More on the whackos out there

Florida.

Rent

I'm posting a room announcement I received through the SC young alums listserv, because I think parts of it are f*ing hilarious (skim up to fourth paragraph, then read):

There's a room opening up in the group house I'm in and I thought I'd let you all in on it. It's $700 a month, utilities not included (average $75 a month). The house is extremely well located (about three houses down from the Adams Morgan bike shop, for those who know the area) - you can walk to Adams Morgan bars even in ridiculous heels. Don't believe me? Google map 1757 Euclid St NW. There's a farmers market less than a block a way, and walking to the Dupont
scene takes less than 15 minutes. Accessible to the 42, and S1,2,4 bus lines and red line (Woodley Park) and Columbia Heights metro (.7 mile walk to each). Walkable (10 minutes) to Rock Creek park and the Zoo for jogging and picnics.

The house itself is in great shape. It's a 3 floor, 6 bedroom/4.5 bath. It's got a pool table, huge TV w/ TiVo, central heat and air, a gas fireplace, nice tiled kitchen with granite countertops, gas stove, garbage disposal, dishwasher, weekly maid service, the works. Washer
and dryer of course. Wood floors everywhere except the stairs, which have been carpeted recently and are in great shape.

The room: not huge, but it's got a full closet, big window and can fit a full-sized bed. Carpeted. You'll share a bathroom with the DOJ (male) paralegal. Bathroom has full tub.

The other roommates - 2 men, 3 women (including me) - keep mostly to themselves, and if you don't watch TV you'll never see them. One female financial analyst (mid twenties), me, and her friend Kerry on the 3rd floor (haven't seen Kerry in literally a month - she basically
lives with her boyfriend). Second floor has the empty room, an early twenties male paralegal in the DOJ, and the IT geek/parttime grad student landlord in his thirties. The analyst and paralegal are really the only people I see much of, and they are funny and very chill.

There is a downside to every house, and I'll be upfront about the downside here. The landlord lives here, and while he is not anal about cleanliness, noise or anything like that, he is extremely socially awkward (I mean shit, he's in his late thirties and lives in a 6 bedroom house with roommates. Read between the lines). He has been known to inadvertently drive off tenants who can't handle his personality. He's not aggressive - more like infuriatingly passive
and kind of pathetic - but he likes to make awkward jokes, talk during my shows (gaaaaah) and hover. I haven't had a real problem with him because I can be extremely frigid when necessary - after a month of giving one word answers to his banalities, we have a nice, civil
understanding. If you are an extremely nice and accommodating person he will try to ingratiate himself into your life, so this living arrangement may not be for you. Honestly, he's not difficult to deal with, but i do feel that i need to warn prospective roomies.

Nina

P.S. there is on-street parking, but the man vacating this room is actually leaving because he's had his car broken into twice (he left his ipod and GPS system out. oy.), so i wouldn't recommend you use it.
P.P.S. Crime: adams morgan is a weird mix - if you've lived in dc for a while, you know it, but for those that don't....there is some low income housing around this house (though not on euclid street - its pretty yuppie/middle class) and the occassional theft/shooting in adams morgan. can't be helped. not the safest area in NW (though I feel much safer here than in Columbia Heights, were I last lived), and i've walked home shitfaced on many a night and been absolutely fine.

***
More on renting in DC.

On books

I agree, but you're two or three French lit classes too late; I've had many more times more Mme. Bovary than I could handle.

On the topic of the young writing the elderly, I strongly recommend "Water for Elephants." It's an excellent read, but I couldn't tell you how well Sarah Gruen wrote an elderly man.

Ow, my balls!

TV imitates art.

Quote of the Day

Brought to you by Gail Collins:
"There are, after all, 100 senators, and we know from several centuries of experience that the nation can survive quite nicely even if a sizable minority are brain-dead bank robbers."

Priorities

My mom is really funny.

You know how she's always worried about me, concerned about my safety?

Many years ago, there was a possibility that I would get a summer internship in Zambia (I didn't). My mother became very worried and spent much time trying to convince me that I shouldn't go to Africa. Then, she had a change of heart. She said, "on second thought, it might help you lose some weight."

Well, the other day, mom was asking me about my utilities. (By the way, she asked me again how much I paid for internet. It's the new "when are you arriving.") I listed off water, power, gas, alarm.

Mom: Alarm? What do you need an alarm system for?
A.: It's just better to have.
Mom: Isn't it expensive?
A.: About $35 per month.
Mom: Do you really have anything valuable?
A.: Well, yes, and it'd also a safety issue.

Then, today:

Mom: You don't have a TV yet?
A.: No.
Mom: When will you get one?
A.: I'm not sure I will. I'm not sure I'll want to pay for cable.
Mom: I think that's a mistake. I think cable's worth having.

***
The score:
Knock on wood, I've gone a whole day without having to have it out with utilities or banks. I've also won an important battle in my war on furniture. One assembled bookcase down, two futons and a dresser to fix.

WTF

Homeownership has brought out in me many people-I-never-thought-I-would-become. The latest and perhaps most worrisome is the one who complains that you can't get good help these days.

I took some friends' advice and complained about what did not get cleaned in the house. The cleaning service offered to come back and clean them. As agreed, I left a list of areas for cleaning on the dining room table. Those areas included ceiling fans (I listed both) and the tops of the kitchen cabinet. On the bright side, the ceiling fan in the kitchen got cleaned-- that I noticed right away because-- who knew-- the top of it was white rather than black. The one in my bedroom did not get cleaned, nor did the kitchen cabinets. This is not okay.

Apart from that, the house is slowly coming together. I have blinds in my bedroom (it only took me four hours) so I don't have to turn the lights off when I get dressed, and the kitchen is looking good. Lots remains to be done, but I'm getting there.

Quote of the Day

Frank Rich on "nobody’s perfect."

Timothy Egan on JTP:

The unlicensed pipe fitter known as Joe the Plumber is out with a book this month, just as the last seconds on his 15 minutes are slipping away. I have a question for Joe: Do you want me to fix your leaky toilet?

I didn’t think so. And I don’t want you writing books. Not when too many good novelists remain unpublished. Not when too many extraordinary histories remain unread. Not when too many riveting memoirs are kicked back at authors after 10 years of toil. Not when voices in Iran, North Korea or China struggle to get past a censor’s gate.

and

Most of the writers I know work every day, in obscurity and close to poverty, trying to say one thing well and true. Day in, day out, they labor to find their voice, to learn their trade, to understand nuance and pace. And then, facing a sea of rejections, they hear about something like Barbara Bush’s dog getting a book deal.

Writing is hard, even for the best wordsmiths. Ernest Hemingway said the most frightening thing he ever encountered was “a blank sheet of paper.” And Winston Churchill called the act of writing a book “a horrible, exhaustive struggle, like a long bout of painful illness.”

I disagree

Okay, this kind of logic is just f*ing absurd and dangerous:

In India’s city of gold, the distinction between public and private can be bewildering. For members of the working class, who often cannot afford housing, public sidewalks become living rooms. In the morning, commuters from gated communities in the suburbs pass children brushing their teeth at the edge of the street. Women are forced to relieve themselves on the railway tracks, usually in the dark, for the sake of modesty. The poor sometimes sleep on highway medians, and it is not unheard of for drunken drivers to mow them down.

Mumbai has been roiled by government neglect for years. Its commuter trains are so overcrowded that 4,000 riders die every year on average, some pushed from trains in the fierce competition to get on and off. Monsoons in 2005 killed more than 400 people in Mumbai in one day alone; so clogged were the city’s ancient drains, so crowded its river plains with unauthorized construction that water had nowhere to go.

Rahul Bose, an actor, suggested setting aside such problems for the moment. In a plea published last week in The Hindustan Times, he laid out the desperation of this glistening, corroding place. “We overlook for now your neglect of the city,” he wrote. “Its floods, its traffic, its filth, its pollution. Just deliver to us a world-standard antiterrorism plan.”

WTF? Thousands of people killed a year from overcrowding, but that's less important??

No love for the Prime Rib of Propecia

On my way back to DC earlier this week, out of my window seat that no passive-aggressive family tried to wrest from me, I watched, on that beautiful, clear, day, as we flew over many of the city's landmarks as well as those-- such as Georgetown-- to which I had a personal connection. And it was odd to see them so perfectly square. It looked like a model. Which made me think, "What's this?? A school for ants??"

Which in turn made me think that the cable networks aren't broadcasting heroism equitably. I'd mentioned in a post last weekend that many worlds were being saved at the same time, including but not limited to Middle Earth and the Galaxy Far, Far Away. With all that going on, could they maybe spare some airtime for a different kind of superhero?

The nerve

Suck it, Gov. Rendell. See also Gail Collin's latest column.

Also, a very thoughtful piece by Bill Ayers.

Which utility is messing with me now?

Did I ever start that blog label-- horrendous customer service? I have a new category-- The Nightmares of Home Ownership: utilities edition.

Well, you know about Verizon. They did send a technician out to fix the problem, and then some nice Indian helped restore my internet service from there. I've really had my share of talking to the Indians over the last few weeks. The whole experience brings out the protectionist in me.

Not having internet was difficult, but it didn't truly suck. What did truly suck was having my water cut off.

You see, when the water people were supposed to transfer the account for this house to my name, they came by to read the meter. But the meter was piled over with the previous resident's trash, so they couldn't.

Now, if you were the water people, you would probably do something innovative, like call me. But no. They just left the account in the previous resident's name, and then, a few days ago, cut it off for non-payment. And they never address these issues the same day, apparently by policy. They said on Friday they would restore my water. So imagine my surprise when I came home on Friday, all excited to experience modern plumbing at home, to discover no water. I called. They told me the water had been turned on. I begged to differ. They sent out an emergency technician, who turned on the water (and agreed that the water had not been turned on). Great stuff, I tell you.

For a while, ADT was off my shit list, and technically my gripe is with their authorized dealer rather than ADT itself. You see, they couldn't activate my monitoring until my phone was fixed, so although I had arranged for a technician to come out Friday, I called on Wednesday to postpone that appointment. But on Thursday, they called to confirm. I told them to cancel. Yet Friday, early afternoon, they called to confirm. I told them to cancel. So on Friday, late afternoon, they called to say the technician would be there in 15 minutes. I told them that I had canceled twice. They acknowledged that those phone calls had taken place, plead confusion.

It gets better. They waived my activation fee, but asked me to write a voided check nonetheless to show proof of account. The technician asked me to void it across the back, so I did. So imagine my surprise when my bank account showed an overdraft fee, because those jackasses tried to deposit a voided check, and the jackasses at the bank processed the transaction. Stellar.

Adding to the joys of this week is the incorrigible dumbass that is my cat. I moved her on Monday. She wasn't happy, whined even more than usual. On Tuesday, a cleaning crew came through. Second one-- the first one did a very poor job. This second one came highly recommended. And yet, things are still dirty. Is it too much to ask, when people are charging you $230 for 1,400 square feet, to clean the tops of cabinets and ceiling fans? I didn't ask them to make my bed hotel-style or consolidate my strategically separated piles of paper. I asked for them to clean the parts of the house I would have a hard time cleaning.

But I digress. The day they came, Gracie was nowhere to be found. I was really worried, to the point where I was actually relieved when the little bitch woke me up with her whining at 4:30am the following morning. So I wasn't worried when I heard but didn't see her the following evening. I looked around, but she was nowhere. Eventually, I deduced that she had climbed into a hole in the wall and was hiding under the stairs. She wanted to come out, but not enough to show her face. Until the next morning, when she'd apparently had enough and stuck her head out so she could be rescued. I had to lean over the filthy heating system and scoop her out by the scruff of her neck. Keep in mind this was one of the mornings that I had no water.

Which, by the way, should really be cause for reflection on how most people in this world lack water on a daily basis. And I acknowledge that. But it still sucked to be without it for two days, even though I had access to water (and even showers) at work.

***
Things are starting to look up. After all, my internet and water are restored, and my cat is not stuck inside the wall. I'm slowly making headway with all these boxes, although there's still stuff everywhere. Still, it's starting to look more and more like a house.

The kitchen is coming together, as is the dining room. You wouldn't realize how little I drink or how much I hate people based on how much decorative drinkware I have.

Oh, and I actually fixed something today. It wasn't complex, but it did require a minimal amount of critical thinking.

It's good to be back.

Helicopter parents expand their ground

Interesting. When I studied abroad I learned to survive and thrive away from hen-pecking (although it took another decade or so for my parents to realize that). That was as much part of the experience as the actual academics. Yet, this generation takes the helicopter parents along in a way.

***
Yes, men writing women is tricky. I'm a bit distrubed by the glowing reviews for "The Widows of Eastwick;" I couldn't finish "The Witches of Eastwick" because Updike's writing women just didn't work for me. I also realzie that people have completely different takes on this issue. To me, Roddy Doyle's "The Woman Who Walked into Doors," in many ways a work of genius, is brilliant in his writing of Paula, but someone I knew was adamant that no book felt more like a man writing a woman. She preferred Wally Lamb, but when I read "She's Come Undone," I felt that few other books felt like a man writing a woman.

Saving the world, one channel at a time

The world was being saved on many channels in a row, or, more accurately, various worlds were being saved on various channels, in a row particularly if you don't count the one playing 'Elf,' or do count it if as far as you're concerned that too represents saving the world.

We decided to go with Lord of the Rings. What doesn't get old is that Viggo Mortensen is still hot.

The showing was billed as having fewer commercials, courtesy of Red Lobster, but no matter how few commercials--this will really surprise you-- I'm not good at sitting through them, so I flipped for a progress update on the saving of the other worlds.

A.: I've not seen the last X-Men. I heard it wasn't very good.
Mom: I don't think we've seen any X-Mens. Is that the one with the spider-man?
A.: No. That would be Spiderman.
Mom: No-- you know, the man that climbs the buildings.
A.: Spiderman.

On the way back down to LOTR, I hit Star Wars. It is worth noting that my parents have seen Star Wars. When I was in high school, I was once Yoda for Halloween.

Dad: Is that X-Men?
A.: No, that's Star Wars.

I forgot how annoying it could be to watch a movie with Mom.

Mom: That's not how it was in the book.
Mom: That's not how it was in the book.
Mom: That's not how it was in the book.
Mom: That's not how it was in the book.

Later

Mom: That's not how it was in the book.

Mom: Why are they laughing?
Mom: Well, why are they laughing?
A.: If I had to guess, I'd say it's because their ordeal is over.

Mom: That's not how it was in the book.

I'll bring his picture to my next hair appointment

Mom: Your hair looks like... who's that character in Harry Potter?
A.: I don't know.
Mom: That guy, the one that bred dragons. Your hairstyle looks like his. What's his name?
Dad: Had... Hadr...
A.: Hagrid.
Mom: Yeah, same hair.

it still takes work

Thanks for the comment, Etc-- feel strongly about that, too (not that I would call myself an artist).

There are a lot of subissues going on here that are specific to my mother and my relationship with my mother. A recurring theme--especially every time that she asks me to write a complaint letter for her-- is, "writing comes so easily to you!" Well, no, not really, nor does it to many people who are actual writers.

Furthermore, the things she's heard about Pushkin and Bulgakov, even if they were true, hardly inform on the creative processes of every writer, ever.

But it's easy (as well as a cop-out) for mom to go there, because she doesn't write at all; it's convenient to generalize, to "other" those that do write, thereby removing any expectation that she should put some effort into writing herself.

There was another article worth mentioning, although I can't find it (maybe it was in the Times?), about how there are some people who don't believe they can learn. They think we're good at what we're good at and won't get better at the other stuff. I'm not one of those people, and those people drive me nuts (especially when I'm responsible for teaching them something). In various language classes that I've taken, I've been amazed to find people who think that they don't have to do the work, that it will just come to them. Yes, I am somewhat naturally predisposed to picking up languages, but it still takes a f*load of work. It's not absorbed by osmosis, unless you're little.

The creative process is interesting to me. I'm not great at it, and I have in the past dismissed it as something that's out of my reach, but as an avid consumer of its products, I'm fascinated by the mental mechanics of its producers and I've enjoyed the New Yorker and other articles that shed light on how it works. So it's that much more frustrating to hear mom basically dismiss the artist as a mere transcriber of a message that comes from outside. And it would be one thing if she said it but didn't spray it, i.e. lecture me about it for half an hour at a time without meaningfully considering what I have to say on the matter.

By the way, Jonathan Safran Foer is a really good writer, I really enjoyed his book (I've not read "Everything is Illuminated" but "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Up Close" was very good). I haven't read the book about Haiti, but, getting back to the New Yorker, last week's fiction piece, "Ghosts", is excellent.

Left brain, right brain

I came into the living room and rolled my eyes at the sight of Frodo on the television screen. Don't get me wrong-- I liked all the Lord of the Rings films the first ten or so times I saw them. Except for the time that mom subjected me to a line-by-line of the differences from how it was in the books.

A.: Can I change the channel or turn off the TV?
Mom: Sure, I'm not watching it. But you know, I have a theory about this: writers feel what's going on around them. Writers, they don't try-- it just comes to them. Tolkein's writing was allegorical, so was-- what's her name, the woman who wrote Harry Potter. It comes to them, and they have to put it in writing.
A.: You know, Malcolm Gladwell had a really interesting piece about that in the New Yorker a month or so ago...
Mom: Did he agree with me?
A.: Not quite...
Mom: Then he's wrong. I know.

Mom went on. About allegory, about left and right brains, about how everyone knows that (whatever that is), about how she doesn't care about what the New Yorker has to say-- they just write what they want.

Mom: Don't tell me there's no such thing as intuition.
A.: I don't recall saying that.
Mom: It's how three people knew that you were okay and one even knew you were on the train.

I didn't say, "you should have called a psychic last night to find out whether I was still at Cabot's."

Mom: People have intuition.
A.: I'm not disagreeing with you about that...
Mom: No! It's a left brain thing, everyone knows that.
A.: Mom, I'm leaving.
Mom: Wait, listen to me.
A.: I don't even know what we're talking about anymore.
Mom: Are you saying there is no such thing as intuition?

That's perhaps the most enjoyable part of trying to have an adult conversation with mom. If you disagree with her about something, she'll generalize that to everything remotely related to what you're talking about.

Mom: Logic alone can't fix everything. This reality will come to you. I think in part you already understand it. You've made a lot of good decisions-- except, of course, deciding to major in psychology. Maybe you needed to do that too to set yourself on the right path, although in that case it was an awfully expensive way to experiment.

More about left brains, right brains, Pushkin, Bulgakov. She was still going when I got up and left to blog.

Sunday morning roundup

Kristof is a must-read.

The Times also has a long piece on inside-the-beltway influence peddling, for those interested.

A fascinating piece on composure:

How much neuroticism anyone gets is determined largely by genetics. But it is also within our control. Psychiatrists and psychologists talk about emotional regulation — the ability to manage neuroticism so that even the most nervous of people can go through life appearing and feeling more in control than those genetically predisposed to calmness.

It hits home on several counts, not least of which is that mom and I are polar opposites in that respect. There's more, though. A friend and former colleague once started the following conversation:

G.: You're handling this very stressful situation very well.
A.: Losing composure is not going to help.
G.: Right, but now that I've gotten to know you, I realize you have excellent stress management abilities. When you were first chosen for this position, people warned me that you went off the deep end easily.
A.: Jerks. I know exactly whom you're talking about...
G.: Well, him too, but even people who like and respect you felt that they should let me know.
A.: Names, please.
G.: Sorry.
A.: That's just unfortunate, because none of those people have seen me operate under pressure. They have no f*ing idea. I have, for example, been stalked by a crack dealer on an island in Nicaragua. I don't melt down; that's just not how I operate.

And I have to partly credit mom for that. I've seen her operate that way, and I've seen that it gets her nowhere.

That's not to say that I shouldn't learn to project composure in addition to simply experiencing it. But I do wish people would just shut up and stop *warning* colleagues about me. Then again, maybe I should be greatful that they're setting low expectations; if all I need to do is not melt down, that makes my job easier. In any case, I work somewhere now where I don't see this happening, because people have plenty on their plate without minding other people's business.

***
On the future of books:

There’s reading and then there’s reading. There is the gleaning or browsing or cherry-picking of information, and then there is the deep immersion in constructed textual worlds: novels and biographies and the various forms of narrative nonfiction — genres that could not be born until someone invented the codex, the book as we know it, pages inscribed on both sides and bound together. These are the books that possess one and the books one wants to possess.

It's getting old

At breakfast, I caught Mom staring at me.

A.: What?
Mom: You've gained weight, huh?
A.: Not really.
Mom: Your face has gotten round.
A.: [Shrug.]

***
Earlier

Mom: Are you always on the computer at home, too?
A.: I'm not sure what you mean by always. I do read the paper, yes.

I did not say, I'm probably online more here, since I have more to blog about.

Mom: No, you're constantly on the computer.
Dad: Last night when I was editing photos, I was *constantly* on the computer.
Mom: It's not the same.

Death by a thousand paper cuts...

...is how a friend described the way I opted to move.

That way being, taking a carload of stuff over to the new house every time I went over there anyway, and maybe a few times deliberately, and a few more when friends with bigger cars were helping me out. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

All in all, the move itself wasn't painful, as moves go. It was the rest of the process. And since the rest of the process was such a clusterfoxtrot, moving was the icing on the shit cake.

Apparently, I'm still scarred, because I dreamt that I went back just to get Gracie and my laptop, and I kept finding more stuff that I needed to pack and move. It never ended.

On the agenda for Monday: retrieve Gracie and laptop; wait for the alarm people; troubleshoot the staple gun; saw apart four inches of gate without lacerating my arm; make another attempt at the closet door.

Then, Gracie and I are going to have a conversation. It will go like this

A.: Gracie, I know that this is a stressful time for you, too.
Gracie: Meow?
A.: And I know that you often choose to deal with stress by (1) non-stop whining and (2) strategic defecation.
Gracie: Meow.
A.: I'm telling you know, though, that if you poop outside your litter box in Mommy's new house, I will kick your furry little ass.
Gracie: Meow.
A.: You know how your uncle J. pretends to be your friend? He's suggested that to deal with this behavior of yours, I duct-tape your ass. At first I dismissed it, but I've been going through a lot, too, and I may just consider it.
Gracie: Meow?
A.: So your m-f litter box is over there. Learn it and use it, or else.
Gracie: Meow. Meow.