Category: THE NARCISSATORIUM

October 16, 2012

it snores

Should I just cut off his head? I only use it on holidays. It sounds like he’s dying anyway.

I can’t remember if I told you guys I was recently diagnosed with ADD. It’s good news because it explains a lot traits I’ve always beaten myself up over or just perplexed me. Finding church sermons and school lectures impossible to really listen too. Not finishing things. And insomnia.

Right now I’m sitting in the bathroom wondering if I’m typing too loud because my fantastic, lost Robertson brother-in-law is here working on the new house and sleeping in the living room. The bathrooms are the only rooms without sleeping people in them, so I don’t get my 3 hour wind down time I’ve come to learn is part of ADD. I just figured that out and find it funny.

October 13, 2012

Are you still there? It’s me, Jenny

We finally got the keys to the new house. Buying a foreclosure through HUD saved us a ton of money, but everything ran on government time. The most frustrating part was the title company. Apparently, HUD has a contract with one title company for the entire state of Washington, and they are absolutely horrible. I won’t bore you with the detail… just something to know if you ever decide to go that way. There was delay after delay for no reason other than the desk jockey across the state being a ninny. If we would have say… been in a rental and needed to be out by a certain day we would have had serious problems.

It all worked out. We have a ton of work to do on the house before we can move in. I’m glad I didn’t get the job I interviewed for the day we sold our old house because this thing will be a full time job until the holidays. It’s been vacant for a long time, but it doesn’t smell that way. Because someone’s been in there just peeing on the carpet constantly. However, I do take comfort in the knowledge that no one’s been murdered there because that would make the house smell better. This afternoon I also started to notice a chili powder aroma wafting from the main bath. I wonder what demon smells of chili powder.

So far I’ve gotten 4 cans of ceiling paint applied to some ceilings in the last 2 days, removed the fronts and drawers from the cabinets, lightly sanded said cabinet boxes and started painting them. Of course we closed an hour before the kids started a 3 days weekend followed by a week of half days for conferences. I finally got a dvd situation set up for them today. (So, what do you think of my white girl problems so far?)

Thank God for our buyer’s agent. She really guided us through all the shenanigans the last 15 months and gave us a nice housewarming basket which included the dinner leftovers I’m eating now.

As you can now tell, I haven’t been posting because I’m boring as hell.

September 23, 2012

update 9/24/12

The sale of our last home officially closed. 15 months and ten years worth of lost equity, but I really think we’ll be able to build some of it back up with this house. We could close on that as early as Tuesday, definitely within the week… I hope.

I have two storage units full of cheap but good furniture to restore that I’ve picked up over the last year. I’m trying to take pictures of everything I do to post here.

Our community is still dealing with fires. We’ve lost one firefighter, but no other life or property. The smoke is bad and we’ll be dealing with it to some extent until it snows I believe. Our school district hasn’t closed school and a monster mommy war erupted over it. Embarrassing.

My earworm of the week is The Head and The Heart’s Down in the Valley, probably because these fires have reminded me how fortunate I am to live where I do, the people and locale. It’s comforting and sometimes painful to be surrounded by people who’ve known me for a long, long time again, but I’m more at peace and feel more like myself than I have in years.

I’m also enjoying the new Dylan. New Mumford and Sons is coming out very soon too!

September 13, 2012

my world is literally on fire

Photo by high school classmate/photographer Jodi Stehr. I believe taken from her house. Like her FB page: http://www.facebook.com/stehrstepsphotography

A lightning storm Saturday night started a slew of brush and wildfires in Central Washington. The midwest has tornadoes, the coast has hurricanes and we have fires; it’s part of living here.

But the only time I remember them being this close to town was the one that burned my sister’s home and twenty others to the ground two decades ago. That one was started by some kids playing with matches in the foothills behind her house on a very windy day. My sister and two youngest nieces barely got out with their lives as the fire barreled down the hill and erupted as embers hit covenant required cedar shake roofs. I’ll never forget walking in my mom’s house to find my then 2-year-old niece obliviously playing by the fireplace and safe (aqua t-shirt, diaper, flaming red hair), my sister knowing for sure their house was gone when she called and didn’t get a dial tone and getting to see me genius brother-in-law pull the diamond from her ring out of the rubble.

I still shudder to think of how close we came to losing them. We’re so grateful no one lost their lives, and yes, it’s just stuff. But the tragedy of losing the home you’ve built, physically and figuratively is indeed traumatic and life-altering.

I’m always amazed at how rarely we lose life and property. In this case there’s warning, so everyone who needs to evacuate is ready to go at this point. So far we’ve lost a barn, but hundreds of homes remain in danger and there are fires which haven’t even been responded to yet.

We live in a pretty great community. Individuals are reaching out to help the displaced and businesses are comping the fire crews and evacuees, including a yoga studio and, most importantly, a downtown pub.

It’s smoky, especially since the winds died down a few days ago. It’s not healthy, but I guess I prefer it to weather that would fuel the fire even more. Not everyone sees it that way, but our entire region is on fire and we’ve lost a barn. I’m stoked… so to speak.

September 4, 2012

checkin’ in

Our house finally sold, and we’re buying a foreclosure to hopefully make up some of our lost equity. And by “lost equity” I mean all of our equity. The place needs a lot of work, so I’ll be busy this winter fixing that house and repairing what we’ve done to my mother’s house.

Making our home safe from and for Jack has always been a challenge, so as I’m doing this I’ll try to share what solutions work and which ones don’t for setting up and running a household with an autistic child.

Home renovation is also a hobby of mine, and I have an almost religious belief in decorating your house according to the era it was built. This is a 1977 split level, and yes, I do consider that a classic home. By the way, it doesn’t just have popcorn ceilings; they popcorned the whole soffet in the kitchen, and popcorned it shall stay.

In the meantime, here’s my current earworm:

May 28, 2012

memorial burgers

My dad missed WWII by a few weeks. He early enlisted in the Navy, so he wouldn’t get drafted into the Army and have to sleep in the dirt. At least that’s what he used to say. A few years before he died something about Normandy came on the TV. He was visibly shaken, pissed and said something to the effect of, “they just threw those boys off the boat.”

I’m not interested in arguing about whether he was right or wrong, but that was the moment it finally got through my head, as much as it can, that this shit isn’t a story from an old book or movie. Real lives… thousands and thousands and thousands of them. My dad’s reaction was because they were his peers and his friends, and in recent wars they volunteered.

Most of us “honor” them by changing our profile pics – maybe a parade, then we eat and go to white sales or watch war movies on AMC and congratulate each other for it. Most of us are pussies.

May 6, 2012

zen and the art of being more like adam yauch

I still can’t settle on a headline capitalization policy.

It’s 11:45. Between the supermoon and our city’s version of Mardi Gras I ain’t sleepin’. My brother-in-law is in town helping remodel my mother’s bathroom, so every room in the house with upholstered seating has a slumbering human in it. I’m holed up in the half bath, wide awake and worried about loud typing. The woman who was literally howling for four hours straight finally quit as Vlad’s creepy snoring started up.

Jenny is so awake.

Earlier, I read this Adam Yauch profile at The Awl. Turns out Dave Bry has what it takes to win a round of Six Degrees of MCA. He talks about Yauch’s gracefulness in accepting his cancer diagnosis. I’m not surprised. My rudimentary knowledge of Buddhism tells me they believe in rebirth and that human life in itself is suffering.

What I found more notable was Yauch’s ease in regards to his own growth as a human being. The Beastie Boys I invoked in yesterday’s post were superficial party boys without much regard for respecting people or thinking too deeply about much of anything. Yauch was all in, yet we watched him mature to be a man of impeccable integrity. Bry remarks that Yauch was open, honest, at peace and very matter of fact about his past. Another tenet of Buddhism is not dwelling on the past. I assume this attitude of his that I envy…

There’s movement. I’m definitely typing too loud. Oh, faster makes it worse. Switching bathrooms. I’m back.

is due to his faith. I don’t dwell on the past, but I also find the cliche about not regretting your mistakes because they made you who you are today complete and utter bullshit. I’ve done things that have really hurt people in ways I’ll never make amends for. We all have. It is what it is, but it’s not okay. It’s not worth it, and I find any other sentiment offensive. It’s self-centered. These things don’t define me or effect my life in any meaningful way, but they will always bug me. they eat at me a little, and I don’t know that I want to be the kind of person not bugged by these things.

But Yauch seemed to accept himself, almost compartmentalized it. That would come in pretty handy. It’s odd how in many other areas of my life I find compartmentalizing a little too easy.

That’s it. No neat conclusion this time. Just needed to get those sheep counted.

This Rolling Stone interview from 1998 addresses Yauch’s journey to Buddhism and what it meant to him.

Update: “You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.”
? Saul Bellow

That’s the only reason this piece of crap is still here. Blame it on the big emo supermoon.

May 4, 2012

RIP MCA: a beautiful contradiction

It’s one of those things you always remember. Where you were when you first heard/fell in love with the Beastie Boys. For me it was at a kickball game in East Moline, Illinois in what must have been 1987. I know it was fifth grade because of who was there. License to Ill, specifically Brass Monkey. I picked up a new copy a few months ago, and we had no business listening to that. It’s gloriously vulgar, yet innocent, like adolescent boys with makeshift dry bars and panty-related agendas tend to be.

There aren’t many non-people things I’ve held on to consistently since then. Perhaps unconditional love for the Chicago Cubs (shut up) and the midwest. For most of my generation the Beastie Boys were responsible for a huge part of the soundtrack of our youth. As grown as we get cranking License to Ill, Paul’s Boutique or Check Your Head can, for a moment, take us back to an unincumbered, debaucherous and oddly innocent time, despite knowing the music was made by three pretty deep and thoughtful guys. Maybe that’s what makes it ok.

Today we lost Adam Yauch, MCA, to cancer at age 47. A beautiful contradiction. He leaves behind a wife, teenage daughter, his good works and an abbreviated lifetime of art that will continue to challenge us and provide us a reprieve from our adult woes.

crossposted at The Hunter S. Thompson Memorial Menstrual Shed and Champagne Room

May 3, 2012

GOT A HEAD FULL OF IDEAS THAT ARE DRIVING ME INSANE

I’m hopelessly blocked.

Going on a Dylan bender.

April 22, 2012

WHAT HER PROBLEM IS…

I’m not posting much because I’m busy throwing myself an epic pity party. I’m depressed over legit stuff, which our society currently seems to have less patience for than people who are clinically depressed over imaginary stuff or circumstances they created for themselves. Two years ago I asked God for a way to prevent something like this. He started answering then went out for a pack of cigarettes or something.

I’m sure He has a plan. I think it will be over soon. I’ve been through times like this before and the nervous breakdown usually comes right before the resolution, but right now I can’t seem to focus… on anything. I’ve tried to just snap out of it, and I can’t. I’m doing my best to not spread whatever this is, but I’m not doing very well. Then I feel like an asshole for that. I’m really sorry about what anyone who shares physical space with me right now is dealing with.

I miss my dad. I think if he was here he’d tell me to get my ass out of bed and be nice to my mother, but I don’t think he’d try to convince I shouldn’t be pissed or hurt or frustrated about the things I’m pissed and hurt and frustrated about.

I haven’t lost my faith, but it’s hanging by a thread. It might sound strange, but what doesn’t help is being reminded that God is in control of this, regardless of what the truth is. I can’t praise God in this storm. I know I should, but I can’t. I’m forcing myself to go through the motions of being a Christian, but I need to be allowed to not think about God while in this frame of mind, which comes and goes. It makes things worse. It makes me angry with Him, even though intellectually I understand he isn’t doing or allowing these things just to screw with me, but it feels that way and fighting that is exhausting.

P.S.

Also on the list of things I’d rather not discuss are any election, a handful of naughty secret service agents and whether or not a white guy killed a black guy because he’s black especially when said white guy isn’t that white.

Housekeeping note: I guess sometimes if people are subscribed to comments they get emails about comments in moderation, including retweets. I shut off that function, but it didn’t seem to take. Anyway, I’m working on it. Sorry.