Monthly Archives: May 2005

not for the faint-hearted

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Well, the light is peeking through every once in a while at the end of the tunnel.

I got new linoleum in the kitchen and bathrooms today. Sure looks different. The condo is slowly losing it’s 70’s funk.

I’m very very close to finishing now..Soon we’ll be able to show the place. I’m looking forward to setting everything up all pretty like a model house. It will be like I don’t even live here.

I already unpacked my dresser and put it all in a suitcase. I have to make the bedroom look large and spacious, so my dresser goes into storage. CHRIS’s dresser stays because HIS dresser came from his grandparents who probably bought it somewhere expensive in Wisconson. MY dresser came from a garage sale and cost 40 bucks.

but the bedroom looks pretty good now.

Now there is most just the little things. I am dearly hoping this whole thing will be over soon…Soon SOon SOON. please…

Not much longer, I know that.

When I go out to my balcony, I tell my plants that they will soon have full free dirt to spread their roots it. They seems to look forward to it too.

scraping the bottom

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Let’s just say, I don’t want to pursue a career in home painting

WOW.

I have NEVER been so consistently tired. It’s been several..How many? I don’t remember…weeks that I’ve been working on making my condo beautiful.

I’ve never had a baby, but I suspect that just after having a baby feels a lot like how I feel now…

I usually am a morning person. I usually wake up with all kinds of plans about what I will get done on that very day. Not right now. I have plans, but they are not cheerful.

It is better now that Chris is back from New York…His trip was very successful, which I am glad about. And even though he is neck deep in his preparations for his trip to Germany next monday, it is still great just to have him around.

I know that this is a good thing to do, that it will pay off, but BANG it’s tough.

Therefore, I apologize for the lack of content on my website.

life is full of changes

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So…We have a new plan.

Everyone knows that the real estate market in America has shot upwards, for all kinds of reasons.

And I seem to have lucked out on my purchase of a condo here in the middle of LA. It was something of a fixer upper to begin with, but even so I almost didn’t buy it.

See, Chris and I were getting more and more serious…And I just wasn’t sure. “Maybe I should wait until he and I have made some plans about our future together before I commit to a mortgage.”

I stewed about it for a while, eventually deciding that I might resent him for not making a move on a timeline that was entirely invented by me…Etc.

So I bought, and after a year he moved in with me. We are very happy.

And we are both very happy that I bought the place. Because now, it’s worth practically a gazillion dollars more than i paid for it. yay!

So…Chris and I have spent a lot of conversations talking about future plans. And we talked about a little house by the mountains.

He grew up by the mountains.

Me too, but different mountains. His mountains are about 50 miles away, and little houses there are rather reasonable.

When we were talking about getting a little house there, we thought I would have to become employed again. When thinking about what kind of job I would have to have, I got all worried about it.

So I called to find out. Turns out they’ll let anybody borrow money.

AND WE”RE OFF! We’ve run the numbers, we can afford it and everything looks good.

So I’m painting and packing a learning about how to sell a home. Chris is learning about buying a home. It’s all very exciting.

And very familiar. The moving, I mean. I hadn’t realized I’d been here a full two years. Well, two years come August.

Moving is the constant in my life, it seems.

“Chris? How many places have you lived since you became an adult?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“I’ve lived a lot of places. If you don’t count after I moved back home, because that made me not an adult again…Wait! That wasn’t my choice, so dammit, I’ll count it.”

“Sure, that counts”

“Let’s see…”

There was the commune that first summer.
Then back home for the fall
then the Mirnyy one-room flat
then the two room flat
Then Yakutsk, with the other teachers,
then with Lena on the outside of town.
then back to anchorage with my brother
then in Muldoon with crazy roomate Cheryl
Then the next roommate near midtown
then the first place with Jack, for a month
Then the second place with Jack…23rd street?
Then on Spenard
Then to Cupertino to stay with Bryan again
Then we found the place in Sunnyvale (a residence i remained in for tge longest period of my to-date adult life..a very nice place)

then the other place in sunnyvale..Where my brother Chris and Suzanne tag-teamed as roomates…and from which I finally gave up on Jack

then I stayed with my brother Bryan until I got the hot-box in Mountain View

THen I found the place on Taylor in Sunnyvale…where I lived happily as a highly paid consultant and then a college student and then GRADUATE!

And then I moved to LA, to Los feliz. That place was nice. Lived there a whole year

Then I bought this place.

And this summer I will move under the mountains.

Okay, here’s the count:

14 years of adult life
20 residences

That’s a lot of boxes.

_The Iliad_ translated by Martin Hammond

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Okay, I’m packing and painting like a maniac. Boy…So I am packing some books right now, and I found my copy of the Iliad.

THIS is the BEST translation. Let me tell you. I bought this copy in the Royal Museum in London. What better place, I thought. What a good souvenir. The british have long been mad about translating greek classics.

So, I had this unread copy. I read a little bit, but I didn’t read too far until I had to take the classics class at my univerisity. The teacher had a copy of the Iliad at the bookstore. I thought I would use the one I already.

Then, at a study group where we were getting ready for the quiz, I read a piece from my book. The other students dropped their jaws and said, “Whoa! That’s not what my books says at all!”

THIER translations were totally opaque. THey all passed around my book and said I was lucky.

SO, if you want to read the Iliad like it was meant to be read, all exciting and interesting, get this translation. It’s really great.

And the Iliad is a good book to read.

gotta get away?

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Sometimes you just have to get away. This urge strikes me frequently. Though not so much lately…I’m very happy right now.

However, there have been times when I wanted so badly to get out of the country that it was dangerous to get behind the wheel of a car. I would drive and drive and not want to turn around.

I’ve been seized with the need for snow, to see cold in this unrelenting sunny california weather. I’ve been in the grip of the NEED to hear people speaking another language.

My friend Lenny, a congenital programmer, feels that need too. He has made a tool to satisfy the need.

Check it out:

FarePrice

Pretty cool, man.

been awhile

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boy, it’s been a very exciting few weeks.

Christ is Risen! Eastern Easter was just last Sunday and we celebrated in style with my godmother in Mountain View.

And Just before that, Chris and I realized that our dream of buying a house with a yard is possible now that my condo has increased in value so much. So we got approved for a mortgage and are preparing to sell this place.

And now I think I’m going to get a job, because I think someone wants to give me one.

It sure has been exciting.

But that means that the blog has been bare. Sorry guys!