Looks like Mark and I may not own a house in Pittsburgh much longer. We put it on the market last week pretty much two years to the day after we closed on it. There was an offer today that seems promising.
So that’s that, I guess.
Since there haven’t been nearly enough major changes in my life lately, I decided that major changes in my computing environment were in order as well: installing an OS upgrade, reviving the G5 as a audio/video import station, and migrating to a new MobileMe account (divorce, y’know?).
And yesterday, I decided to move my office into the basement. It has several advantages. First, it makes the old office upstairs “show” a lot better (assuming we ever have another showing). Second, the basement (being a basement) is much cooler. Third, I feel a little more comfortable spreading out and working on things down there; I get to feel like I have one spot in the house where I can actually live without feeling like it has to be perpetually “staged”. I guess the stairs provide a little extra exercise, too.
And yes, that’s pretty much all the insight I’m going to provide into my personal life today.
I’m back from two nights in Charleston, where I attended a conference, ate well, slept less well, sweated perspired and looked at lots of old and mildewed buildings. I also spent a few hours adjacent to what seemed to be a vaguely flirtatious he-librarian. My ego being somewhat battered and bruised of late, I was rather pleasantly surprised by even the suggestion of someone showing some actual interest, even if I really wasn’t all that interested in return. He made a nice fourth for dinner anyway.
Oh yeah. I also went to Stuckey’s–a real one, not one that’s just a shelf in a truck stop. That and maybe the scallops and grits were the real highlights of this trip, I think. I need to take a better one very soon.
If you have to spend a Thursday afternoon babysitting carpet cleaners, it definitely helps if “The Big Sleep” is the afternoon movie on TCM.
It’s been contractors all week for me as I’ve been getting assorted repairs, cleanups, and other quick fixes in place in a desperate effort to make the house more appealing to potential buyers. It strikes me as kind of sad that–like many people, I’m guessing–we never did some of these little things to make the house nicer until it was time to sell. So other people get to enjoy our investment.
But the way the real estate market is now, I might end up “enjoying” them for years to come anyway.
Since I no longer update with any frequency, here are a few catch up items:
- Work is good. I just got approval to burn off some one-time funds on a project that’s very near to my heart. I also just returned from a relatively informative conference in Charleston. And I’ll probably be at the big ALA shindig in New Orleans next month if anyone wants to hang out.
- We’re supposed to be getting another offer on the Pittsburgh house today.
- A short vacation in Atlanta for me in a couple of weeks. I’m looking forward to a few days of random exploration and not thinking about houses or other stressful things. I may actually even get some research done. I’ve been into that again lately, particularly now that I’m finding a lot of libraries (mine included) are starting to put city directories online via the Internet Archive.
- A good friend who’s now stranded in Mississippi will be moving back this way in another few weeks–right when I’m in Atlanta, as it turns out–and I may be having lunch with a longtime online acquaintance and his betrothed this weekend. Maybe the new German place…
So there was one other update I didn’t make the other day and I’m torn about how explicitly I want to discuss it.
Like the breakup, this issue is personal and involves someone else. This time it’s a health issue involving a very close family member that will probably have a major impact on my life over the next few years. It’s very sad and it’s causing me a great deal of anxiety and uncertainty for me right now. Although I had some idea it might be on the horizon, the fact that it came to then forefront when it did (approximately one month after the big split) was especially unfortunate and has made it all that much harder to deal with.
Frankly, I’m a little bit overloaded with change right now. In the past year, I’ve started a new career (good), put two houses on the market (neutral but emotionally taxing), initiated a divorce (bad), and come to the realization that the rest of my life is going to look radically different than I’d planned twelve months back. And now, just when I need to start looking ahead with a positive attitude to determine what the rest of my life should look like, I’ve hit one more roadblock that’s making it really hard to focus on a happy future. I’ll be able to eventually, of course. It would have been easier if I’d had time to get over one big heartbreak before the next one hit, but that’s not how life works. All in all, though, I’m coping. I’m dealing with things much better than I was a few weeks ago. I’m trying to find small things that will keep me happy for now (a road trip here, a 42-inch TV there, etc.) while I try to find a way to process the future. I’m not particularly mopey (at least not publicly) and I’m still maintaining my sense of humor. I like to think I’m also maintaining some sense of perspective; these things haven’t been easy on Mark or on the rest of my family either.
If I keep my mind off it all, I do pretty damned well. And yes, I realize that there’s a very precarious balance between “not dwelling on it” (which is good) and avoidance (which is bad). I’m not sure how well I’m maintaining that balance.
Anyway, I don’t plan to whine regularly in this space. But a little disclosure seemed to be in order, if for no other reason than to get this noted in the “public” record of my life. I’ve been publishing for fifteen years and it seems somehow wrong for there to be no mention of my current state of mind, even a somewhat vague one. I’ve been writing lots more on the subject(s) but practicing some judicious self-censorship; maybe I’ll retroactively publish those entries someday. I also wanted to make it clear that all my current anxiety doesn’t stem from the breakup. Obviously some of it does, but not all of it. Probably not even most of it at this point, but my anxiety priorities shift from day to day. I’m efficiently flexible that way.
A side benefit to those readers and friends who miss the bad attitude for which this site was once known is that my reaction to life has started involving less sadness and crying and much more anger and impatience. I’m hoping bemusement will become a big factor again soon, too. This bodes well for some good old-fashioned rants. I’ve been working on one about the rapture for a couple of days. Stay tuned…
If only the food inside were as majestic as the sign outside, I’d be eating there this weekend. Trust me when I say it’s not. But there’s much more food to be had in Atlanta.
Despite a death in the family, a radiator leak (or something) on the way to the funeral home, and three delays, I’m finally leaving on a much-needed vacation tomorrow afternoon. Research will be done, pictures will be taken, friends will be visited, Krystals will be eaten, and at the end of it all, I will (I hope) be a slightly more tolerable person.
And I will try not to think about the repair bill for my own car as I drive Mom’s Hyundai around town.
Here. Narrative later, along with lots of Groceteria stuff.
I don’t think this picture quite gets it but the sky was really fucking creepy on the way home tonight.
Biggest themes of the evening:
- I don’t care if everyone else thinks it’s gross. I liked my collards and cheese omelette. Next time, though, I’ll add onions.
- How the hell did I manage to burn my knee while cooking it?
More random thoughts for a Wednesday evening:
- I think I’ll probably hang on to that $185,000 rather than spend it on my own TLD. I’ve owned my own domain name for almost fifteen years now, but I’m pretty comfy keeping my personality on the left side of the dot.
- Best selling point for listening to your own iTunes library rather than the radio: When you hear the first notes of “Werewolves of London”, you can be sure you’ll hear it and not that stupid fucking Kid Rock song from a couple of years back.
- Good post in general but he author makes one key mistake in assuming that Gannett publishes newspapers. If you’ve ever had the misfortune of reading one of theirs, you know that’s definitely not the case.