Big Post about Big Stuff
May. 15th, 2006 01:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grinninfooleI’m cheating a little bit on one of my new self-commitments, but only a little bit, in posting this. If I don’t, I may never post anything about the many important changes going on in my life.
As I type this, Millari is at the desktop dinosaur, balancing our accounts in Quicken. A marvelous idea, one that I should have done years ago, but since I didn’t need to, I never bothered. Now that we have a house together, it’s a different story, so data entry and reconciliation have been a part of our day today. I keep feeling like Bernard from Black Books, with crumpled receipts in his pockets.
So, where to begin?
On April 7 of this year, I completed my 36th year of existence on earth. I also bought a house withmillari—as in, we signed the papers and handed over huge goddamn checks on my birthday. People have been congratulating me, and it is, indeed, cool. But, it’s also more than $100,000 worth of debt.
The process of searching for and then buying a home was a new one, of course, and had some moments of stress as I paused to consider the ramifications, and hazards, of such a commitment for me and for Millari and I as a team. Some moments that come to mind:
*Sitting in the bank with the loan officer, reading carefully through all the legal boilerplate and insurance lingo, pondering the finer points of interest rates and such, and realizing that, earlier in my life, I would have found it incredibly tedious, but now it was fascinating. I have, somewhere, turned into a grown-up. Het bevaalt me.
*Discussing merging our finances with Millari. It seemed a logical thing to do, (though I do feel a bit of a leech, since she makes quite a bit more than I do—were it not for the remnants of a sizeable inheritance, I would be quite destitute) given that we own a house together, but figuring out how it will work reminds me of just how hard it is to really make deals work, even when there are only two people involved who really want it to work. We’re still in the process, and it’s been a month since we first broached the subject.
*Realizing that I will have a mortgage payment due every month until the day I turn 66.
*The first evening I was alone in the house and cooking, while the kitchen was still a work in progress, I turned on the radio to I don’t know what station, which proceeds to start playing, almost from the beginning, Midnight In A Perfect World by DJ Shadow. Coincidence, of course, but a good omen, nonetheless.
*Thinking about what to do with all the rooms in the house and realizing that with two bedrooms we can have a study/guest room right now, and that we could turn it into a child’s room if we have kids.
*As has always been the case, but as the labor of finishing the MA reminded me, actually doing something never feels as I think it will, or as it seems that it should, and that the end can sneak up abruptly, no matter how diligent one is. And, to be fair, both Millari and I were really good about taking care of all sorts of details and chains of responsibilities relating to: finding a house (kudos to M for taking the lead on tracking house listings, checking the paper and online, etc.); hiring a buyer’s agent, home inspector, and lawyer; shopping for mortgage; keeping up on bills and payments due and informing our old landlords as things progressed (yay me); organizing the move, including shipping off a proverbial mountain (and actual hillock) of stuff dumped in our basement by a friend who moved away two years ago (thank Christ they at least have reimbursed shipping costs—Millari do yeoman’s work taking care of that shit); cleaning up our former home (thanks tosphinxvictorian & cirrussundog for timely help) quickly so that it could be shown to new tenants; and unpacking and setting up the new home (Millari’s scheme of sticking all the boxes in our capacious basement and not living in clutter has been inspired).
This last point, that actually doing things is messier than imagining them but often more satisfying, has been one to which I have clung since we have moved. It has been, for far too long, far too easy for me to do nothing, and think how nice it would be if I did something, than just to do something, however messy it would actually be.
This has motivated me (and us) in two important ways. First, Millari and I have decided that we don’t want to dawdle any more, and we are getting married on July 2, right here in our own house. We don’t want to wait around any longer, and while this does create some time crunches for us, it’s a way for us to do what we want, the way we want it. It has meant giving up on some notions I have long fostered about my wedding, but it’s better to do it and move on, than to keep waiting and never get around to it. Besides, like the house purchase, it will be cheap and within our means, which means it will be on our terms, which is very satisfying.
Second, I have thought of, and at least thought that I wanted, to write a book, for, off and on, perhaps the past 18 years. While there are many other things that I can, and should, do, I have decided to make time to write seriously. Thus, between now and Halloween, I shall write a book. What sort of book, and what it will be about, I’m still not sure—I have only been working on it for two weeks. Following a piece of advice from my friend J, I have been writing at least 500 words every day. Today, it’s late, and I don’t want to stay up too late, so I’m counting this post (1,023 words as of HERE) as my writing for today. As I said at the top, it’s slightly cheating, but not entirely, since it is reinforcing the habit of writing thoughtfully, which is one of the objectives. (I was gratified that my friend Rob Shearman, who wrote the Dalek episode of the new Dr. Who series, praised me for being so disciplined. It was him being nice (because he’s so nice he makes Neil Gaiman look like Dick Cheney), but it wasn’t BS, either. I’m so glad he’s coming to the wedding.)
As I posted briefly a few days ago, it’s harder than I had breezily projected before I began, and while I have a multitude of ideas, getting them to sit still long enough to be turned into words on the page is difficult, and the words are often not as good as I wish they were. Still, I am writing, and ideas are slowly cohering, and someday I’ll have a book. And then I’ll try to publish it, and we’ll see where that goes.
And, in the mean time, I continue to work part time at the store, business continues to go well, and I’m quite content.
As I type this, Millari is at the desktop dinosaur, balancing our accounts in Quicken. A marvelous idea, one that I should have done years ago, but since I didn’t need to, I never bothered. Now that we have a house together, it’s a different story, so data entry and reconciliation have been a part of our day today. I keep feeling like Bernard from Black Books, with crumpled receipts in his pockets.
So, where to begin?
On April 7 of this year, I completed my 36th year of existence on earth. I also bought a house with
millari—as in, we signed the papers and handed over huge goddamn checks on my birthday. People have been congratulating me, and it is, indeed, cool. But, it’s also more than $100,000 worth of debt. The process of searching for and then buying a home was a new one, of course, and had some moments of stress as I paused to consider the ramifications, and hazards, of such a commitment for me and for Millari and I as a team. Some moments that come to mind:
*Sitting in the bank with the loan officer, reading carefully through all the legal boilerplate and insurance lingo, pondering the finer points of interest rates and such, and realizing that, earlier in my life, I would have found it incredibly tedious, but now it was fascinating. I have, somewhere, turned into a grown-up. Het bevaalt me.
*Discussing merging our finances with Millari. It seemed a logical thing to do, (though I do feel a bit of a leech, since she makes quite a bit more than I do—were it not for the remnants of a sizeable inheritance, I would be quite destitute) given that we own a house together, but figuring out how it will work reminds me of just how hard it is to really make deals work, even when there are only two people involved who really want it to work. We’re still in the process, and it’s been a month since we first broached the subject.
*Realizing that I will have a mortgage payment due every month until the day I turn 66.
*The first evening I was alone in the house and cooking, while the kitchen was still a work in progress, I turned on the radio to I don’t know what station, which proceeds to start playing, almost from the beginning, Midnight In A Perfect World by DJ Shadow. Coincidence, of course, but a good omen, nonetheless.
*Thinking about what to do with all the rooms in the house and realizing that with two bedrooms we can have a study/guest room right now, and that we could turn it into a child’s room if we have kids.
*As has always been the case, but as the labor of finishing the MA reminded me, actually doing something never feels as I think it will, or as it seems that it should, and that the end can sneak up abruptly, no matter how diligent one is. And, to be fair, both Millari and I were really good about taking care of all sorts of details and chains of responsibilities relating to: finding a house (kudos to M for taking the lead on tracking house listings, checking the paper and online, etc.); hiring a buyer’s agent, home inspector, and lawyer; shopping for mortgage; keeping up on bills and payments due and informing our old landlords as things progressed (yay me); organizing the move, including shipping off a proverbial mountain (and actual hillock) of stuff dumped in our basement by a friend who moved away two years ago (thank Christ they at least have reimbursed shipping costs—Millari do yeoman’s work taking care of that shit); cleaning up our former home (thanks to
sphinxvictorian & cirrussundog for timely help) quickly so that it could be shown to new tenants; and unpacking and setting up the new home (Millari’s scheme of sticking all the boxes in our capacious basement and not living in clutter has been inspired).This last point, that actually doing things is messier than imagining them but often more satisfying, has been one to which I have clung since we have moved. It has been, for far too long, far too easy for me to do nothing, and think how nice it would be if I did something, than just to do something, however messy it would actually be.
This has motivated me (and us) in two important ways. First, Millari and I have decided that we don’t want to dawdle any more, and we are getting married on July 2, right here in our own house. We don’t want to wait around any longer, and while this does create some time crunches for us, it’s a way for us to do what we want, the way we want it. It has meant giving up on some notions I have long fostered about my wedding, but it’s better to do it and move on, than to keep waiting and never get around to it. Besides, like the house purchase, it will be cheap and within our means, which means it will be on our terms, which is very satisfying.
Second, I have thought of, and at least thought that I wanted, to write a book, for, off and on, perhaps the past 18 years. While there are many other things that I can, and should, do, I have decided to make time to write seriously. Thus, between now and Halloween, I shall write a book. What sort of book, and what it will be about, I’m still not sure—I have only been working on it for two weeks. Following a piece of advice from my friend J, I have been writing at least 500 words every day. Today, it’s late, and I don’t want to stay up too late, so I’m counting this post (1,023 words as of HERE) as my writing for today. As I said at the top, it’s slightly cheating, but not entirely, since it is reinforcing the habit of writing thoughtfully, which is one of the objectives. (I was gratified that my friend Rob Shearman, who wrote the Dalek episode of the new Dr. Who series, praised me for being so disciplined. It was him being nice (because he’s so nice he makes Neil Gaiman look like Dick Cheney), but it wasn’t BS, either. I’m so glad he’s coming to the wedding.)
As I posted briefly a few days ago, it’s harder than I had breezily projected before I began, and while I have a multitude of ideas, getting them to sit still long enough to be turned into words on the page is difficult, and the words are often not as good as I wish they were. Still, I am writing, and ideas are slowly cohering, and someday I’ll have a book. And then I’ll try to publish it, and we’ll see where that goes.
And, in the mean time, I continue to work part time at the store, business continues to go well, and I’m quite content.
