i obsess.

toil.

there is no depth,
no sorrow,

there is only this struggle,
only tomorrow

drowning.

Almost can't breathe, it's so high up, this water, this ruinous stench.

dry.

I think about my grandpa a lot, lately, while I paint.  I think about his having been a painter, coming home from work at the end of the day smelling of turpentine and sweat.  I like to imagine, as my brush goes over its canvas of wall and wood, what he used to think about as he crouched and stood on ladders and peered into corners, his steady hand at work on the task.  I like to pretend I can smell him, hear him, hear into his head, to know how he felt about his family, his life.  My father has described how, when he was small, he would beg to go to work with his father, just so that he could be there to pick up small items, run for things grandpa needed, help lay drop cloths, wash brushes.  He said he felt such pride in doing these things for his dad. 

When grandpa came home, down the alley, in his ancient truck with the running boards on the sides, my dad and his siblings would rush toward the vehicle and leap onto the boards, riding back to the house, yelling and screaming, excited as all get out, because Dad was home.  About what he might have saved for them in his tin lunch pail.  Maybe a scrap of sandwich, a piece of cookie, something.  From what my dad says, no matter the item; it was always a treat when it came from grandpa's leftover lunch.

I like to think about these things as I hunker down in the face of the economic storm headed toward us, uncertain of its breadth and its speed, pondering my grandpa, pondering his having faced such a storm with my grandmother and already one son in their care (my dad's oldest brother, his senior by ten or so years). 

I drag the bristles up and down through the paint as it toughens in its hastily-drying state.

And I whistle at the rapidity of things.  Of the mind-skewing surreality of our time.

up against it.

The interview went really well, and thank you to those who offered to lend their heads (there will be a reward in heaven for you, I just learned, because Jesus and I are pretty tight, since I'm a famous blogger TM, and if you don't get the hilarity of that then I really can't be of any help to you on any level and we ought to probably part ways as of this moment), and thanks to those of you who just assumed I could handle it on my own.  Somehow, despite all of my stubborn belief to the opposite extent, I did it. 

But going into this readying-the-house business is tough; we have a lot to do in the next week (we're shooting to list in the middle of the week, a week from now, or, technically, nine days). 

Sod to lay, plants to dig holes for and, uh, plant, windows to clean, floors to scrub, painting to finish - oh, dear heavens, the painting; several rooms' worth - hardware and outlets to change out, baseboards to tape off and paint (hundreds of feet of them, in fact), chairs to paint and recover for the dining room (yes, those two black chairs that I finished are still lonely in their efforts to flesh out the room they inhabit in somewhat-moribund fashion, however fashionable they may now be), floors to scrub, again, faucets to change out (doing it myself, and terribly nervous, but staunchly determined), light fixtures to replace, a storage unit to arrange for and begin filling with the piles of things yet-to-be-tossed, that-really-ought-to-be-gone-by-now (*wrings hands, silent and desperate*), floors to scrub, AGAIN, minor repairs to be made in every room, caulking (*snicker*), oh, so much caulking (*doubles down on snicker attack*), a bathroom that requires a shower-head installation, cement-board and taping completed, tile installed (that part we're having done by a professional), and the tub refinished (again, pro-intervention; we're not *utter* idiots - just mildly so, and by we, I do mostly just mean my husband.  I'm kidding.  OF COURSE he's an idiot.  JOKING!  It's me.  I'm the idiot.  A lovable one, but a nidjit nonetheless.  My husband is brilliant regarding everything that does not involve having chosen me for his partner.  Sorry about that permanent-yoking business, babe).  (Doy.)

And there's just really an endless list of items that require cleaning.  The carpet on the stairs, our fabulous, very new, very lovely wheat-toned Berber carpet, is a sodden mess, after the last few seasons of unkempt dog paws and toddler feet having barreled up and down their length too many times to count, and, well, dude, we have a dog and a toddler.  You get the picture.

All of that notwithstanding, this blog, and my pretty, beloved fanciness, Did You Buy That New?, yes, that one, oh, sigh, it fades, it fades and is unbecoming in its faded unglory (not because of the other GIVING-ME-A-HARD-ON-WITH-THEIR-AWESOMENESS contributors, but because of me, because I was really. gonna. stick with it. on that, and, well, yes, the usual fail, etc).

I'm quite sure you all understand.  And if you don't?  Screw you!  (Look!  I'm even using exclamation points!, and you know what those do to my skin.)

Seriously.

Screw.  You.

(I'm mainly referring to my asshole following, here; what, you weren't aware of them?  Me neither.  But I've heard you haven't really made it as a Big Blogger TM if you haven't got an asshole contingent hanging on your every libelous, snarky, loathsome utterance, so I have to get there somehow, right?, and if it isn't through actually having been trolled in comments, then, by the eyes of my sweet friend with whom I walk alongside idyllic rivers, Jesus, I shall simply lie through my teeth.  Fuck.  I'll lie with my teeth SPREAD WIDE APART.  I'm so nervy.)

(I'm nervy x 1000.)

(*weeps openly*)

yay?

I got the job.  So that's good.

On the other hand, we still have to sell the house.

Also, I'm supposed to interview Oregon's soon-to-be Senator, Jeff Merkley, on Friday.  It's a phone interview, so I'm not super-panicked, but still.

Maybe one of you who's kinda good with the words wanna, um, lend me your head for an hour?  We could trade.  It'd be funny.  You could be all, lookit me!  I'm a dummy!, and annoy the shit out of everyone you work with.  Or just scare your toddler to bits.  Me, I could be smart and engaging and on it and know all my questions inside-out and sound really, really articulate and coherent and brilliant.  Look at what you could be doing for me.  No!  Not for me!  For Oregon!  For the future of our country!   For humankind!

I'll be waiting to see whose head is ready to sit on my shoulders in a few days.  Just, you know, be prepared for the eventuality that I may not give it back.

xo Deb

to market.

We're selling our house.  I cannot breathe under the weight of this debt.  Neither can Caleb. 

Jack will adjust. 

We'll be spending all of our time and energy on finishing the painting and other little tidbits, plus refinishing the bathtub and retiling around it + installing a showerhead (the fucking ASSHOLES who owned prior to us dismantled the perfectly good, working shower because, from what we can guess, the tile they'd purchased was on clearance and there was only enough left to go halfway up the wall, so rather than buy more expensive tile, they removed the shower element.  I. HATE. THEM. SO MUCH.  I WILL NOT MISS HATING THEM. SO. MUCH).

Oh, the amount of hate I've felt for those people in the last year; the day we took possession of this house, I began feeling a horrific loathing for them, because they left piles of their shit in the garage and in the kitchen and in the basement, and they didn't clean ANYTHING -- ATRHGKLAL;DSKJFASDKFJ!!!!!@#$%@$#%@ so ANGRY! --- STILL!!! 

*breathes deeply*

*breathes deeply some more*

*throws things*

Anyway, where was I?, so I called Caleb and said, I don't want to live here.  I have a terrible feeling about this house.  He was driving over with his brother, in the rental van, a van already packed with our things.  I told him he could turn around and drive it to my parents' house (they live in a large place that, since they've been empty-nesters, has ample space for our junk, and while I dread the thought of living with my parents, I figured we could find something to rent inside of a week, so it was more just a rest stop, a horrible one, but better than making a tragic financial error).  He said, NO, DEBBIE, WE'RE NOT DOING THAT.  I cried, he yelled, I yelled, I backed down.

The agent told me, after I called him, that he'd let the former owners know through their agent about needing to pick up the rest of their things, and that they'd schedule a time to do so.

A few hours later, while I was unpacking and trying to cope with the bile in my throat over how filthy, HOW FUCKING DISGUSTING everything in the house was, how I didn't want to set any of our stuff down on any of the vile surfaces, there was suddenly someone yelling at me from the garage.  It was, natch, the former owners, or, more precisely, the former owner-dude and three of their four children.  I went into the garage and said, um, yes?  What do you need?  (I was shaking with anger.)  The (late-forties-ish) owner-dude wouldn't look at me, and since he was wearing those cheesy, dark Oakleys with the sharp corners, the ones from the nineties that guys wear while riding fucking ski-doos, along with his killer muscle shirt, wearing those fucking sunglasses while inside the dark garage, I was kind of alright with that.  I spoke with his teenage son who asked just what I wanted them to take.  I pointed at the piles (having already moved all of their nasty kitchen shit, all of the gross dishes and containers of MOLDING FOOD and the CRAP table and broken chairs into the garage, next to the disgusting garage refrigerator full of years of mold and filth, plus other boxes packed with nasty, extraneous detritus that I used gloves to carry) and said, please take ALL OF YOUR THINGS.  ALL OF THEM.  And then I went back into the master bedroom to sort out where I was going to PUT my clean, nice things in that filthy fucking disaster of a house.

A few minutes later, I heard the kid yelling at me.  Lady?  Lady, do you want this?

I was fuming when I walked back toward the garage.

What?  I asked.  What is it?

Lady, the kid said, rather quietly, do you want to keep the microwave?

NO.  No, I don't.  I HAVE a microwave.  Please take ALL.   OF.   YOUR.   THINGS.

ALL OF THEM.

I pivoted and left.

The last time he yelled at me, I was on the phone with my mother-in-law, pacing and crying and swearing about how much I did not want to live in that fucking squalid mess of a building, especially given how horrible the people were that we were buying from, I was coming to discover.  I told her I'd call her back, and stomped back to the garage. 

Lady, do you want this box full of spa stuff?  It's for the hot tub and the pool.

Fine.  Yes.  Leave the box in the garage. 

A trail of smoke followed me back to the bedroom.

I hunkered down and waited for their car to leave, talking to my mother-in-law in a muted string of castrated screams, and when I heard silence emanating from the other end of the house, I went and peeked out.  They were gone. 

There was still a stack of their shit.

::inner rage became a physical tyrant, leaving my body momentarily and filling the garage like a violent storm::

I reigned it in and went back to determining where things would, where they COULD, go.

We found out later, after the papers had been signed and all was done, that the spa they'd sworn was working?  Wasn't.  And that the furnace was beyond repair, and that the water heater was on the verge of needing to be replaced.  (Some of this we knew, sorta, through the home inspection, but our inspector explained that the furnace could probably be serviced.  He was in error.  The water heater hasn't started leaking yet, which is why it's the only thing we haven't had to replace.  However, if we have to, we'll work out a deal with the future buyers, because WE'RE HONEST LIKE THAT.  Did I mention that the a/c broke about eleven months into our residence here?  Yes.  We are currently faced with either fixing or replacing it.)  (Yay.)

They freaked out when Caleb began emptying the pool (the CHEESY AS FUCKING HELL LINER POOL THAT THEY'D TRIED TO MAKE LOOK LIKE AN INGROUND POOL BY DIGGING A HOLE IN THE GROUND AND LOWERING IT INTO THE HOLE) into the street, a few days after we'd gotten our things all moved in; they called their agent, who called ours, who called us, because, you see, they were standing on the property across the street, watching the water empty into the gutter.  Get this: they are adopted grandkids of the people who live directly across from us. 

AND THEY COME OVER AT LEAST TWICE A WEEK.

*shoots self in brain*

Also.  She always uses our driveway to back into when she's leaving the neighbor's house.  But I dare not speak of it, or I shall simply melt into a puddle of rage, and also, I'll be late for my second fucking interview with a company I've already worked for for two + years.  This is a job that pays approximately $9-$10 an hour.  You'd think it was a high-salaried upper-management position with a Fortune 500 corporation, given the litany of phone and in-person interviews I've had to conduct with them in the last two months.  Oh, and sending them my resume.  Twice.  (Did I mention, I WORKED FOR THEM FOR TWO YEARS?)  Sigh.  We are broke.  I have to take the flak.  It's probably good for me anyway.  Humble pie.   Yum!  (brain = not very tricked.)

Suffice it to say, I want to move like I have never wanted anything in my life.

Wish us luck.

No.

Wish *me* luck, because if we don't sell this house soon, I will go through with that suicide pact I made with me last week.

I'm almost serious.

*shakes fist at house*

sick *and* tired.

Caleb called me while I was at the Dem Convention last week -- maybe it was Tuesday?  Yes.  Tuesday.  Anyway, he called me Tuesday after getting back from his appointment with his physician to inform me that he had been diagnosed with pneumonia.  And I wasn't scheduled to come home until Friday in the a.m.

That would've been tough enough to take if I hadn't already been feeling beyond useless, given that my laptop crapped out completely the day I arrived in Denver and refused to stay on long enough to let me read email, let alone post anything.  So I was unable to participate at all in writing my experiences about the events unfolding around me, ostensibly the reason I'd attended.  So, hearing the news about Caleb's being very ill and with me stuck in Denver, unable to help, knowing he would have to continue to solo-parent and work while I sat on my ass in the blogger hang-out and did some blogging 1.0 (yes, I read JD Salinger books and wrote things using a pen and paper), it was kind of TOTAL BULLSHIT.

Then on Monday, when we had planned to attend a Labor Day function, we found ourselves at urgent care again, only this time it was for Jack and *his* diagnosis of pneumonia.

Also, some random thing that's sweeping the universe, called cough-variant asthma; both he and Caleb have it.  Enter the ventilator-thingies that little kids loathe and scream over.  Super-double-awesome.

I went to work with Caleb today to make some extra do-re-mi.  I worked on the production line.  The people I worked with are super, duper nice.  They didn't make me feel like a weirdo, and while I've known one of them for a long time (Caleb's been working there since before we met, which means that some of his co-workers attended our wedding, etc.), the rest were virtual strangers, so having them all be so nice was a pleasant experience.  Usually I feel totally stupid in that kind of situation.  But I didn't today.  Just, you know, content to be doing something, working hard, helping out, making a little money.  I worked as hard as I could, too, and they were complimentary, and even a little surprised, I think.  Which was - satisfying.

I'm doing it again tomorrow, and Jack won't be happy about daycare on Friday (it's his first Friday bout of daycare, and since he and his classmates just switched rooms to preschool this week, things are already kinda horrible in that realm, but it can't be helped.  We need the money, and we all just have to hang tight and try to manage.  It's hard, but I'm so certain that there are a trillion people in this world dealing with harder things that I simply refuse to let it get to me).

Hope you all have a nice weekend.  I may or may not be around.  I had a suicidal bout yesterday and am worn out by it on top of the physical exhaustion from today, and don't have a thing to say that isn't dull as dirt.

(Although I suppose the insertion of "suicidal bout" could suggest un-dullness.  But I didn't put it there for the sake of being incendiary.  I'm just being honest.  It sucked.  I really had decided I was done.  Through.  Caleb talked me down, and then I rested for several hours, and felt better enough when I woke up to eat and shower and pretend I hadn't been entertaining such thoughts until -- well, just now, I suppose.  Don't please say anything.  I just needed to get it out of myself.  I'm okay today.

Really.)

gutted.

So thoroughly unprepared to write anything personal at the moment; am beyond grateful to everyone who stepped in and kept the home fires burning (and emptied out my liquor cabinet, which you were welcome to do since you provided something so much worthier -- is that a word?? -- than what you probably got in exchange; cheap booze leaves the worst hangovers invented) while I was away in Denver.

My brain is still choppy like I just stepped off the tilt-a-whirl at the local fair, and our finances are in such a state of upheaval that it's all I can do to not puke when I look at my (sort of kind of working) 'puter that won't stay on long enough for me to access the financial information I have stored in its memory banks, UGH.

I wanted to send personal thank you notes to everyone who posted here in my absence; I wanted to send gifts.  Flowers.  Chocolates.  Call-dudes.  (Or, you know, call-girls if you're into it - no judgement.)

Instead, I have to just say how beautiful each of you are to me and that I would be your personal call-girl if you didn't live so darned far away.  Well, except you, Mel.   *wink, wink - nudge, nudge*

More as my brain settles back into its original(ish) location.