the public.

Anyway, the one sentence that blew me away was the following:

According to the Energy Department's Web site, the average household does almost 400 loads of laundry a year, consuming about 13,500 gallons of water.

WTF! I mean seriously, what the fuck. Four hundred loads a year?? That's 1.1 loads A DAY ON AVERAGE.

I used to have a roommate who inexplicably did 4-5 loads of laundry a week, but this is not average behavior, it's OCD prissy insane behavior. I do two loads of laundry every two weeks, averaging out to 50 loads a year, and even those loads are usually very small because I'm just one person. I could double my laundry size and still do only 50 a year. (So does that mean that on the other end of the spectrum, there's a family doing 1200 loads a year? I guess I'm not considered a "family" though.)

So does the average family in this country have 8 children? And if this statistic is true, no wonder housewives moan about it being a full time job. I mean, that's almost 8 loads of laundry every god damn weekend. Some of y'all seriously need to go to Target and buy a few more packs of undies. Seriously.

I am pretty pleased with myself that I invested a few hundred extra dollars in an Energy Star W/D, though apparently I'm being super energy efficient just by not throwing my wardrobe out onto the muddy backporch every night for fun, like the rest of the country.

A tip for future W/D buyers, however. When it comes to energy efficiency, you might be seduced by the all-in-one washer/dryer, especially to save space. Do not do it! This is what I had at my old apartment, and any energy saved by the front loading washer was totally canceled when I had to run the dryer three times just to get anything remotely dry.

Uh, what?

2008-01-20T00:54:00.001-05:00

Today was the day I was supposed to wait for Comcast to come turn the cable tv off that they mistakenly turned on a few weeks ago (remember I talked them into coming on the weekend). At 2pm I get a phone call from the Comcast guy:

Comcast Guy: "Hi, I'm from Comcast and was supposed to turn your cable television off, but I forgot the modem blocker, so I'm just going to leave it on."
Me: "Um...okay?"
CG: "Yeah, I can't keep the internet on without the blocker, so I'm just gonna leave it all on."
Me: "Uh...okay? ??"
CG: "So just be sure to check your next bill and make sure they're not charging you for the tv anymore."
Me: "....Um. Okay? ????"

So. Um. Score?

Oh yes, I'll wait.

2008-01-18T21:42:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I put up on Flickr a picture of my new fridge, innocently adding that it would be used to house my stockpile of coffee ice cream, when a Flickr pal of mine burst forth with the information that such a thing as "coffee syrup" exists. A few of us wondered how such a magical substance could exist without any of us knowing, and as it turns out, it's kept close to the bosom of those darn Rhode Islanders, who went so far as to make Coffee Milk their state beverage.

Since this was the most exciting thing to happen to me in hours, I spent precious time today googling coffee syrup and --yes!-- I found a proprietor who would sell this delicious sticky substance by the caseful. It didn't take long for me to find four other people, most of whom responded with cries of joy unbounded by the limits of mere human emotion, who would go in with me on a six pack, reasonably priced at $19.95 including shipping and tax.

The sad cliffhanger to this tale? It takes 2-3 weeks for delivery. But I'm a patient woman. I'll wait for my treasure to come.

I gotta say it was a good day

2008-01-17T21:51:00.000-05:00

Today I got to play queen of my little palace here. I sat around in my cuddly sweater and pj pants, while it snowed a storm outside, and people brought me presents of all shapes and sizes.

Lowes called me last night to inform me they'd be delivering my washer/dryer between 11:30 and 3pm today, which, c'mon, is a little awkward of a time when a person works for a living. But I couldn't reschedule easily and when I heard about the snow and ice that was supposed to accumulate over night I just decided to work from home.

And it's a good thing I did, because at 8:50am my phone rang, right before I'd usually be arriving at my office (haha, yeah right, like I'm ever on time), and said my refrigerator would be delivered in one hour. Huzzah! And lo, the refrigerator came, and it was shiny and tall and good.

A few hours later the washer of clothes arrived, and I was pleased to find out that the delivery men were going to hook it up for me. It's an Energy Star W/D, which means I had to call Lowes and find out the two extra pieces I needed to "convert" the hook-up to work with my non-standard....well whatever. Energy efficient things always cost more. But I worried since it didn't all come in one package that I'd have to do it myself, but thankfully no. And it just barely, barely fits in my closet....I'm not actually sure that once I put the door back on, it will close properly, but that's low priority at the moment.

The important thing is: I'm done with all the projects underneath my construction loan. That means tomorrow I can call that horrid bitch of a loan officer in California and attempt to get an inspector scheduled, and when (if?) he approves my work, I GET MY MONEY!! Woo. I seriously need that weight off my credit cards, like, stat.

Then, happily, our staff meeting was canceled at 6, so I didn't even have to pretend to go to work, and instead stayed inside and watched the snow flutter by. Around 4pm I realized that, holy cow, I'm responsible for shoveling a walk! So I had one of those "omg first snow!" moments where I ran downstairs and got the snow shovel and the bag of salt I bought last month and went to town on the porch steps and the sidewalk. I'm pretty damn proud of myself. And I'll rejoice in that feeling until the next time I have to do it when I will instantly remember how much I hate winters on the East coast.

I even got awesome mail today.

So, it was a good day.

Heartwarming!

2008-01-15T10:58:00.001-05:00

I don't know what it is with me and exclamation points lately, but I'm just going to go with it. Anyway, I had one of those strange coincidences this morning that needed to be blogged.

Last night I was doing a little judging for Exposed (603 photos!) and got to JamesCalder's photographs. I didn't think all too much of it, but remembered meeting him and his wife at the reception last year and how popular his Ben's Chili Bowl photo was. Then this morning I was on my way to work and as I crossed 18th Street this guy on the other side stopped as I walked towards him, and then called, "Heather?" I feel bad because my vision has severely deteriorated in the past three years of not going to the eye doctor, so I did this awful lean forward/squint thing before he patted his chest and said, "It's James."

We walked about four blocks together and he told me another one of those stories that just melts my cold little heart. Though he was on his way to his job downtown, this week is his last one -- turns out the photography he did for fun for a local group turned into a big success, and they asked him to come on full time! Okay, okay, it's not like Exposed had anything to do with it, but I still think it's awesome to see all these former amateurs become so successful with their work, and so much of it has happened to them in the past year since the show, it's just been amazing for me to watch. It's also inspiring that maybe I, too, can take some of my "amateur" skills and turn them into a job I love one day.

Oh you know you care.

2008-01-14T23:31:00.000-05:00

So there's a big profile on my house rehabbing over at Prince of Petworth. I didn't at all freak out when I clicked over and saw that big picture of myself...mmm-hmmm. Anyway, most of those details have been written about here, but there it is for the rest of the world, waiting patiently for people to tell me how crazy I am for one reason or another.

In related news, Nick (who got crazy mentions in the interview, mostly because he was at my house Sunday troubleshooting the water heater and came with me to the coffee shop where I was being interviewed, so I was like, "that guy who was just here, for instance, helped out a lot" and he was like "so that's spelled N-I-C-K?")...what was I saying? Yeah, so after the troubleshooting, he went to the hardware this morning and got a heating element, then came over, drained the heater, and pulled out the existing element. Check this out:

Ding ding ding!! Vanna, what has he won!!

So obviously there's a decaying metal bar sitting at the bottom of the water heater along with landfills worth of sediment, which is only a problem because over the course of the draining and refilling and opening all the faucets....my kitchen sink suddenly stopped running, and we fear it's been clogged. Sigh. I'll have to call my grandpa for a lesson on snaking pipes, which he used to do a lot at our house.

On the up side, I totally have hot water, yo! I'm going to get up and take a shower before I go to work like a normal person. A normal CLEAN person. For reals. And it only cost me a $500 printer I never used, a $50 bottle of gin I wouldn't ever drink, and about $60 in supplies (but I have a brand new garden hose for the spring!).

Liveblogging Jury Duty

2008-01-14T17:11:00.000-05:00

Okay not really. I wanted to but then my blackberry died right about the time I was considering slitting my wrists out of sheer boredom and the mere thought of the National Treasure dvd being started over again for the third time on the 8 televisions in the waiting room.

Unlike last year, I actually got called for a panel this time. So I make my merry way to the atrium where me and 40 other people are supposed to wait for the clerk, and frankly I'm a little excited just to get to do something finally. The second the clerk shows up she calls my name, and me, startled, stammers, "uh, yes, here!" And she immediately tells me to go back to the waiting room. Sigh. My name had been called second to last in the big list, so apparently I was an alternate, and since everyone showed up, they didn't even need me for the freaking panel at all. Yeesh. God National Treasure really sucked.

As a consolation prize, or something, I got to sit outside at ABP since 500 people were unleashed at once to go eat and so there were no tables left inside anywhere in a 5 block area, and thus got to experience a near-Hitchcockian scene of birds with that glint in their eye that said, "It's been a long winter, ho, and the second you look away we won't hesitate to peck at your eyes until you let go of that fucking croissant."

Like a giant, thick splinter jabbed up your thumbnail

2008-01-13T21:32:00.000-05:00

Well actually not like that, but exactly that. And FUCK it hurt, and still does, but you know what? My chimney looks spectac-fabulous despite all the blood I dripped on it. I also rubbed off my fingerprints getting it clean with a torn up old t-shirt and a bowl of water, but seriously: Amazalicious. Getting the chimney clean may not seem like a priority, but my heating guy was supposed to come by this weekend to set up the gas range in the fireplace and turn on the pilot, and I wanted to get all the dust off while I could still lay a plastic sheet over the range. Of course, he never showed up, so. That was 2/3 a season of Firefly well spent.

Seriously though, I'm sore. Sore. I started the weekend out well enough, by getting nice and drunk at Nick's place. We've been talking about me coming to see one of his photoshoots for going on a year now, and Friday I was finally able to make it over. Let's do another round of Things I Learned On Friday:

A model will actually eat something called "Butter Chicken"
PBR was around before 1947
I'm awesome at holding up umbrella flaps that are in the way.
Sometimes boys are prettier than girls.
I'm not the only one who listens to "Dashboard" on repeat for hours.

But it was actually a blast, and followed up by more beer and Resident Evil: Extinction, for which I suppose I now must see the first two in that series so I can watch Milla kick a little more ass.

Saturday I got 85% of my shit unpacked and into shelves and drawers and other places they should be. I also purged a lot and made an "ebay/craigslist" pile. Unfortunately I discovered a little too late that all my Indian clothes got wet inside my travel backpack from the toilet situation last week. They reek of mildew, but I don't have time to handwash them all right now, so they're just hanging out for awhile.

Today I met with a certain local blogger who interviewed me about my house renovations. Thinking back on it, I think I may have given a couple stupid answers, but hey, I'm sure the commenters will be right there to point them out. There's also going to be a big picture of me to go with it, which I hope everyone gets a good laugh out of. At least I got one full shower of hot water in before that was taken. Speaking of which, Nick did a little troubleshooting today and thinks he has the situation figured out, but we'll know more tomorrow. Oh, I should be getting my fridge and washer/dryer this week! Hooray!

And, I have jury duty tomorrow. Sigh.

Another low for humanity

2008-01-10T23:05:00.000-05:00

As if I hadn't already lost all faith in the world. First America voted George W. Bush into office twice, then I discover that customer service ain't what it used to be, and now this.

Last night I posted on flickr the Mirrored Doors to Hell that exist in my bathroom:

And here I thought this was just some horror of design masterminded by the freakshow previous owner who brought me such novelties as the Kitchen Cabinets That Don't Close and Marion Barry's Hot Tub. Turns out this beast is MASS PRODUCED.

And not a little bit mass produced, says yet another with one hanging in her home, but SERIOUSLY mass produced.

My only consolation now, I guess, is that I don't suffer alone.

I will wash things and make other things cold!

2008-01-10T13:04:00.001-05:00

Email from Mom last night: "Costco says your fridge is there, they just had the wrong telephone number for you. They should be calling you tomorrow to set up delivery."

Phone call just now: "Hi, this is Lowes Service Center. This is a courtesy call to tell you that your washer/dryer is now in stock at your local store, and a Lowes agent will be calling you shortly to schedule a delivery time."

Yes!

Hello World!!1!

2008-01-09T22:29:00.000-05:00

I'm BACK. After only two long calls to comcast technical support, I am back online! Woo! And I'll give them something, even though I had a bitch of a time installing this shizz (and it turns out, it was a glitch in their software), both the people I spoke to were incredibly nice and helpful. Let's keep it that way, shall we?

God! The possibilities now! I have photos to upload! ~~Blogs to update!~~ Comments to make and feeds to read! Where do I start?? Oh tubes of information, I missed you.

Right on Cue....

2008-01-09T16:54:00.001-05:00

I just got a cancellation confirmation from Verizon. Some choice bits from the letter that they might have thought about taking to heart before I left in a furious rage:

Dear Valued Verizon Online Member,

--We're sorry to see you go ...

--Are you sure you want to cancel? Have you taken advantage of all that your Verizon Online DSL service has to offer, including lower pricing packages and cool new features?
--To learn about special offers available only to Verizon Online DSL customers like you...
--Again, we're sorry to lose you as a customer and welcome the opportunity to resolve any problems you may have experienced.
--It has been a pleasure serving you.

Well, Verizon, it's been a pleasure dumping your sorry ass in the gutter. kthxbye!

Slightly Victorious!

2008-01-09T16:30:00.001-05:00

It's been a slightly better day than yesterday in the life of a homeowner slash recently-moved person.

First, the fabulous floors in Casa de Cosmos have been featured on Prince of Petworth. I had left a note in his forum about the great work Alpha did so as to recommend them to others, and PoP emailed me to ask if he could feature them on the site. Heck yah! Stay tuned, TTtC fans, because there may be at least one more feature to come next week.

You may know I've been in vicious, bloody battle with Verizon for weeks now. First the nightmare of trying to get my DSL moved with me to the house, then giving that up after two weeks, then spending this entire week just trying to cancel my damn service. Monday I was on hold for 45 minutes before the line just went dead; Tuesday I got ahold of Calcutta, who told me they were having trouble transferring people to the cancellation department, since it was their weekly extra day off to prevent people from ending service, so I should call back later. Though before I hung up I made him refund me two days to compensate for my time. Today I got ahold of Cancellation, finally, who proceeded to sell me new packages, etc, until I explained sternly that I didn't want any more of their bullshit and just wanted to be free from this hateful, damaging relationship. She interrupted me rudely, inexplicably trying to "sweet talk" into staying, even after I told her, when asked, that "unbelievably incompetent customer service" was why I was leaving. So I confirmed that my service had indeed been canceled, and hung up on her mid-sentence. Bitch.

Then I had to call Comcast. Why? I got my first bill from them yesterday that included $100 in charges for things I didn't buy, namely, cable TV and its installation. So I told the guy at Comcast that I only ordered internet, who for some reason tried to insinuate that maybe, just maybe I did order both. Then tried to charge me an $11 fee and get me to take a half day off work to wait for them to come back and "deinstall" the cable. Give me a break, people. I insisted three times that I was not going to pay that $11 even a little bit, and three times he put me on hold...the third time he came back and said he waived it. That's what I thought, jerk. I do have to be home between 2 and 5pm next Saturday, but at least I insisted they come on the weekend.

So hey! Given the relative success of my calls to customer service, I'd say that actually went pretty well. The hot water heater still isn't working, but...one thing at a time, you know.

Life as a homeowner begins

2008-01-08T15:56:00.001-05:00

As you may have guessed by my bloggy absence, I'm moved into my house and yes, misplaced the software Comcast gave me, so even though I'm "hooked up," I can't actually get online. Luckily, a spare came in the mail today, so I should be able to get back on the nets tonight.

Not that I'll have any time to screw around online, because I'll be spending the evening troubleshooting my water heater. After we got the toilet leak repaired on Saturday (which, as I suspected, was not even close to a $400 worthy repair), I asked my moving helpers to take a quick look at the water heater. When I originally turned it on, my contractor told me I would hear a faint buzz as the electricity flowed through it, but I heard zippo, and I had a real fear it just wasn't on at all. Luckily that was an easy fix, as well. Brian took the face plate off and lo, the reset button was popped, so he popped it back in and we all heard the spectacular sound of electrons zipping about.

It took about six hours longer than it was supposed to, but I did eventually get hot water, and after a full day of moving and unpacking and scrubbing my bathroom clean of Hep A, I was happy to indulge in a nice long shower. Since I showered Sunday night, I didn't the next morning, so it wasn't until last night when I was washing my face that I realized the tap wasn't even remotely warm. I turned on the shower for as long as my water-conserving mind would allow and yep, the hot water had vanished.

So I hit the breakers and took off the face plate to the water heater, but this time the reset button had not popped, and strangely, the insulation bits covering it were wet. Well, fuck me. So tonight I'm going to hit up the hardware store, which is becoming a regular part of my walk home, and get a multimeter so I can check the heating elements and thermostat and see where the issue lies. If it's some kind of serious leak, well. Well. It turns out the individual pieces to the heater are pretty cheap, so I really hope it's a relatively simple fix and not a "Buy a New Water Heater and Wait Two Weeks For It" fix.

But hey, that's life now! I'm slowly getting everything unpacked, and going through Buffy Season 5 when I need a break, at least when my friends aren't coming over with hilarious superhero movies co-starring Martin Sheen and/or early 80's alien tv series to watch. Sorry I don't have more pics of the house yet, but I'll get some up once the comcast issue is resolved. I have some really good ones of the medicine cabinet from hell, and the dry cheese sandwich I had for dinner last night, when I discovered the flooring guys unhooked my stove.

Exciting News Though! Keep your eyes peeled, fans of my housing saga. A popular local blogger will be featuring the Cosmos Castle and all the struggles you read about here in the very near future. More when it happens!

Take Two

2008-01-04T20:14:00.000-05:00

I'm cranky. I've been living out of tightly packed suitcases for a week, my mail started forwarding last Friday so my bills are all over the place, both my netflix got lost, and UPS has been apparently been trying to deliver a signature-required pkg to my house all week (if that's from you, please call me). I have to spend another weekend night trapped inside re-packing all these clothes and kitchen supplies I had the nerve to use all week, and I'm having way too good a hair day to spend it inside. But, I'm finally moving tomorrow. I'm not even nervous anymore. If the toilets don't work, well fuck it, I'll just hold it until Wonderland opens. That reminds me...I'm out of Jack.

Well, anyway. Many, many years ago, when I worked in politics, and before this conversation was in any way relevant, I had a running bet with my friends about who would be come president first: a black man or a woman. I better dig through my boxes for my address book, because it looks like a few of those folks are getting a little closer to paying up soon.

A little uninspiried freeverse on a cold evening not watching the Iowa caucuses because they're really boring

2008-01-03T20:48:00.000-05:00

My house is littered in boxes and bags
It took me three days to find my pajama pants
One of the bags
After sitting silently since Sunday
Just fell over by itself
Scared the living daylights out of me

The plumber wants four hundred big ones
To reinstall my toilets
Whatever
It was my fault in the first place
I downloaded a diagram from the Internets
I should be fine

For the first time ever
I nodded in agreement with a DCist commenter
Right around mid-November
I pray for January
The holidays are finally over
Praise baby jesus

The holiday weight gain is less concerning
Than the fact someone seemed to make a list
Of every sweet I would never, ever crave
Bland sugar cookies
Peppermint flavored whatever
And insisted the world throw two months of parties featuring them all

Who messed with my Law & Order?

2008-01-02T21:02:00.000-05:00

Wtf is this all about? Freaking Billy Chenowith is Detective Green's second now? Earl?? Damn. I mean, I love Jeremy Sisto, but only in that demented, you're-a-super-freak and freakishly hot kinda way. I guess he's more the 2008 reincarnation of Benjamin Bratt and not so much Dennis Farrina. Sigh. I still miss Lennie.

And I've only just started watching the episode, but I'm going to lose my shit if Jack McCoy has been shuffled up to the non-glorious shoes of Fred Thompson while some new guy demands "Were you lying then or are you lying now!!" No, it's not a question. How am I gonna get through an entire episode without yearning to get my broker on the line?

I've watched twenty episodes of reruns in the past week, and this is jolting my whole world around. I need to go sit down.

Update: Oh okay. So I don't even have regular actor retirement to blame for this -- I'd wonder when Jack got elected without ever even seeing it on a commercial once -- but, no, it's fucking Indecision '08. Argg Republicans. To be fair, they finally got the winning formula super hottness and believable brains in Alana de la Garza, and it only took about 17 seasons. Ten times better than Det. Lockley anyway, most well known for horrifically delivered lines and the infamous "Lesbians? Who was talking about lesbians?" episode. Oh, haha. Jack made fun of Linus' "gadget." Stoopid lawyers and their blackberries.

Check out this hot Cassini action:

2008-01-02T20:30:00.000-05:00

This is a severely awesome photograph by the spacecraft Cassini as it passed into Saturn's shadow, highlighting the rings like we've never seen. (Click through to see the large version; this is the second photograph down.) To add a little perspective, our tiny pale blue dot can be seen at about ten o'clock. Awesome. (Via Slashdot)

Personal Finance Goals for 2008

2008-01-01T17:15:00.000-05:00

Oh yes, the resolution post. You all know I'm becoming very focused on my finances, reading new helpful blogs and watching my pennies. So in thinking about my goals for this year, I realized that all of them, even indirectly, focus on getting a hold of my finances, both in paying off debts and finally starting to save something. I think I've done pretty well with the cold turkey "stop buying so much shit" rule, but it's been tough in the past few months to say I'm going to save some certain amount each week, because my finances have been totally thrown out of whack by the house. I've not only had to charge approximately $13,000 worth of house renovations because I only got half my construction loan up front, but I had to charge a good deal more for things not covered by the loan (insulation in the attic, new backdoor, new window, multiple hundred dollar trips to home depot for supplies, et cetera).

I have three things to look forward to between now and March:
1) The second half of my loan.
2) My annual bonus.
3) My tax refund, including my First-Time Homebuyers credit.

Once I get all three, I should only be left with a fairly managable amount on my credit cards -- a far cry from where I was even a year ago, due to snowballed expenses during law school. So, here are my goals. Yes, I'm going to continue to blog about getting my finances together, because writing it down helps, and because I've found other blogs to be a huge source of motivation for me. If anyone feels like jumping on my bandwagon, please chime in; the more the merrier.

1) Pay off my credit cards by December 31, 2008. I'll be able to quantify this better once those three big checks come in and I know what I'm left with, but I'll probably do this in the Debt Snowball method: Pick the card with the smallest balance and pay as much as I can until it's paid off, paying only the minimums on the others, then move to the next biggest. I have 4 credit cards. When they're all paid off, I'll cut up 2 or 3, keeping my oldest card because it helps my credit score and for house emergencies.

2) Save $1200 ($100 a month) in a high-interest online savings account for an emergency fund.

3) Teach myself how to cook interesting meals. I'd like to save money by not eating out all the time, but not suffer through years of bowls of pasta and grilled cheese sandwiches.

4) In the spring, plant a large garden with lots of yummy vegetables, to save myself some produce money. Remember to plant autumnal veggies -- yams, squash, etc. -- before it gets too late in the summer. Also, great exercise!

5) Learn some basic electrical/plumbing/woodworking skills that will allow me to save money on repairmen and home improvements.

6) Study bookkeeping, a skill I'd like to turn into a business one day (one that will allow me to do freelance writing and photography and still be able to pay my bills). I'd like to learn enough to start taking clients by the end of the year, but I'll have to reassess this practically in six months.

7) Rent out my parking space.

8) Consider taking sublettors occasionally to supplement home improvement fund.

9) Once my finances become settled in a few months I'll implement the Pay Yourself program -- put my entire check into a high-interest savings account, then pay out to bills and other savings funds, then choose a specific amount each pay period to pay into my checking account. That's my play money with which I can do whatever I want.

It's going to be a little tough to focus on these for the next few months, unfortunately, since I'm awaiting those three big checks and still paying off some random contractor invoices (and now I've gotta get that plumber). So until then I just need to keep being frugal, and I've done a few things that should help -- canceled my cable ($53/month...though I'll bump up my netflix from $12 to $17/month) and switched to comcast cable internet ($53 down to $33/month).

It would be great if I could be setting up in my new house right now, getting my act together, but much like in getting your finances together after years of screwing off, one has to expect some set-backs. I should be moving officially next Saturday and can finally get out of this holding pattern in my apartment with all my shit in bags and boxes. Happy New Year!

So. Funny story.

2007-12-30T17:05:00.000-05:00

This morning we started bright and early. Earlier this week I was worried I only had one guy coming over to help, which would have just taken forever, so I canvassed the population and ended up with one, then two, then four more guys to come help! Even poor fractured rib Nick, who was going to watch the truck lest the cops hassle me like last week. So I figured hey, at least we'll get it done lightning fast.

Everyone arrives and we get to disassembling a few things and fill up the first load. We piled in the truck, carrying some of my day laborers in the truckbed, and get to the house. I open the door and walk in and think....boy, those white paint sheets I put down to protect my floor sure seem transparent.

Remember when I said, "The water is on!"? Remember when I said, "I bet I haven't even found half of the problems with this house yet"? Remember when I said, "Installing toilets is totally easy, I'm not paying a plumber to do it"?

Right. Due partly to my inexperience and even more so to the idiot former owner's tiling techniques, the toilet had a leak between the tank and the bowl. When I turned on the water Friday it dripped, dripped, dripped down to the bathroom floor, down through the first floor ceiling, ruining the sheetrock, and dripped, dripped, dripped down to my brand new floors, seeping across the room through the paper sheets I put down, and trapping it against my new white oak floors. Sigh.

I have to thank my good friends, who hauled my couch back to the apartment and then went to home depot with me to pick up a shop-vac and tarps, and back to the house to suck up all the water. I salvaged what I could from the stuff I brought over last week that all sat in the water for two days, though luckily I only lost a few non-important books and some office supplies. Thank god I put all my old dusty books in plastic bags.

I called my flooring guys for advice, and they said we were doing the right thing with the shop-vac, and to keep the heat on so it's at least room temperature inside, because the cold will totally ruin the wood. They'll plump up and get ugly for awhile, but then 90% of it will go back to normal in about two months. That's going to be a fun couple of heating bills.

In all, I think I'm handling this pretty well, which I only mention because I think my friends kept waiting for me to totally lose it. Q kept patting me on the shoulder and giving me the "are you sure you're okay" look, like he thought I was going to burst out crying. First of all, I'm not a cryer, and second, I'm so past the point of getting riled up about this stuff. It's just another obstacle, and above all else, I'm actually most annoyed about having to wait another week to move in, and that I dragged all these poor guys here this morning, only to do it all again next week. Plus all my shit is packed up, so I think I was actually even more annoyed about spending 30 minutes finding clothes after my shower and another 30 to re-hook up my archaic tv/vcr/cd/cablebox/rf modulator system so I'd have something to do for the next week.

Man, I hope I didn't really fuck up those floors.

And so it all begins...

2007-12-29T19:43:00.000-05:00

Tonight is my last night in the best apartment I ever had, with great landlords and neighbors (except for the elephant herd), perfect entertaining space, awesome kitchen...

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, I pack it all up and move to My First House. I don't know if the water heater works yet (I turned it on before I left Friday morning, but it takes an hour to warm up), forget light fixtures -- there are no lights at all in either bedroom, the bathrooms are absolutely filthy after acting as staging areas and closets for the last month of construction, one window is still boarded up, my fridge and washer/dryer haven't been delivered, and I haven't yet fenced in the backyard. But I did get my first gift from the neighborhood welcome wagon (I'm actually standing in my backdoorway taking that shot, ha).

So yeah, I'm pretty nervous. I still have a lot of things to fix up and no more money to spend (for now) and am going to be living with some pretty big inconveniences for awhile. Like, eating out of a cooler and having 0 counterspace because I've already ripped them out but can't replace them. And using this hideous, open shower until I can save up enough to renovate it.

And let's not kid ourselves. I probably haven't found half the problems with this house. Friday I noticed the entire doorjam is coming out of place in the second bedroom.

But the important things are there. The water is on (after a supreme display of incompentance by WASA), the gas and heat are on with no remaining gas leaks, the floors are gorgeous, the electricity works and most of the outlets even have plates, and I have a stove so I can cook. What more do I need to get by for awhile?

HOLY COW I'M MOVING TOMORROW! WOO!

This is really going to speed up that cell phone brain cancer

2007-12-27T17:02:00.000-05:00

I've had my damn phone pressed to my ear almost all day today. Of course if I learned how to use the speakerphone on my Razr it would probably help out quite a bit. Most of it was spent on hold waiting for either Verizon DSL to get their shit together or, an hour later, Comcast High Speed Internet to process my order.

I had some contractors at the house today blowing in some insulation in the attic, who called me around 9:30am saying they smelled gas coming from the heating unit on the roof. Sigh. So then I was on the phone with the heating guys for awhile.

And since I don't have any work I can even pretend to do at the office and am pretty much forced to take vacation time since I can't bill, I decided I was at least going to spend my precious "vacation" in front of my tv and fireplace, and not at my desk waiting for someone, anyone to call me back with a task to do. I did have one small thing to talk about with someone, but for some reason whenever he called me it would go straight to voicemail, and whenever I called him he was away from his desk, so we played phone tag for about 6 hours before we finally caught up with each other, and he assigned me a memo that would take about 10 minutes to write, asking, "So you think you can get that to the partner by early next week?" Sigh. Yeah. If I work super duper hard this time.

In other news, I had my very first photo make it on Flickr Explore! Very exciting. Compared to gas leaks anyway.

Oh yeah

2007-12-26T23:11:00.000-05:00

And the VCR ate my exercise tape yesterday. Dang it!

(enter total self-pitying wallow hole)

2007-12-26T19:27:00.000-05:00

So the second time this year I spend the 45 grueling minutes to blow dry my hair, 1) it rains and I forget my umbrella and 2) I go to one of the only bars that still allows smoking. Mmmm...frizzy cigar smelling hair.

Well, this week has not been a stellar one for me. First, and this doesn't seem like a bad thing at first, but the rough case I've been working on for months with the Dec 24th deadline, and for which my boss said, "Don't make plans to go home for the holiday," actually ended abruptly about 9pm last Friday. So, hooray, I didn't have to work all weekend, but wtf, it was way too late to get a ticket home. And to top it off, no one in the firm is around to give me more work, and my job depends on me billing a minimum of 8 hours a day. And no, I can't bill for internet surfing.

The other reason I was going to stick around over Christmas was to work on house tasks and do a little moving. Here was my Sunday:

1) Turn on main water valve. No water comes out.
2) Reattach wires on thermostat, unhooked by HVAC people so the flooring guys wouldn't suck two tons of sawdust into the new system. No heat comes out.
3) Finish installing toilets, now that I'd taken a separate trip to pick up the rubber washers that were missing in the kit. Find screws to attach toilet lid were missing.
4) Try to caulk backdoor. Find my boxcutter missing; can't even open the caulk.
5) Explode in mindblowing frustration.
6) Decide not to get on 8 foot ladder and learn to attach lighting fixture alone, because clearly I'm just asking for trouble.

Sigh. So I can't get any tasks done, and Reason #2 for me being in DC for Christmas ceases to exist.

On Christmas Eve I decided I needed to get the eff out of the house. I've been meaning to see the Hopper exhibit since it opened in the fall, and the weather was gorgeous, so I walked to the National Gallery of Art (and copied a bunch of my favorite photographers) on the Mall and what did I find? Reams and reams of freaking tourists. Yeesh. But the exhibit was fantastic (and so apropos for being alone at xmastime), and I strolled through the modern art afterward to see the Picassos and Kandinskys and Gorkys again.

I wanted to catch a movie at 5pm at Gallery Place, so I walked up 7th Street to the Smithsonian American Art Museum to check out the new Kogod Courtyard before the show. It's just as fun to photograph as everyone says (and apparently I was sharing photography space with the IR king zachstern). Then I saw the Katharine Hepburn exhibit at the Portrait Gallery, which was so cool. They even have her four Oscars there, and an interesting story about how Hepburn and the director of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? both put up their salaries as insurance in case the very ill Spencer Tracy died during filming and they had to film it over again with a new actor.

Then I saw Charlie Wilson's War -- definitely go see it. Aaron Sorkin did the screenplay, and it shows. Ignore the asshole who laughs hysterically at the end at the, sure, good delivery of the line that's, you know, actually about how Congress helped set the stage for 3000 people to be killed on American soil twenty years later. Sigh. And then I got drunk.

Anyway, Christmas was spent mostly cleaning my house, opening my new knife set, making cinnamon rolls like my mother usually makes on xmas morning, and hanging out with some other misfits who came over for beer and chinese food. That was fun, but I'm pretty much in an inconsolable wallowing mood that is not clearing up. Made even worse by an entire day spent at work today doing absolutely nothing.

Oh, except I did find out I have plumbing problems at the house today. Awesome! That's why the water isn't on yet. Long story, and I'll find out tomorrow if the fix will cost me anything or if it's WASA's problem. But then I had one friend buy me a delicious lunch and peanut butter/chocolate milkshake at Java Green to cheer me up, and another buy me some Bushmills on the rocks after work to cheer me up. And now I'm going to watch Disk 1 of Flight of the Conchords that another friend brought me for xmas yesterday. So maybe I should just keep wallowing to keep getting free stuff from my friends. (Thanks guys!)

Home stretch

2007-12-22T19:50:00.000-05:00

First I'd like to share a story of weirdness. Like I do everyday, I opened a can of Progresso soup at lunch yesterday, poured it into my trusty tupperware bowl with the lid loosely on, and stuck it in the microwave for 2:30. I can usually hear the ding in my office, but it never came, so I went to check on it. There was the microwave, stopped with a whole 51 seconds to go, and inside someone had put a stack of 15 dessert paper plates under my bowl. WHY. It was the kind of scene you stumble upon the next morning after a fifth of Jack when you slithered home and attempted to make food at 4am. The plates did not extend beyond the bowl, so it's not like it was protecting the microwave from splashes. Plus I cook that shit everyday, and there was a lid on, it doesn't splash, and even if it did, um, let me clean it up, hmm? So some freak stopped my lunch mid-heat-up to fuck around with it and ruin a bunch of plates for no reason. Fucking lawyers.

Anyway. The floors are done. Behold the floors:

And I will speak the name of Alpha Flooring far and wide. They did a beautiful job, especially the stairs and the little decorative effect on the side, which we hadn't talked about. The stairs were an absolute mess, totally unlevel, with a banister barely hanging on. They stained the banister to match the floors, and double secured it in with wooden screws. There was even one misstep -- they broke a piece of piping under the kitchen sink when they removed the sink/cabinet, which wasn't even really their fault, because the idiot who used to own the house glued the piping together instead of screwed it. Nevertheless, they bought a new piece and came back today -- on a Saturday -- and repaired it for no extra cost. You can reach them at 301-428-9216.

Today I rented a ziptruck and hauled all my non-essential non-furniture to the house. I had 7 boxes I stole from work and some various bags, and unloaded them each time I went to the house. I made 3 trips and actually did a pretty thorough sweep. Only kitchen stuff and a few office papers are left. Then I went to Home Depot to buy smoke detectors and fire extinguishers, then to Giant for a case of essential beer.

I rediscovered today that the people at Home Depot are idiots, and I'm past the point of attempting sweet talk to get my way. It might be the first time I've ever actually told someone she was a fucking moron and could go to hell. Had to happen someday I guess. And she was a fucking moron. Unfortunately, HD was the only public store that sells the fridge I want. Costco also sells it, so in the end I had my mom (who has a membership) buy me the fridge, where it was also $50 cheaper, and I bought my washer/dryer at Lowes. I had to call Lowes with a question about the appliance, and the world of difference in customer service between them and Home Depot is ridiculous. They're so nice and knowledgeable. Christ I hate Home Depot. Even the guy in India was an asshole -- I mean, do they put that in their job ads??

But they're both been purchased, and that officially ends the my loan-approved renovations. As soon as they're delivered, I can get the inspector to come check them out and get the other half of my money. Thank god. Though no doubt that will come with a number of mini-nightmares. The attic insulation (not loan approved) goes in Thursday, and I move in Sunday.

Of course, today I meant to do all the house tasks I still need to do before I move in, the most significant of that being the water. I still haven't turned it on. If there's a problem, or a problem with the water heater, things could get ugly. I'll know tomorrow. I also have to patch and paint the front door, add some weather stripping, install the previously broken window, caulk the back door, install the toilets....and that's just tomorrow. Almost there!!

Wednesday

2007-12-19T21:50:00.000-05:00

I had a morning from hell, or at least the business end of some kind of karmic retribution. After a nightmarish -- but typical -- time at an offsite location in Bethesda for work, I then waited an hour and a half for a cab that never came. I finally called Nick, who I knew was making deliveries and would probably be in the area, and he generously offered to pick me up and drive me to my office before I even had the chance to ask. Apparently bringing my karma with me, his antifreeze tube burst in the parking lot where I was waiting, and we spent the next hour and a half at the mechanics, heh.

Finally, we were on the road and flying down the GW Parkway, chatting about whatever.

Me: "So, I've always wished I could do ... some sort of trade. You know, make something...[empty hand gesture]...with my hands."
Nick: "Oh yeah?"
Me: "Yeah, like...furniture or something. You know...[wild hand gesture]...CREATE something. See it made."
Nick: [sidelong glance] "Uh huh...?"
Me: "Yeah."
Nick: "..."
Me: "..."
Nick: "..."
Me: "I hate my job."
Nick: "Yeah, I thought that was going somewhere."

Man, that was a really good sandwich.

2007-12-18T00:36:00.000-05:00

I bought a loaf of sourdough bread the other day because I didn't want to go out of my way to a real grocery store, so I stopped at a bodega on Rhode Island Ave that carried a total of three loaves of bread. I haven't purchased something other than wheat bread in about six years. I made a turkey melt for dinner (with a Cheddar/Muenster cheese combo and some diced onions) and I swear to god it was wrapped in some kind of unearthly liquid edible gold.

-----

So, someone somewhere has already made the requisite jokes right? To "The Moment of Truth" on Fox Network? Like, a whole moment, Fox?? Woo! Tune in for the moment of the century!

-----

Remember that fireplace I bought last weekend? I actually remember when he brought out the two open boxes, asking him, "Why are they open?" "Because I double checked to make sure it had all the pieces." Not quite. Not only was it missing 6 of the 7 logs but it had TWO burners and a bunch of bags of sand and decorative crap -- which, upon traveling back to BBQs Galore in nowhweresville Maryland this Saturday, I discovered was for a vented, not a vent-free fireplace. Essentially, it means if I'd turned the burner on I would have died of carbon monoxide poisoning in my sleep. So after conferring with five Galore salespersons and spreading out multiple boxes all over the floor of the store, the manager finally said, "Okay, I'm going to collect all the pieces you need and go to your house and make sure you have the correct burner installed." Nice! Oh the wonders of legal liability.

-------

Bearz r stoopid. Since I've been doing a lot of mindless but time consuming work lately, I need mindless but time consuming television to drone in the background. Turns out I've seen every single episode of every Law and Order incarnation, so awhile ago I discovered Turner Movie Classics and their old movie marathons (today was Cary Grant day). But this weekend I tuned into the Planet Earth series and listened to Sigourney Weaver tell me all about the tragedy and getting-eaten-ness of animals' lives around the world. Bears tend to feature a lot in the episodes, and it usually goes something like this:

**"The grizzly bear chooses to live in this barren Ethopian desert, where he travels over the rocks and sand looking for something, anything alive that he can consume."

**"The polar bear chooses to live in this barren, frigid land of ice. She's lost 50% of her body weight over the winter, and if she doesn't find food soon, her cubs will die when she stops producing milk. She'll hunt for seals, but will only catch 1 for every 20 tries."

And my favorite:
**"The panda bear chooses to live in the desolate high mountain peaks of China, because this is the only place bamboo grows, the only thing he can digest. If the female panda gives birth to two cubs, she must choose, because the bamboo she eats produces weak milk, and not enough to share."

Hello, bears? Maybe it's time for some kind of exit strategy. Get some Pepcid AC and a couple of cheeseburgers. Move in closer to the reservation and order some Peapod delivery with some tasty cows milk that'll fatten your little kids right up. I know, I know, a gallon is going for, like, over three bucks now, but if you just cut back on those long winter naps your lazyass can bring in a little more cash for your species that's always hanging on the brink of extinction. Man up, bears.

"I've made more bad decisions at three in the morning than I can list."

2007-12-12T22:15:00.000-05:00

I've loved Project Runway since the very first commercial appeared with the taunting Heidi Klum being rushed by 12 strange looking people wielding sewing needles. It's going to be the one thing I really miss once the cable's canceled...it must be online somewhere, right? Also, is it just me, or has Tim's vocal affectations gotten noticeably stronger this season? I fear his fame explosion is making him turn into a caricature of himself. It's okay, Tim, you're still my boy.

I got an email from my mother today regarding my last post that said, "I don't know where I went wrong in raising you that I didn't pass on the knowledge of rain checks. I'm sorry." I don't know, this is kind of a startling, unfortunate admission, Mom. Next thing you know I'm going to find out I was supposed to have been playing well with others all this time or that the birds and the bees make little bird/bee hybrid babies n'stuff.

In the "Weird Things I See On U Street" category, we have two entries this week.

1) I saw one guy kick another guy in the face. I'm talking straight up Van Damme ultimate fighter round house to the noggin. Apparently it was over a bag of take-out Chinese. Cause if there's anything that puts me in a disfiguring mood, it's some moo shoo gai pan from Yum's.

2) Last Thursday I was walking home with my iPod on when I saw a police car pass from behind me going lights and sirens. Then another. Then another and another. I thought, oh jesus, someone got shot. Then another passed. Then a police van, and another van. Then another car. I turn around and literally, literally there was a motorcade of lights and sirens as far as I could see down U Street. There were no black sedans, so it wasn't a presidential parade, so I squinted to see what was in all the vans...and they were filled with big dudes in orange jumpsuits. They were transporting an entire fucking prison. Down U Street! I lost count around 30 cars and vans, so it was at least a few hundred prisoners. Where were they taking them?! And why? And during rush hour? So weird.

Things you learn when you become a cheapskate

2007-12-11T19:47:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I went into CVS to get a batch of travel toiletries to donate to our firm's charity and pick up a few things for myself. I had to get some hair goo, and it turned out it was on sale, but naturally, there was only one left. I asked the 17 year old manager if there was more in the back, but I was out of luck. He squeaked to me, "Get a rain check at the counter." "A rain check?"

Apparently if something is on sale and they're out of stock, you can get a slip of paper that the checker fills out with the sale price and the quantity you want, and you come back later and get it for the sale price. Who knew? I mean, probably everyone besides me, but still, it was a nice discovery by someone who's still cringing while she clips coupons.

In less financially successful but at least somewhat vindicating news, one of my lenders (who I think of as the Front Office Woman; while the person I was arguing with yesterday is the Back Office Woman) called me today and profusely apologized, saying that the "grant" was not at all properly explained to me. So, I was right. And I would be lying if I said I wasn't thinking about a lawsuit, if it weren't for the fact that all our conversations about the grant were over the phone and not in writing. The truth is, I would have gotten the loan even if I'd properly understood this term, but the fact is I wasn't given the option. And though I appreciate the apology, what I'd really enjoy is my damn money back.

Anyway, I met my floor guy today and had the usual good news/bad news conversation. Turns out his initial estimate didn't include the kitchen, so that added a nice sum to the ticket, though I was able to argue him down a little. But the good news is that they were actually able to start today and should be done by Friday, meaning I can start moving in this weekend. He's also going to stain the existing banister to match the floors, and instead of choosing the stain color off his samples, we're going to wait until the floors are installed so he can put a couple of my final choices on the wood and I can really see how it fits in the house. My sense of humor is slowly dying.

Why didn't I think of that?!

2007-12-11T17:05:00.001-05:00

I just ran into a co-worker I hadn't seen in awhile and he asked me what was going on. Quickly, of course, I got to the new house, and as I was describing it he asked if it came with a parking spot in the back. I said that it did, which was a huge selling point to me because of resale, but also because my friends (and contractors) can all park there with ease. And he said, "Dude, rent that shit out!"

!!!

Interesting story in the Express today

2007-12-11T13:23:00.001-05:00

Two things stood out from the three paragraph story titled, "Harvard Expands Its Financial Aid to Middle Class":

1) Apparently "middle class" means "families earning six figures." Six figures ain't what it used to be, I guess.

2) "The university said it would replace all loans with grants." Why? Because a LOAN isn't the same as a GRANT. That's why.

But in more pleasant news...

2007-12-10T21:19:00.000-05:00

I meet with my floor guy tomorrow, who will start Thursday. So by next Monday or Tuesday, my house will be ready to move into!

More importantly, I really need to settle on a woodstain. My floors are Georgia Pine, but contrary to the light color that sounds like should go, I'm leaning towards dark floors. I want the warm, rowhouse feel, but I worry that a dark color is going to make the house look small, and what furniture even goes with it? It's one of those tough decisions that you make once and then that's it, you're gonna have to live with it.

Every time I tell someone I'm leaning towards dark stain, I get the "ehhhhh" look. But take a gander (second photo). Doesn't it look good?

I don't know. Anyone out there got an opinion I should hear before tomorrow morning?

Good luck, America. Good fucking luck.

2007-12-10T20:20:00.000-05:00

Hey, I don't mean to be all braggy an'all, but listen: I am not a stupid person. I can supply evidence. In fourth grade I invented a working automatic dog feeder. In high school I firmly rooted my nerdiness when I discovered coolness wasn't an option and passed my Calculus, Physics, and Chemistry AP exams, and got to wear one of those yellow rope thingies at my high school graduation. I got an academic freaking scholarship to college and got an A in astro god damn physics my senior year. I went to (and I choose this moment to decide these rankings mean anything) a top-tier law school and passed the Golden State's notoriously tough Bar Exam the first time, while planes and trains collided outside the room. I can turn iron into gold and discovered the cure for cancer during a dream last night.

So answer me one thing: WHY CAN'T I UNDERSTAND THE TERMS OF MY FUCKING MORTGAGE?

I got my first bill the other day, and it includes this amount of money that I was told was a "grant." So I asked my lender, what's up with that? She said, remember we had that conversation? I said, the one where you explained it was a grant? That it was money from the government? That the money doesn't even go to the seller? That it was a GRANT? "Yeah, but also that it's included in your loan." THAT IS NOT WHAT GRANT MEANS. In fact at some times they used "grant" and "gift" interchangably to describe this money. I don't understand how I was supposed to divine that that a word that means "I'm going to give it to you for free" ACTUALLY within the terms of my mortgage means "But we're going to take it all back, slowly and painfully, over the next 30 years." THIS IS WHY THE FORECLOSURE NIGHTMARE IS FALLING OVER AMERICA PEOPLE. Because GRANT does NOT MEAN LOAN, all you sons of bitches in the lending industry.

I mean, I'm lucky. I'm in a decent financial position and this is not going to break my bank, though it probably will mean a few more brown bags at lunch time, and I'll still make money on the house in the end. But these were not the terms I agreed to. I'm just saying, if a reasonably well educated person can go through this whole process and not understand this significant term, is it such a surprise that people all over the country are getting totally, utterly fucked by this fucked up system?

Maybe I should have had my lawyer look over the contract. Right.

Best Holla Ever

2007-12-08T02:08:00.000-05:00

On my way home tonight, the whole two blocks from the party to my apartment, I approached a crosswalk, as a car rolled up to the stop sign. I passed the front of the car and the man leaned out the window, the near area abandoned except for me, and he, not yelled, but said loudly, in a thick Indian accent, "I love websites!"

Thursday

2007-12-06T21:56:00.000-05:00

8:30am -- Overslept
9:20am -- Grab yesterdays' mail as I leave for work. Find jury summons.
9:22am -- Walk to the end of block, wimp out and decide to metro to work rather than brave the icy sidewalks no one has salted.
9:35am -- Encounter clusterfuck on red line. Suddenly remember why I bought those snow boots last year.
9:50am -- Enter office, lock door so I can strip off sexy long johns I didn't need, unlock door and instantly face senior associate who Needs Assistance Now.
10:30am -- Finish training ~~grandpa~~ senior associate on database program. Enter office, phone rings with senior associate for follow up question.
10:30-3pm -- Start and stop and start and stop arts agenda.
10:30-3pm -- Accept and make 10 phone calls to heating contractor and iron gate contractor to negotiate logistics from hell. Authorize heating contractor to play my boyfriend so Washington Gas stops screwing with me for Fun and Profit.
4:00pm -- Answer phone. Boss begins, "Did you buy that plane ticket for Christmas? Right. Great. Let's hold off on that."
4:02pm -- Second line rings. Click over to find heating contractor, "So...don't come to the house for a few hours. You have a gas leak."
5:35pm -- Really excited about this week's Thursday firm happy hour because it's Indian Food. "Indian food" contains undigestable spices not known to humankind.
8:00pm -- Read aloud prayer for Day 1 of Hanukkah, naturally, in front of a group of strangers at a casual holiday party thrown by a friend of my date, a party which they also sometimes call, "Festival of the Baby Carrots."
8:02pm -- Have another beer.
8:15pm -- Then another.
10:20pm -- Discover Spike is guest starring on Without a Trace.
10:21pm -- Decide the apocalypse is nigh.
10:21:30pm -- Have another beer.

It all begins again...

2007-12-05T23:15:00.000-05:00

Hooray!

The past few months have seen me scouring the city for a suitable venue for this years' show and compiling all the little details necessary for today's announcement. The show is officially open for submissions. We'll be hosted at Civilian Art Projects, and I'm excited that we'll also have some events (okay, probably just one) to go along with it.

Tell your friends and enemies to get in while the gettin's good. Now I just get to kick back and watch the pool fill up with awesome photos.

Also, I'm tired, y'all. For real. I actually just wrote two paragraphs on today's house drama, but deleted it because, well, it made me even more tired just reading it over again. But Washington Gas can suck me. I'll say that much.

Turns out there is such a thing as an "emergency stove purchase"...

2007-12-03T21:30:00.000-05:00

...and other things I learned today. Like:

If you give me a set of keys, a telephone number, a set of nuclear security codes, I will immediately, permanently lose them and/or lock them inside something.

If you walk over six miles throughout the day during a severe wind advisory, bring a hair clip or something.

If you need advice or anything at all related whatsoever to hardware or appliances, skip Headache Depot, which doesn't actually keep these things called "appliances" in stock on the premises and disclaims any and all knowledge of the such, and just go straight to Lowes, ferchrissakes.

If you leave something outside by accident, god will rain all over it.

If you hire some dudes to put in a new heating system, they'll call you at noon and make you buy a stove.

If the first person you see outside at 7am is a ninja, that might be a sign of coming events.

If you live near a bar, you'll always know where to find your pen-carrying friends when FedEx leaves you a package slip and you realize there's nothing in the house to sign it with.

And lastly, don't let incompetent fools be in charge of your money, or you'll suffer the yanking of your chain for days on end while she disappears just in time to not answer your time-sensitive questions, only to reappear just to confirm your suspicions that she's totally screwed you during her imitation of a lazy city employee, and you spend the next hour post-morteming your phone call with her over IM in a conversation that's mostly you typing "fucking whore, FUCKING WHORE" over and over until your forehead becomes cemented in the furrowed position.

Luckily a good six mile walk and some coffee ice cream clears that right up.

I love the smell of sawdust

2007-12-02T21:00:00.000-05:00

There's been some exciting progress at the house over the past week. I walked in on Friday to the smell of sawed wood floating through the door, which is right up there with freshly cut grass and apple pie. Must be from my old days in my seventh grade woodshop elective when I learned how to use the drill press to make a pencil holder in the shape of a six-sided die and spent so much time lining up the holes correctly that my teacher finally took me aside and famously told me, "Heather, if you don't chill out, you're going to get an ulcer before you get to college." So yeah, it's kinda just like that.

The sawdust was from two sources. One was the counter I had to get chopped up. I have to rearrange the layout of my kitchen, plus the entire cabinet system needs to go eventually because the guy who put them up was an idiot. I need to take some measurements and come up with a game plan for the fridge location and counterspace.

The second source was because my gate guy -- who put up my new gate to complete the entrance to the backyard, woo! -- found out that some of my window sills were rotted (because the genius before me used untreated wood). So that was another $200 to have a handyman come and saw them out to splice some good wood in there, enabling my gate guy to secure the windows in later this week.

Yesterday, Brian came over to graciously help me with the really glorious task of hauling all the crap someone dumped in my backyard to the junkyard. He has a friend with a dumptruck, so Brian relearned to drive a five-speed (if by "relearned" one means that when you pull up to the junkyard, the guy in charge of the junkyard says, "What's that smell?" and the only answer is, "Um, I think that's clutch.") and we backed it up to the yard. After filling it to the brim with old roof tiles and two by fours spiked with rusty nails, we realized we were going to have to make two trips. We took a couple nice tours of Catholic University to find the DC transfer station -- which is actually good to know about. You can just pull up with any kind of car and dump your old house repair trash, leaves, whatever, all for free if you have a DC license (although, they didn't actually look at mine). After a quick call to his friend, Brian got the bed off the ground and we headed back for the second trip.

Then it started to get real fun. Turns out everything that was left was just a stack of garbage bags overstuffed with plaster -- too heavy to lift in the best of conditions, and this was already 2 hours into the ordeal, with my fingers officially too numb to wrap around anything to pick it up.

As we finished up as best we could, I did the unthinkable. I grabbed my bag from inside the house, twisted the doorhandle lock...and the door swung closed, with its previously broken window I'd just repaired sidling up to my eyes just in time for me to see MY FUCKING KEYS WERE INSIDE ON THE WINDOW SILL. I can't even remember the last time I locked my keys inside something, but there they were, leaving me with options totaling nothing short of breaking something on my house I'd just gone through great lengths to repair.

Eventually Brian and I decided we were not going to get to the dump before it closed in 15 minutes if we dealt with the key situation, so even though I'd just had my fucking gates installed, I was going to have to leave them unlocked and risk coming back to my house in the same Broken Windows state I'd bought it in. When we got back, we parked the dump truck out front and decided we'd have to take a manual screwdriver to the board covering the window that's still broken, even though the board was put back up with a power drill and drywall screws.

But when we got to the backyard, Brian realized the screwdriver he brought was too big, so ran around to the truck while I waited. I stood there thinking, "There's no way this is happening. There *must* be a better solution than spending the next 1-2 hours dealing with this after a 6 hour junkyard day." I mean, What Would MacGyver Do? And then it came to me -- if I was on TV, obviously, I'd take out my Mastercard and finally make it USEFUL for a change. And it worked! It seriously worked! I jimmied that lock in 8.5 seconds like a common criminal. Woot! Then I did a victory lap around the alley back towards the truck, where Brian probably thought I was sprinting from some backalley mugger.

The last chapter of this little drama is called: When The Dump Closes Half An Hour Earlier Than You Thought. We got to the DC dump for our second trip and they'd already shut down for the day. Brian said the Fairfax dump was still open, and it would cost me a little money, but not too much and it was, at that point, our only option. Of course when I hear Fairfax I sort of think, "Just Outside the Beltway." But oh no, we just kept driving...and driving...and driving. For awhile I thought I misheard him and we were actually headed towards Fairbanks, Alaska. But it does turn out that when you drive 45 minutes into Virginia, there are things there. Like junkyards. And TGIFridays.

Things are coming along!

2007-11-27T20:18:00.001-05:00

Even though I didn't actually complete any projects today, I suddenly feel like I jumped ahead a few steps in the renovation. First, and this is a little silly, but I came to the realization, though of course we all already knew this, that I'm a general contractor. A project manager! The queen of my domain! People come to my house when I tell them to and do what I want them to do to create what I dream of in my homeowner's imagination! (cackle!)

I had two more contractors over today. One is my gate guy, who told me my window sills are rotten because the idiot who used to own my house used non-pressure treated wood for them. So, there's a few more hundred bucks. But, I will have gates on my doors on Friday! I'll have access to my backyard!

Then my second guy came over and told me I couldn't tear the back chimney down (the masonry is in terrible shape on the roof, and the rest of the chimney just takes up space down through the house), because it seems to be physically intertwined with my neighbors, so I risk messing up the nice relationship I have with her so far (she raked my leaves last week, how nice!). So I had to do some fast thinking on my feet about where my fridge was going to go, then realized I tore down part of closet for no reason, and told my contractors to take a chainsaw to my crappy kitchen counter instead. They'll also be rerouting some venting to the roof, something that my loan is actually paying for.

They'll be back later this month to put some insulation in the attic crawl space. If anyone has any knowledge of how much something like that costs, let me know.

Then Brian told me his friend owns a dump truck and that in DC, city license holders can dump for free, so he's going to join me Saturday for some good ol' fashion junk haulin' fun. To save me $250.

After my contractors left, Nick dropped by the house (aren't student friends available during the day great?) and drove me to Silver Spring to the one place on the face of the earth that fixes windows. Thank god.

So things are moving along. Even though none of the projects are really done yet, it seems like things are moving along swiftly. I can almost taste the renovation results!

Today in: Ultimate Stressout!

2007-11-26T22:29:00.000-05:00

I did that thing today that everyone wants to do but never gets around to because the mere thought makes most people's chests tighten with anxiety: I called my credit cards to negotiate my rates down.

As I mentioned before, I paid off one of my cards, so I'm in a good position to move things around, cancel cards if I have to, etc. You know, leverage.

Oh ho ho! The naivete! Leverage! Leverage doesn't exist when you're a meaningless 16 digit number easily replaced by 10 college kids looking for a way to go to Cancun over Christmas break. I called 2 of my 3 cards. Both conversations went exactly like this:

Me: "Hi, I'm a long-time customer. I'd like my rates lowered or I'll take my business elsewhere."
Customer ~~Service~~ Cockblocker Rep: "We review all our accounts periodically to see if you're eligible for any of our offers and...let's see...our system says you don't have any offers at the moment."
Me: "Well I have some better offers on the table, how about we talk about lowering it to [a lower rate]?"
CCR: "You don't have any offers."
Me: "Okay then, I guess I'm canceling my card..."
CCR: "Okay. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

WTF is that? They wouldn't even PRETEND to negotiate with me, and gave not one little tiny shit about whether I stayed on as a customer. Actually, both conversations didn't go exactly like that. The first one went on this babbling, condescending tirade about how "other offers" aren't always what they seem to be. She went on for so long, with me trying to get a word in edgewise, oh, perhaps about how she could at least try to assume I'm a somewhat educated person and not in need of credit counseling from The Man trying to "explain" how credit cards sucker you, but she kept going on for SO LONG without a breath I finally had to yell into the phone. She acted surprised and I told her I just wanted to SPEAK for a minute. So I did, and when I was finished, there was silence on the other end. And more silence, until I said, "Hello?" And she said, like the petulant bitch she was quickly turning out to be, "You said you wanted to talk, so I let you talk."

Believe me, if it were possible to wring someone's bitch-ass neck through a phone line, it would have happened right then. Let me talk. Whore!

So, eff that noise. I found a good deal on a credit card today and am looking forward to sending those other creditors the middle finger, xeroxed and included with my "transfer of all funds" notice.

Just to cap that fun off, I called Washington Gas to inquire why my house still wasn't hooked up even though I submitted their online "Begin Service" application two weeks ago. The lady over the phone informed me, "I'm sorry we have no record of that." "But I got an email confirmation." "I'm sorry. But I can sign you up now." I think it's safe to note here that this woman was very smart in being overly kind to me, because at that point I was going to start ripping beating hearts out of things.

If that's not enough, between the credit cards and the gas people I'd also called the water service, two window people who don't fix windows, and a junk removal service that's going to charge me $250 for my seller's mistake....so, let's add that up.

It was actually a perfect night to come home and do all the ironing I avoided over the weekend. A little no-brainer activity. Tomorrow I meet with more contractors, wee!

Another from the Thanksgiving Dinner conversation bag.

2007-11-25T19:32:00.000-05:00

We had the television on some football games before and after the meal, and at one point I commented about Payton Manning now starring in every single commercial on tv these days. Donna's boyfriend and Matt the Chef, the same two who were appalled by my post-Thanksgiving leftover sandwich, burst into song about poor, poor football players who suffer with low wages because of NFL salary caps (and thus do endorsements for the real cash).

But the passion with which they were up in arms about their pay was a bit much. I get that their careers are often awfully short, but I argued that they know that in advance, and should not get sucked in by the lavish Superstar lifestyle, and allot their financies accordingly, or alternatively, not bitch about it when they blow their knee at 25 and have an $8000 monthly mortgage to pay.

The boys were very adamant that, compared to other sports, football players get screwed. CRY ME A RIVER. Sure, they're not making millions like Kobe, but I still don't get the part where I'm supposed to pity the dude making $200,000 a year because he'll only make it for five years.

Then today I found this. Ha.

Vital Post-Thanksgiving Poll: The Leftover Sandwich

2007-11-23T21:01:00.000-05:00

After Thanksgiving dinner a few of us were discussing that delicious post-holiday feast, the leftover sandwich. At first we were all, oh yeah, turkey bits on the bread, yum yum, etc. And then I offered, "Yeah, it's so great, right? Put some extra mashed potatoes on there --" "WHAT?"

Apparently I'd offended the sensibilities of the two men to either side of me. They insisted, "The bread would get all soggy!" "Uh, what?" "Do you use stale rolls then??"

I'm sorry, but what sorry excuse for Thanksgiving cuisine are you having that your mashed potatoes are so sloppy they'd make a roll soggy? And I thought it was just common sense -- the leftover sandwich is made of LEFTOVERS. Not some of the leftovers, but the sum total of leftovers. It's a Thanksgiving feast between two pieces of bread, not just fodder for your next plain jane turkey sandwich. You warm up the roll, which is not stale, slice it in half, then slather tiny portions of turkey (dark meat, please), mashed potato, stuffing, perhaps a green bean or two, and if you're into that kind of thing, some cranberry sauce. I also happen to like mine with a little bit of mayo -- that cliches into a sandwich. That's not gross, that's American. Ask my mom.

Failure. Success! Failure. Succe...er, failure.

2007-11-23T19:06:00.000-05:00

Here's the delicious turkey and fixins our friend/chef made for us yesterday, while I annoyingly took pictures of everyone and many of the dog. I can appreciate a little dog that just walks around looking cute, but doesn't yap or get under foot. I still could have done without the wiping-dog-ass conversation that we had over dinner though.

Today was Home Improvement Day #2. Nick came back from his Thanksgiving on the island to drive me to Home Depot and try to get a replacement window. This time I brought the broken window with me, hoping that the HD representative could just get me the same thing. It became clear about 5 minutes into the conversation that the window guy was an idiot, but even worse, HD didn't sell what I needed. Essentially I'm going to have to get the gates put on the house next week and just put some plastic over the inside, and special order the window.

The good news is that the rest of the windows snapped back into place relatively easy, so those are ready to be gated up. The final major task for today: new back door. I specifically asked the dude at HD if I had all the pieces to put in the door, and, as I expected, needed to finally buy an electric drill, which is a good investment anyway, along with a "nail set," which is like an awl. I specifically asked if I needed more nails or screws and he told me no. Well, let's just say it's a good thing I can reuse the ones on the current door, because that guy's an idiot.

Anyway, Nick and I went to town on the current door, which is a royal piece of shit, and proceeded to strip all our screwdrivers, rip off jams, and finally, realize how we were going to attach the door, in the dark, without unboarding the house, knowing that an iron gate was going to have to fit in the space as well. We brainstormed, and finally decided to leave it until the morning.

Then we came back to my house so he could examine the bike I bought on craigslist a few weeks ago. Surprise! The bike is a total piece of shit. The entire back hub needs to be replaced, meaning it's not ridable at all, and it *may* just be better, in the end, to buy a new bike than have it fixed, but I'm going to see how much it costs first. Oy.

Tomorrow I have another contractor coming by the house to do estimates on a few things I need done, and I realized that I could half one of the projects if I just take a screw to some shitty drywall the last guy put up. The more and more I look at the house, I realize how totally incompetent the last owner was. Wait, did I say that in my last post? Anyway, he was an idiot, and I'm going to have to fix every little detail he touched. Woot. Hopefully after the contractor leaves I can finish the door and toilet installation. I think we finally found the water on/off lever, so we'll give that a go, too.

Right now I need to go sew a button on my jacket. A regular handyperson I am!

Credit Card Advice

2007-11-20T20:02:00.001-05:00

I actually get to start some of the hard core financial dealings I wrote about in the last post real soon. As a condition of my house closing, I had to pay off a credit card -- actually, I would have had it paid off by now, but then I decided to buy a house, and my lender was pretty clear that for the time being I should not spend a cent of my hard cash, that included paying anything over minimums then. So paying off the card is kind of a bonus for me, instead of all my closing cash just going to fees and whatever (it has to do with the type of loan I got -- it includes a large government "gift").

So I am in the happy position of being, um, 1/3 debt free. Here's the thing: this isn't going to last long. Because I only get half my loan up front, I basically have to credit the other half until my house inspection is cleared.

The obvious:
1) Negotiate a lower rate on all three cards by threatening to move the funds and cancel the card.
2) Negotiate a low transfer rate and shift everything around.
3) Cancel one card and open a great, rewards, 0% for 12 months, etc, card.

Have any of you been in a similar situation? What did you do? I assume I'll do some combination of 1 + 2, but if I do 3...what card do I get? Do any of you have an awesome credit card (as far as credit cards go) that you'd recommend?

Furthermore, do any of you have any negotiating "tricks" when it comes to getting your percentages lower? Mine aren't too bad to begin with, so I'm hoping to not have too much trouble, but of course they won't give it up with out a fight.

Leave comments if you feel like spreading the joy to my millions of readers (or actually, the millions of people who've been googling "waive into DC bar" lately -- congrats 2007 CA bar passers!), or just shoot me an email at twotimingthecosmos[at]gmail[dot]com. Thanks!

This is my (really really long) awe-inspiring (for me) epiphany moment

2007-11-19T22:20:00.000-05:00

You'll certainly see this turning into the Home Improvement Cosmos over the next few months (years) as I get the new place fixed up, but something a little more under the radar that I've been working on for the past few months, and am making long terms plans for, is fixing my personal financial situation.

I found Get Rich Slowly after my friend Rebecca sent me a link to a gardening post he did, and I immediately got hooked on the blog. The writer is a pretty average joe (actually turns out to be one of Chai's friends!), so he's not doing crazy investing I wouldn't understand or couldn't afford, and he's not dealing with some totally fucked up credit situation and starting from square one.

So he's a lot like me: a fairly responsible person who wasn't born rich and acquired more debt than he'd like over his lifetime for some legitimate and some regrettably wasteful reasons. He's way ahead of me, and is about to become debt free for the first time when he gets his bonus over the holidays. (The only places we seem to differ are that he's married and seems to live in the suburbs -- I remember a long comment thread of people appalled at the mere thought of a $10 cocktail -- but for the most part it's irrelevant when it comes to his advice.)

I'm just starting out. If I'd put off buying a house, and dedicated myself to saving money the way I've been doing over the past six months, I could have been credit card debt free in about a year and a half, maybe two. But, I found the house I loved, and the equity I'm building along with the huge tax benefits I'll get (to wit: the $5000 credit I'll get next year) made me steer off course a little bit.

The major problem, however, is the massive amount of money I have to spend up front for this thing. I'm getting about $23,000 from my construction loan, but there is about $8000 in other work that needs to be done before or contemporaneously with the major projects. (Not to mention the kitchen and bathroom redos, which aren't necessary, so they'll have to wait awhile.) And of course I have to cut a $7000 check tomorrow, but I haven't actually received any of the loan yet! Gaaaaah.

The next six weeks are going to be about me manipulating my finances like Catherine Zeta-Jones robbing a laser protected bank. After this is over, after my house has passed inspection and I get the rest of my loan, after I refinance and start paying $600 less a month on my mortgage, I'm going to fully embrace personal finance reform, starting with opening a high interest online savings account ... which is something so unbelievably obvious I can't believe I had to read it on a blog to realize I should be doing it.

Then: I will "pay myself." Which is the concept of direct depositing your paycheck into your online savings account, from which you pay all your bills, and also from which you give yourself a small "allowance" that you deposit into your standard ATM wielding bank account (but assuring that you're paying over your minimums and/or keeping a substantial amount in your HI savings), and compromises the amount of money you're actually allowed to spend every pay period. It's kind of stupidly brilliant.

I'm actually getting pretty used to this very lo-fi lifestyle I've been living. Progresso soup for lunch everyday (at $2 a pop rather than the $7-10 I was spending every day)...I know I should be bringing my lunch, but one step at a time. I almost never eat out for dinner, instead make dishes that last 2-4 days with different formations of rice, pasta, stewed tomatoes, black beans, onions, jalapenos and cheese, with some turkey sandwiches to break up the monotony. When it gets cold I become a homebody anyway, so staying in and watching netflix (or like the past few weeks, working) is my status quo, and not spending $30-40 on beer or jack daniels or whatever. I haven't bought a piece of clothing since I hired on my realtor in August (even though I'd kill for some sweaters right now).

But you know what? Spending close to nothing (we'll ignore the $420 I dropped at Home Depot on Sunday) feels Really Really Good (the HD purchase gave me serious anxiety). It feels GREAT. I think way back when I just got used to having this stupid credit line, and didn't feel so bad using it because I was 1) in law school and was using it to buy groceries or 2) eventually started making good money and was paying more than my minimums, even though I'd still use them on occasion. Now the thought of hitting up the mall and dropping a hundred bucks on a new pair of pants actually, inexplicably, outweighs the satisfaction I'd get out of the new clothes. Being debt free eventually is such an exciting thought, it actually makes me even more happy I now have a big house to ramble around in, cook big meals, and practice my hobbies (gardening! writing! starting my own business! (yes, that's a "hobby" for now)), rather than sitting in a bar three nights a week drinking cheap beer. Not that I won't still do that on occassion, but man it's a huge money and time suck.

What I'm saying is that now that the House has pulled me screaming into Adulthood, maybe....I'm happy I'm here?

Don't worry, marriage and children still freak me out. One thing at a time people.

Weekend Warrior

2007-11-19T01:33:00.000-05:00

I spent my first fixer-up day at the house today. Lucky for me, Brian and his SUV volunteered to help me with some heavy lifting for the low, low price of a batch of chocolate chip, peanut butter chip, oatmeal cookies. We went to Home Depot and picked up far too much before I realized a huge chunk of my money is tied up at my title attorney's office until Monday or Tuesday, but I did get a new back door, two new toilets, front door locks, and an extraneous padlock that I forgot to buy the accompanying chain for.

So I finally got that moment that most people get during their closing, when the seller hands over the keys, except I ripped mine from a two-pack, super-plastic coated doorhandle package. We managed to get them on with only minor problems. The actual door handle is on upside down, ironic only because Brian had just finished telling me he'd done that in a former house of his, though a much lesser problem than when we forgot to add the tumblers the first time around. The prior owner revealed more of his incompetence today, as we realized the door and the deadbolt hole don't quite line up. (Also during my tour I realized that the kitchen cabinets are even worse than I'd first realized -- two lower cabinets close with a decent 1-2" gap!)

Side note -- I'm watching Flip That House and they just found out while cutting down a tree in the yard that the entire inside is filled with Africanized Bees (relatives of "killer" bees)...so, I think my project is looking up!

I also removed my first toilet evar! Thrilling. And, you know, pretty goopey. It was at this point I remembered I brought my camera to get some "before/after" pictures, but naturally ended up in its crosshairs sprawled underneath an old toilet, so, I'm still considering their upload potential. They'll probably make a good cover to the "Heather's Renovation" book when this is all over.

Bailamos!

2007-11-18T01:26:00.000-05:00

Oh lord. Dick Valentine can have my children. I just got back from my second Electric Six show at the Black Cat (and sober! amazing what going another 300K into debt will do to your consumption), and despite a few nitpicks, it totally rocked, again. Their new album with an impossibly long name actually had to grow on me a bit, unlike Switzerland, which is impossibly killer, but after a few or five run throughs I finally realized it was amazing, just kind of different than their usual style. They actually played Green Building tonight, which I consider their "slow" song, but it's kind of not when you're yelling it at the top of your lungs. Awesome.

Only complaint: That band is way too popular and they have too large a catalog to be playing such a short show, and "4 songs from each album" is not a good ratio, when it means you're not playing Slices of You or Infected Girls (!). I need my awkward moment where I'm dancing like crazy and want to sing along but instead spy around to see who's making up the Herpes Crew yelling, "Infected girls do it better!"

Regardless, my feet blissfully hurt, and even though going to these dance band shows means you often end up to some crazy person shoving their elbows into everyone, I'll be sticking up a reminder to look out for their next swing through DC.

Early xmas gifts

2007-11-16T23:38:00.000-05:00

So I closed on my house! It hasn't quite sunk in yet, but it's fun to say out loud. Oh and I did, many many times at wine happy hour I went to last night with my coworkers, 5 (6?) glasses of wine and one of champagne later (though apparently I'm a party pooper heading home after four hours at midnight, rather than the 4:30 am last call some other folks waited for. clearly I'm out of practice.) I had more surprises during the closing (the # underneath "Buyer Pays At Closing" changed, literally, three times while I was sitting at the table), and the seller, who was supposed to send their papers over for a 9am signing, kept us waiting until 5:29 and 59 seconds p.m. for them.

I think I've already got my first victim, er, friend, who is going to haul over to Home Depot with me to pick up some essentials (front door lock!) and do some pre-work before the contractors start their work. I've got my HVAC and flooring guys lined up and ready to roll, and it looks like -- if everything goes on schedule (you laughed, I heard it), the house will be move-in ready a few days before Christmas. I can't wait to unwrap it!

Don't be jealous, Mom

2007-11-13T22:12:00.000-05:00

Last time we had a little DCist arts staff happy hour, both the theater and classical music critics mentioned that sometimes they can't fill their +1 for the shows they review. It also came out that somehow I've never been to the Kennedy Center, and don't get out to non-visual arts shows enough, so maybe I should start taking advantage of these opportunities when they pop up.

Yesterday came the mother of all plus ones, and even though I'd been at the client's all day, doing my best to squeeze two days worth of work into one (and I did!), and had been up since the break of dawn, I said, "Yo-Yo Ma? Yo betcha!" Ah. Terrible. Sorry.

I found out the 80 bus picks up less than a block from my office and goes straight to the Kennedy Center, and even comes with the requisite crazy-ass babbling guy reeking so badly of liquor I could smell him across the bus. Can you believe that was my first time at the Kennedy Center? That was almost exciting enough in itself.

And the concert? Holy crap, it was so good. Yo-Yo is also crazy tall. No, he didn't play the Bach Suite in G Major, but it was amazing nonetheless. He has such visual enthusiasm and passion you almost expect him to stand up, swing the cello over his head and smash it into the band pit with a flourish after every song. I wrote a little naive "ride-along" paragraph for Charles' review, which should be on DCist tomorrow.

The only thing I still don't get? The crazy ass people who pay up the rear to sit on stage behind the featured musicians. So instead of being mesmerized by Yo-Yo's intense caressing of his cello's neck or Stott lifting her arms to launch them into the piano keys, I'm distracted by 80's mom in the shoulder padded Miami Vice jacket, or the twenty-something with the double D's who going to be real sorry in a decade that no one ever gave her a serious lesson in proper bra support.

I feel like I've been doing a little better and trying new things lately, big exciting things like Taking the Bus and Going to Virginia. And now I can add Going to Classical Music Concerts to that, and man, was that ever a way to start!

Okay, I need to go find myself a West Wing rerun.

More on Monkeys

2007-11-13T11:12:00.000-05:00

Remember when I nearly died by hand of the monkey in India?

I told you so.

Giblets

2007-11-11T13:13:00.001-05:00

Am I the only one in the world who doesn't find the traditional Thanksgiving dinner appetizing? I was watching Tyler's Ultimate yesterday, and he was making the "ultimate" Thanksgiving dinner, and I nearly couldn't get through the whole episode. There was the plain roasted turkey, fine, but then it got ugly. Frozen cranberries into a pan, which is nasty enough by itself without the 18 cups of sugar and orange zest, in a vain attempt to counteract the bitter awfulness of the berry that never quite goes away. Then he roasted some yams, which I admit I do love, but he roasted them with some bananas, seriously, and then mushed them all together into this smushy banana tainted yam dish.

I guess I just don't get it. Deli turkey is a staple of my diet, but let's be honest, roasted turkey, no matter how well seasoned it is in theory, is usually pretty dry and bland. That's why people smother it in gravy, but that would require liking gravy, which I very much don't. As a child I hated stuffing, I think because of the weird texture of soggy bread, but I've more or less come around on that issue, though I would still never think, "damn this dish would be So Good with some wet stale bread that smells like the inner cavity of a bird!" And seriously, what's with the giblet thing? My grandmother is a fan of turkey gizzards in stuffing. Heinous.

I actually haven't been home for Thanksgiving in about ten years, so I don't get the meal very often, which is probably another reason I don't crave it, and I should say my mom does a pretty good job of doing sort of alternative dishes for holidays. God knows marshmallow topping and green bean casserole have thankfully never come anywhere near our holiday menus. And she makes the best yams.

But seriously. I'll just have some chinese take-out.

Post Script:

2007-11-09T13:03:00.000-05:00

In case you were wondering after reading my last post, I am, in fact, the first person ever to buy a house.

Post Post Script:

Reason why the City Paper sucks giant hairy balls Number 248903 -- This morning I was forwarded an article titled something like "Contract Attorney Work Is Awful! Wah!" and I replied-all saying, "I'm having de ja vu. Didn't I get forwarded an article just like this by the CP a few months ago?" Turns out, not only did they publish a very similar whiny-ass article, but it was written by the exact same whiny-ass author; the only two articles he's written for them.

Let me ask you something. When did bitching about what a crap-hole career going to law school will get you become something you can get paid for? (Because hello? TTtC is a fucking GOLDMINE.) More importantly, when did it become something that anyone other than law grads care about? Listen, the fact that this asshole, much like many of us assholes who were stupid enough to get suckered into law school, can't get a decent job...does this interest anyone who isn't already experiencing it, enough to run some in-depth series on it? Is anyone else really concerned about the plight of law school grads? Are they going to start having telethons for us? Is Angelina Jolie going to adopt one of us?

Well, if the last one is true, I have a couple guy friends who say, Rock on City Paper, Rock on.

Seriously, what have I gotten myself into?

2007-11-08T20:08:00.000-05:00

Here's a recap of my afternoon:

Returned from the clients' office.

Called my lender to see what was up in the world of My Loan. She said the magical words, "your loan has been underwritten," which is lender-speak for YOU'RE MOTHEREFFING APPROVED TO BUY A HOUSE, YO.

Got an email from my realtor telling me closing as been set: Next Wednesday at 9am I'll be a homeowner.

Went to my performance review meeting, my first one ever, in life. It included words like "glowing" and "bonus."

Got back to my office, almost immediately reopened a link a friend sent me last week to my dream job.

Surveyed friends on the potential salary of said dream job.

Gave up idea of dream job. Wondered why life is so unfair.

Walked home and hoped the bitter cold would bring back my perspective.

It did.* I'm totally almost a mothereffing homeowner. HOMEOWNER. Holy crap.

*Perspective is knowing this house will, in five years, effectively undo the last six, leaving me willing and able to afford my dream job. I shall call it, The Eraser.

3 cars and 1 bike...

2007-11-07T21:33:00.000-05:00

...are how many vehicles I saw blatently charging through very red lights on my way home today. The bike was at 16th and U, an intersection where I'm regularly nearly mowed down every other day by idiot drivers, and clearly ridden by a guy who will happily welcome death with open arms when it inevitabely comes his way.

Sometimes I love DC just because it has so many conferences, and people I know are always coming to them, including one particular "Activist, Vegan, Law Student, Cyclist and Parent-to-Be," Jake. We've known each other for nearly three years, when he decided to go to law school and did a little search for law blogs and found the Cosmos. But like most storybook internet friendships, we'd never met in person. So I was happy to find out he's just as interesting and funny as he is on the internets. We got a cup of joe at Busboys and Poets and discussed the usual: how not to freak out during the bar exam, knitting, what gear to buy as a budding cyclist, and how in the world anyone could give up cheese.

So, here's a little pointless story that Jake, as well as my space nerd friends might enjoy. The team I'm working with right now had to run a big training session today, so we ordered sandwiches from our in-house catering for lunch in a conference room during break. We had too much food, so we called some people up to grab the extra, and when this one paralegal arrived, someone said, "Oh, I think there's only meat sandwiches left." Assuming she was like most vegetarians I know, and actually a pescatarian, I asked if she wanted the tuna. She replied, "Oh yeah, I'm not a vegan!" Heh. Except she pronounced it like "vay-gan," like she was proclaiming the fact she wasn't part of an eons-old communication system meant to tell us none of us are alone in Pensacola.

This is precisely why I haven't really blogged about the house buying situation...

2007-11-05T22:30:00.000-05:00

Because guess what? It's fine! Oh it's all fine. It was just another sheer moment of panic followed by a legitmate explanation. One of hundreds, and no one needed to read about my daily panic attacks. My lenders knew it was a mistake, and there was actually a reason for it, but I won't go into the zany details. Short story: we're good to go. I still had a few more forms to turn in today, if a "few" means around 50, literally, but I got 'em all signed and to the lender.

I actually had a very exciting moment today: I got to show off the house for the first time! Kristy was still in town for her conference, and she wanted to go see the place that's made be go through such craziness, so we met at the Columbia Heights metro, walked down to the house (for my first time at night) with a little flashlight, since there's only one working bulb in the place; I put in the little realtor's code, and voila! She was so excited about it, it just made me happy. In fact she was probably the perfect person to show, because we always joked she should start an "idea" store, since she's always had these great visions of some fantastic invention, some thing the People need (though perhaps not always the follow through), and it was awesome hearing her say what great bones the house had and how great it was going to look when it was all put together. And it will! I'm pumped. So far I'm still on track to close this week. I want to buy a bottle of champagne, but not yet, not yet my friends!

Afterwards, we tried out that new wine bar next to Solly's, Vinoteca. Pretty good, and it was definitely hopping like crazy for a Monday night, in fact, a band was setting up as we were leaving around 10pm. They definitely have some kinks to work out, as we waited a very long time for our wine, since they ran out of glasses, but it seems like a really cute place to go for a little classy night out. The menu had lots of cheeses you can order mix-and-match to make your own plate, along with some meats, delicious soups and other tasty items. Of course, we're super classy and had just come from Ben's, so we didn't actually eat anything. Liquid cheese from a tub is good enough for us.

Sigh...

2007-11-04T20:35:00.001-05:00

One of the reasons I haven't blogged much in the past month is because a lot of this house stuff is incredibly complicated and it's often a roller coaster of emotions within the span of a day on the same issue. I'm applying for an unusual loan and it's a new thing for my primary loan officer (who's since really just become my primary contact, while other people are taking care of the loan). We've often both been very confused and misunderstood key points, becoming desparate when it seemed we had to bend over backward, only to find out everything was actually fine.

On Friday I got a big FedEx packet from my lender, which is strange because they didn't tell me they were sending anything, and I also got it a few days late because they sent it to the wrong address. At first I was like, okay, here's where the heinious paperwork comes in; it's all these voluminous disclosure papers and what not, most of it pretty standard.

Then I read the cover letter a little more closely and read that I needed to provide some more documentation (you have no idea how much of my financial life I've documented in the last few months), and most of them are easy enough -- apparently they want to know why I deposit $1000 at the top of every month from a personal check (it's my roommate's rent), etc.

Then I read this, "Provide evidence that your Salle Mae student loan payments total $150 per month (total)." Seriously, that's what it said. I hope you all cringed as violently as I did when you read that. $150? I wish!! Inside the packet is a list of all my debts, presumably from my credit report, along with the payments per month and how many months it would take to pay them all off. And it says I owe Sallie $20K with payments of $151 a month. You people all know I went to law school right? And I didn't just go for a semester? Fuck, if my loan payments were $150 a month I'd build my own effing house from the ground up.

So I emailed my lender just now asking if, when they discover the real number (3x that), I'm going to be totally, inexorably, screwed.

A little awesomer -- because this has consumed my life and I talk and blog about it, everyone I know kind of associates me with house buying; it's the first thing everyone asks when I run into them (case in point: yesterday at the galleries I was asked at least 4 times, so my poor companion knows the story verbatim by now). So how totally awesome would it be if I went through this for 4 grueling months only to get the rug pulled out from me in the 11th hour. I'm gonna have to think about drafting some mass email to everyone along the embarassing lines of, "So, yeah, I got stood up at the alter."

I'm trying not to freak out just yet, because this isn't the only "omg I'm screwed" moment I've experienced thus far, but...this one seems like a particularly big one.

Post Script: I just tried logging into Sallie Mae to check the real total I owe, and I tried everything, the correct ID and password, then SS number, then my account number, and kept getting the same error, "Account does not exist." So...maybe I don't actually owe them anything?? Woot! Fucking Sallie Mae.

Update!

2007-11-03T18:30:00.000-04:00

So the bag throwing and heavy ~~lifting~~ dropping down the front stairs has continued for the last few hours and expanded to include at least 3 men. Dare I say it? Is at least one of them moving out??

So here's the thing...

2007-11-03T15:00:00.000-04:00

I've been a little busy lately. Craziness with the house has continued, and due to time constraints we had to push the closing back -- I was supposed to sign the papers last Wednesday. The type of loan I'm getting usually takes at least a month to work out, but I had, oh, about 8 or 9 days. But it does look like I've been approved for the loan semi-officially and it's really just an issue of me being patient while the red tape gets cut. We hope to close sometime next week.

I also found a flooring guy who comes highly recommended quality-wise, gave me a spectacular price, and so far is the only one who said he can salvage an entire floor worth of the original Georgia Pine. Biggest decision I hope to have to make: light or dark stain??

So let's see, what else is going on. Oh, I went out last night, during the "All Hands On Deck" weekend for the police, and it was seriously cop-olooza out there. It was almost like we were actually living in some kind of urban something-or-other. It started with two police cars going lights and sirens down my block as I walked out the door, then saw two more cars in the next two blocks, then as I walked by guys who are usually loitering outside the creepy mercado on 14th near W, thinking from afar there were a lot more than usually, I realized there were actaully about 4 cops doing a little search and seize with the dudes up against the storefront wall. As I continued down to Rhode Island, ten or 13 coppers later, I passed that one block of projects and saw a huge Escalade stopped in the middle of the side street, headlights blazing onto 14th Street and a huge gang of dudes, one of whom was yelling, "Look! I brought 300! I brought 300!" and another guy growling, "It's two thousand, bitch. You better get the rest." And suddenly I regretted leaving my kevlar at home as I passed by about 10 feet from them, staring intently at the sidewalk. Heh. Good times. It's okay, that delicious medium rare chedder burger at Dakota Cowgirl was totally worth risking my life for.

What else... Is it wrong that when my friend told me he laid down his motorcycle this weekend with a passenger, that (after I found out everyone involved was just fine) my first reaction actually was, "Wait. You finally got a spare helmet? When are you coming to pick me up??"

I've got a couple of friends visiting DC this weekend, including Kristy, who I will probably drag to some art galleries tonight, and soon-to-be-daddy Jake, who I've actually never met in person, even though I've "known" him for about three years now. Hooray blog friends!

Ugh, the boys upstairs, as if stomping on the floor like pacing gorillas 24 hours a day isn't enough, are now throwing full garbage bags down the stairs in front of my door. So far there's 6 or 7. Yeesh. I can't wait to get out of the shared building scenario.

Okay, I've got loan papers to fill out, letters to write, and netflix movies to catch up on. Maybe if y'all are lucky (lucky!) I'll update this blog again before the first snowflakes fall.

Hello other grown ups. I'm here!

2007-10-05T19:12:00.000-04:00

I just bought my first freaking house. Well, that's not quite true, I'm under contract, and a billion things could still happen between now and closing at the end of October.

I'm still wigging out a little. Today was a mess. I got the counter-offer from the bank around 1pm...except it wasn't a counteroffer, so much as it was "We reject your counteroffer, but reopen our last offer." Actually, that was exactly the price point I wanted to buy the house at, it was just not as much as I wanted in seller's closing fees, but the bank has some kind of policy about not offering more than 3%. At the same time, a second offer was placed on the house this morning, so no more dilly-dallying -- time to act. I decided I would have to bite the bullet and come to closing with some dough. I've got a little bit saved, the only real issue is that -- remember -- this is a fixer-upper; I'm going to need every penny I have to get it liveable.

I still have some options for mortgages, one includes an awesome, but iffy-if-I-qualify, construction loan, that would give me ten to twenty thousand right away to gut that bitch in a month or two. If I can get it, I won't have to do anything between now and closing, and it won't have to pass inspection. But if I go with a standard mortgage, I'll have a list of things to check off to make it "habitable" and qualify for that kind of loan. Windows, floors, kitchen appliances. Lots of $$ out of pocket. I'm definitely at the base of a limb and need to make sure I don't walk too far out, but all investments are a risk, and I think this is a good risk.

Other things to do:
1) Buy a bike! My commute is going to increase about a mile; too far to walk.
2) Get wireless in the new house ASAP so, ahem, certain freelance bloggers can housesit while construction workers tear the place apart.
3) Go on a pb&j only diet, stop drinking, and stop buying ANYTHING AT ALL that's not house related.
4) Plan a housecooling party for the ol' apartment? Doesn't work with with #3.

Well whatever. WOO!

house update

2007-10-04T22:08:00.000-04:00

I know it's been awhile since I've written about the house. It's some pretty hardcore nonsense over here. We are officially in negotiations, and we may even be to the point were this time tomorrow I could be in contract (whoa), but the ridiculousness that has preceded this point has pretty much worn me out. About two weeks ago, when we thought we were never going to hear back form the bank, my realtor took me out to see more houses. Talk about depressing; I couldn't even think about it. If this falls through, me and these house-buying business are going to have a trial separation.

If explaining all the crazy types of mortgages I've been written through weren't boring as hell, I could fell blog pages with it. But! There will be updates tomorrow. There might be some frantic stove-buying on craigslist in my near future.

Update: Oh! And if I get the house -- my first home improvement project? Hell yes!

megloheroical

2007-10-02T09:13:00.000-04:00

Okay, Peter, I can believe that you somehow showed up after your nuclear exploding episode with pants on. You must have been somewhere first in order for to get chained up in that shipping container, so sure, they gave you some pants (and no shirt, thanks!). Or at least, we all grew up with the FCC, so we can suspend belief long enough to ignore the fact your pants magically appeared during your freefall from space.

But I don't -- I do not believe that your Capital One Mastercard survived the fiery explosion. Okay? Okay. Someone better explain that you left them all on your dresser the day you went to fight Sylar.

TTtC: Fountain of Knowledge? Or Just Another Blog Sinkhole of Useless Facts?

2007-09-30T19:10:00.000-04:00

Via my sitemeter, I just found this advice column that links to me and my struggles waiving into the DC bar. Crazy.