The Struggle is Real

My goal since resigning myself to moving out so the realtor could stage my house (and hopefully rid it of the stinky cat stink) has been “do one thing a night.”  And I have.  I truly have.  I organized, relocated and off loaded my massive porn collection.  I got the gutter fixed, which has been broken for more than 2 years.  My solution was to place a washtub under the place where the painter leaned their ladder and created a new, and unexpected, fount in the middle of the gutter.  During the rains the water pouring from he break into the tub sounded like a charming fountain.  I was very fond of it, but my realtor took a more dim view of it and so now it’s repaired and during the last few rainy nights, I have missed it.

 

 

Anyway, I have cleaned up and patched and replaced and removed all kinds of little things that as a homeowner you just ignore, but as home seller, you need to deal with.

For instance, in July, my washing machine, god love it, finally died.  When we bought the house, 21 years ago, the seller insisted, in the contract, that we take the washing machine with the house.  In fact, it was the only stipulation she made.  It seemed odd, but we didn’t have a washer, so what the hell?  And the old warhorse has ground along all these years just fine until it just gave up in the middle of one load.  Super Agent Fred and I had to bail out the water and wring the clothes out and let them dry out on the patio draped over this and that.  Very Beverly Hillbillies.

 

I had been using a laundry service ever since.  They came and picked up my dirty clothes and returned them washed and folded.  I liked the service so much, I just never got around to replacing the broke down machine.  But people buying a new house do not want to inherit old problems, so I bought a new washer and dryer.  The guys showed up yesterday to install them and that’s when I found out why the previous owner and been so insistent that we take the old one.  They will not fit out of the laundry room, nor the new ones fit in.

Those tits!  Them  biceps!  And glasses!

The owners two before us had built in a number of shelves and cabinets and closets around the house, all very beautifully constructed and which I have tried to keep cause I can appreciate how much work they represent.  Some I’ve had to tear out, just because they didn’t work with how I wanted to use the room, or they were in the way, but plenty I still use and am grateful for.

One of these closets is in the little passageway between the kitchen and the laundry room.  The trim work on the side in the laundry room makes the space to pass through 28 inches wide  The washers, both old and new, are 28 and a half inches wide.  A half fucking inch.  That’s what ground the whole project to a halt.  I wound up telling them to just unload the new machines in the garage and I would deal with it.  They seemed very contrite as if they had let me down, when in fact, it was my architecture’s fault.

Anyway, that’s where my “Do one thing a night” program simply ground to a halt.  The delivery guys left, taking their overwhelming cloud of perfume sort of with them (and why is that?  Why do delivery and installer guys all wear such liberal doses of scent.  Worse, why is it so often the very kind of perfume that gives me headaches?)  they left, I went upstairs, took an Ativan and my pain medicine, fed Saki so he wouldn’t harass me overly and then climbed in bed.  Good night and god bless.

oh.  my.

What I have since come to realize is that the cabinet maker owner must have built the closet while the machine was there.  Those owners were only the second ones the house had had, which leads me to believe that fucking washing machine was the original one for the house.  And the house was 50 years old last year, so that washing machine has been grinding along since Ginger and Mary Ann were miraculously wearing clean outfits on Gilligan’s Island.  Also, if that poor old thing had just held on nine more months, I could have sold it with the house and never even discovered this whole quagmire of insurmountable half inches.

That HAIR.  Oh dear.

This morning, I called my handyman Jose.  He’s My Guy.  All homeowners eventually wind up with A Guy, someone who can unclog things and electrify that which is un-electric, and in general keep your house from falling apart.  Jose was unfazed by my description of the catastrophe and assured me he will be over after lunch tomorrow and fix it.  And he will. I have never known Jose to let me down.  His esthetic choices are pretty shaky, but I have learned when to just cut in and announce a different choice in color or material.  Aside from that, he is the best My Guy you could ask for.

As usual, the  beefcake today is made possible by For the love of NudeMuscleMen   the best naked guy site I know of.  I am very grateful to them simply for existing.

For Sale

I assume this is true both philosophically true as well as applying to the massive buttocks pictured below.

Yes, I am selling my house and moving to a smaller place down in the world famous gay neighborhood, the Castro.  Why?  I love my house here, being located in this canyon means it is amazingly quiet and peaceful for being in the very center of San Francisco, but I need the money.  Apparently, since R Man and I bought it 21 years ago, it has become worth a buttload of money.  That is a real estate technical term.  If I were to access that buttload, I would return to my previous status of Wealthy Widow.  I’m not wild about being a widow, but if you have to be one, wealthy is definitely the way to go.

First, some muscle pussy, cause this is a really long post and you need something to get you through it.

I met with a couple of realtors, the first was Ruth, whom I kept calling Julie and who turned out to be a Mean Girl.  She has been dismissed from our lives.  Let us speak of her no more.  The second, Wendy, was much more to my liking, a lesbian of a certain age, who was much more complimentary to my house and decorating (tip to realtors wooing potential clients: do not diss a gay man’s decor) but the selling point was the first thing.  She came in, we walked up to the dining room so I could show her the garden before it got dark and she said “What a beautiful ceanothus.”  Sold.  The ceanothus is this big shrub right in the middle of my garden that this time of year is covered in purple flowers.  I think this particular one is the best I’ve ever seen, it is my pride and joy, and she knew what it was.  We had a long very interesting talk, without her realizing she had already won.

So, she’s with Sotheby’s.  Oh my dear, oh yes.  They’re going to produce a booklet about the house, the samples of which she showed me were the most expensive looking printed material I’ve ever seen outside of a good book store.  And a VIDEO.  Not just a video, but one shot with a drone for aerial views.  I am not making this up.  When it’s online I’ll post the link.

The plan both proposed was for a stager to redo the house.  Wendy was much more delicate about urging it, but apparently when asking for the buttload of money I want, staging is a must.  I had already known I would have to repaint.  My stairwell and upstairs hall are painted black.  Counting on someone to dig the black hall seemed like a long shot.  How many Goth kids are in the real estate market these days?  So the stagers will handle all the painting and repairing a barely functional shower that has been the bane of Diane von Austinburg’s visits for years.  They will use their own furniture, thus I’m moving before I sell the place.  Life is so complicated.

The big problem, as usual, is Saki.  I have to get him and the eau de kitty out.  So we’re going to move out, rent some place for the time it takes to fix up the house, show it, sell it and then find a new one to buy.  Did I mention that point?  I’m buying a small place down in the Castro, hopefully for a great deal less than what I sell this one for.   I am actually OK with the moving out part, I do not want to be dodging the realtor showing the house and it is the only way to get rid of the cat smell.

Once I  resigned myself to selling the house, the first thing I thought of was holding an estate sale.  Imagine the thrill of not just going to one but being the ruler of it. I have invited Diane von Austinburg to act as co-ruler, I’d love it.  She is considering it.  Think of the thrill of watching people fight over the crap she and I have dragged back from various thrifting adventures over the years.  I cannot wait.  And I am serious about unloading.  Everything must go.  I’m keeping my bed, and few other bits and pieces, but aside from that, it is all on.  Make me an offer for the cat and I will consider it.

Last night I was organizing my vast porn collection to give away and wound up with the floor of my bedroom covered in stacks of magazines (I had decided to organize them by titles.  I now have no idea why)  It was exhausting, and as I dragged my poor aching carcass to bed, I thought “I’m going to trip over this in the dark on a pee run.”  I was too tired to care and a few hours later, sure enough, coming back in, tripped and went down like the Titanic.  Fortunately, I already had an appointment with my chiropractor and he helped, but I am still sore.  Why is life so hard?

Here’s one last look at Chez Moi:

My living room

My favorite rug,  The center is a lantern hanging from a branch protruding from a cliff.  Love.

A tiny little Danish modern bureau which

ta-dah, converts to a vanity when you flip up the top.

My room, where absolutely no magic happens.  That red lump on the cedar chest is Saki napping in one of his many, many beds scattered around the place.

When the relator I like showed up, the first thing I said was “I blame everything on the cat.”

And finally, my late, great smut collection, now handed off to some weird guy from Oakland who repeatedly announced he had OCD.  Whatever.  Adieu, my paper dolls. God love you and thank you for the countless hours (cumulatively) you have given me.

No Bahs, No Humbugs

As i mentioned recently, I have decided to make peace with Christmas decorations.  Afterall, no matter how I spit and fume, they are not going anywhere, they are (sort of ) attractive, and all too soon tax season will be upon us; save your venom for then.

In that vein, I decided to photograph the prim and terribly quiet neighborhood I live next to (their home owners association will not accept our street.  How mortifying.) and which I drive through to the grocery store.  When I say they are prim and quiet to the point of being prissy, I mean that for the balance of the year.  Come Yuletide, these motherfucker start slinging gaudy, vulgar decorations around like a dock whore on a crack vacation.

My apologies for the crappy  quality of the photos, it’s the best my phone can do at night on the way home from the grocery with me just leaning out of the window.

The classic California Xmas: a palm tree wrapped in lights.

Or just some random bush

I am actually old enough to remember when they introduced simple white lights as an alternative to all the cheery colorful madness.  They seemed SO minimalistic and tasteful.  Now  I think they’re just dull.  Step it up bitches or step off.

The “Why Bother?”

And the grand finale, “The Blockbuster.”  I only regret I couldn’t capture the tinkling carole music that I assume grinds aloong nonstop and which, were I their neighbor, would drive me to attck it with a pick axe.

Please note, none of these trashy hoes are on MY street.  I look out my window and all I can see are those awful compact fluorescent lightbulbs lighting front porches waaiting for UPS men to draw near.

So anyway, joyeux Noel, bitches.  My plan for christmas? Extra oxycodone and consciousness only when Saki absolutely demands it for me to feed him.

My security guard will be enforcing this.

Monumental

Earlier this summer, there was a sudden rush to finally, finally rid several Southern cities of the statues that littered them and which were memorials to the Confederate side of the Civil War.  The side that lost, but that held on to a grudge that still lasts.

Most of them had been nominally erected by the widows and mothers and children of men who had marched off, but never came back.  That is, granted, a sad motivation, but just behind the respectable shield of grieving for the dead was the horrible reality of what those men had died for.  Those idiot boys had gone to war to protect the institution of slavery

Growing up as I did in Texas in the 1950s and 60s seemed to be the end times for sentimentality over the Civil War.  The passionate,Victorian era clock-winders that I had read about or seen in movies were all gone.  I went to a white elementary school, but integration had found its way into my unimportant little burg by the time I entered middle and high school.  The circle of losers and nerds who comprised my friends had black members; my parents seethed that I had black friends.  The century of the war ending happened the year I turned 9, and to a 9-year-old, a century is the definition of forever.

And then boom, this summer, we are suddenly back to Great Lost Era of mrpeenee’s Ninth Year.  I had seen the statues and memorials and ignored them.  Considering they had lost, the South had a mania for enduring no one would forget.  OK.  Won’t forget, got it on my to do list.  Only, I never once considered what we were be excoriated to remember.  I had black friends in a high school named for Robert E. Lee, the major commander of the southern forces.  I had more immediate things to ignore.

So now the statues have been removed, some by work crews who had to disguise the company’s name and their own identities because the tempest over that removal was so hot.  And now all that’s left behind are the bases, or plinths, they rested on.  There is a much lower pitch struggle over how to deal with them.

I say leave them, now as memorials to the struggle a lot of right-minded people fought over more than a century that their generals and statesmen graced them and that they were a constant source of irritation and pain to the descendents of the slaves those men fought and died to make sure remained slaves.

Even with the monuments gone, no one is going to forget the Civil War or the guilt America bears for allowing some men to own other men in the first place.  Several of the plinths are very attractive in their own right and with the statues gone, all they are is sort of sad.  Leaving them standing empty is not some defiant, sore loser gesture against the fight to remove the shameful memorials but as a salute for a long, grinding fight that was finally won.

I’m proud of the people who fought that fight and congratulate them.  Maybe they should have a salute for all they did.  Maybe they should have a monument.