All Things Profane and Sacred

After about 30 minutes of work on the house, our landlord realized that there is a lot of work to be done and that the contractor's insurance should pay for it. Now, if I could only talk him out of making a claim with the contractor's insurance without having some sort of advocate-whether that be a lawyer, or that be his own insurance rep. I know, he listens to the incompetant contractor fuck because he is his friend, and he doesn't listen to me, because I am only his tenant, and an underemployed one at that. Still, I firmly believe that when you're dealing with insurance, you need someone on your side. All having insurance insures is that if you ever need to use the insurance, you'll end up in court.

The weasles are closing in.

The tense negotiations are over, and boy am I glad. The PMS has been adding fuel to the whole house fiasco, so while I've been running around doing this and that, I've also been dealing with serious back pain, crampiness and mood swings. After the ordeal, I took a flexerol to knock raging red off her horse, and immediately passed out (on our bed in the livingroom, of course).

The best of the news is that there isn't any sheetrock or insulation in the wall that took the dunking, so drying the walls out shouldn't be a huge problem (have I mentioned that its an old house?). The attic space is going to be a bitch, but the landlord will be back over today to clear out the junk and put down fans. I told him I'd pull down the ceilings in the bedrooms (I've hated those ugly ceilings since we moved in) and when they're dry enough, he'll put ceilings back up. We worked out a reasonable rent credit for loss of habitability and clean up efforts, and agreed to spread it over 2 months, so his financial hit won't be too hard.

I really tried pushing him to report this incident to his insurance company and let them work it out with the weasely contractor's insurance, but it was a no go, as I sort of suspected, since the weasel is one of his "friends." I wonder what his wife makes of all that, but that's not my business. I guess it's his money, and his investment, so it's his call. I also wanted someone competant to finish the roof, but both J and the landlord were against me on that one (J doesn't want to change roofers in midstream, and for Bruce, they're doing free work at this point), so I let it go.

We went out for some drinks, Thai food and pool last night, just to get out of our awful house. It seems like things have gone downhill fast. The roofers were taking an extrodinarily long time, that's fine, that's what contractor's do. They fucked up and the roof leaked in, well, ok, these things happen and we didn't lose a lot of stuff. Then they threw a tarp over the mess and ran, didn't bother with clean up, did a cursory inspection and called it fine when we reported that the roof was still leaking under the tarp, and the house has just sat, wet, molding and smelly since then.

The landlord wants to come over tonight and talk compensation. That's fine, so far as it goes. I know the law, I know the options available to me, but I have a good relationship with this guy, I like him and I don't think he's going to try and fuck us, so really that is besides the point. From talking with him, it sounds like this slimy contractor fuck (a drinking buddy of his-he's the one who hired the tweakers who painted our house-they were fast, but not very accurate) is trying to tell him he can just put the roof back on the house and it would dry out on its own.

Now, I'm not a contractor, but this sounds stupid as fuck (kinda like cutting someone's internet line). I think the majority of tonight's little talkaroo is going to focus on persuading him to have a home inspector or someone of the sort take a look at the damage and explain to him what needs to be done. I know the contractor is his drinking buddy, but he has insurance for just this very reason, and I don't want my landlord to lose his investment to mold and rot.

Today, I discovered the incompetant roof boobs were behind my lack of internet. When they saw the cable line running into the house, they went ahead and cut it. Comcast reduced the bill (I think they felt sorry for me), but it's not like I'm going to pay it.

When the roof boobs were told that the rain had destroyed the back half of my house, they came over, threw a tarp over the whole thing and left. They didn't even suck up the water with a shop vac.

My friend K lent us some towels and a shop vac, so I sucked up as much water and plaster as I could, and we set up our fan in the bedroom, but this morning it was raining in our kitchen again. I just threw down the towels, yanked the electric (of course, we just dropped $150 on food this last weekend-hopefully all of it won't spoil), called the landlord, and left for work. I still don't think he understands the extent of the damage, but he's supposed to come over tommorrow.

Our bedroom ceiling continued to fall in yesterday-as we worked you could hear the rip, thud of falling plaster. The ceiling in the back bedroom is also falling in, and the wall is bubbling out. J thinks its time to go to a motel, but I'm reluctant because it seems like more of a pain in the ass than staying put.

All sorts of thoughts are running through my head. We can't afford to move right now. We can't stay anywhere with two big dogs and a cat. What the fuck is our landlord going to do? What are we going to do? I just feel like putting my head down and crying. In fact, that's what I'm going to do right now.

I'm blogging from an undisclosed location this morning, because my house is in complete disarray. We had a really nice (for this part of the world) thunderstorm last night, and J and I were sitting out on the porch watching it roll in. Suddenly the wind picked up and rain started blowing sideways. We realized that we should have unplugged our electronics, so J went upstairs to take care of his den, while I did my computer and the living room tv and stereo. We saw that rain was comming through our skylight, so I went downstairs for a pan. When I got to the kitchen, I saw the back wall was wet through and water was pouring through the light fixture. At the same time J discovered the same was going on in his den, only most of his ceiling was ok. All and all we got off lucky. It doesn't look like any of our electronics were wetted (we still aren't sure about J's den). The back bedroom got a soaking, but our roomate had just moved out, so there was only the bed and a few lamps in there. We didn't have much along the back wall except our kitchen table, which got wet, but not too badly.

The worst is in our bedroom. The ceiling fell in and looks pretty well kaput, but our bedroom was pretty spare and our bed took most of the brunt of the damage. Between the contractor's insurance and the landlord's insurance, everything should be fixed up and taken care of, but it will be a huge pain in the ass in the meanwhile, and I haven't heard anyone say that they are going to bring a wet vac by to suck up the moisture and ceiling chunks. I have the feeling it will be a long, contentious week. Can I just say that this really smokes some major hairy cock?

I like my neighborhood a lot. Our next door neighbors on the right have lived in their house for over 30 years. There's a Russian family mid block, a passel of poor folks on our left, some white trash on the kitty corner, a few hip twenty somethings, and some upwardly mobile thirtysomethings. A sprawling hispanic family provides the soundtrack of our late afternoons and early evenings-in the soft evening it sounds like there's a carnival or some sort of community fair just down the street. To me, it feels a little bit like a Ray Bradbury story-the eternally drowsing block set in anytime, anyplace, USA, where kids play their secret games while the fireflies (sadly lacking in Oregon) flicker and adults talk in low voices over lemonades on the porch.

Then there's the bitch on the corner of the next block. She has some sort of vendetta against the Hispanic family, or any sort of music that she can hear whatsoever, at any time of the day. Apparently she complains to our next door neighbor (He's on some sort of neighborhood committee) daily. Since everyone but her enjoys the music, she probably won't get far, but god help her if we tangle. I'll fucking take her out.

There's been a lot of talk about gentrification over this way. Discussions about whether white folks moving back into traditionally black (i.e. poor) neighborhoods is good because it increases diversity, or bad because it prices most folks who were originally in the neighborhood out of their homes. I dunno about all that-it's a bit of both, I think.

The problem is that you take a traditionally poor black neighborhood, and some white folks, along with whoever else, move in to be somewhere diverse, where folks have a live and let live attitude and differences can be celebrated, yaddah, yaddah, let's all hold hands and sing "Michael Row Your Boat Ashore." Then, as neighborhoods whiten, they are more acceptable to people with the mentalilty that we all must be the same in a cookie cutter way, and anyone who steps outside of conformity must be punished. These people work day and night to sap the neighborhoods of their style and individuality. When conformity is established, rents and home values rise, making the neighborhood unpalatable to its original inhabitants, who move out, and more palatable to Nike executives in the burbs, who move in.

I'll try to enjoy my corner of Northeast Portland while I can. In less than five years, everything is going to be manicured and sanitized for your protection.

Can't talk. Playing Sims. Can't figure out where my sim is stashing the virtual bills-virtual furniture repossessed, virtual mood down in the dumps, virtual depression preventing accomplishment of tasks. Real furniture ok, for the time being.

I had an epic battle with the militant ant colony yesterday. It was gross. And anty.

Busy weekend, but in a good way. We got a surprise visit from some roofers who are even now putting a stylish new hat on my home. Apparently the joke J and I had about the roof being original to the house was only a half joke-the shingles are about 30 years old, but underneath is the old, 1910s roof. I guess I was wrong-we don't have a shitty roof, we have a very good one that is 60 years past its prime.

Anyhow, the roofers are also taking with them the previous tenant's garbage from behind the garage and yard debris from the other side of the garage. You have no idea how exciting this is for me. While the roofers roofed, J and I got several yard chores done, which doesn't sound exciting, but considering the horribly decrepit condition of our yard, is pretty far up on my excite-o-meter.

I spent some time thinking about government too, and how much of the very little faith I have in the fairness and essential rightness of our system has been damaged. Huh. And here I thought all that idealism was beaten out of me in law school.

I don't care much for most political blogs, because most of them just parrot what their commentator of choice has to say, and are thus completely uninteresting. There are a few exceptions where you can find original information, thoughts and whatnot, but for the most part they are a giant bore-o-rama (unlike my blog, which tackles the tough issues of the day, like how cute my dogs are or how much of a bad day I'm having) so I've pretty much stayed away from politics here in this blog.

But I feel at this point in this disasterous time that I have to get something straight for the record. This administration is disgusting and dangerous. Everyone involved in it should be fired/impeached and brought to trial. There's not a day that goes by that my stomach doesn't churn in anger over what I'm hearing in the news-and a good portion of that anger is directed towards the synchophantic press corps, busily churning out propaganda instead of getting off their ass and working (Spit that dick out of your mouth and do your fucken job, assholes). A large percentage of the people who should be leading us are too busy getting head at the Watergate Hotel, or taking golf trips with lobbyists, or getting in good with Jesus, to be bothered with upholding the Constitution. You know, like in that oath? The oath you took when you assumed office? Jackasses, weasles and butt-knuckles. How long, O lord?

It is really helping my anxiety levels to be taking care of some of the enormous debts I have. I've spoken to two out of three of my student loan processors (or whatever the hell politispeak name those things go by these days), paid my 4 month overdue phone bill, dealt with an overdrawn account, dealt with an account with fraudulent charges on it and dealt with one of my credit cards (closed now and in payoff only mode, sigh). While it would be nice to have some money after paying bills and gas, I guess I'm able to hold the fort with what I've got. It's been a really scary period, but I'm comming out the other end.

I feel slightly guilty browsing and applying for legal jobs. When my friend K hired me, he talked about how having me stay on for at least a period of 6 months would be desireable, but he didn't want me to feel like I had to sacrifice my well being for his sake. I told him that I couldn't promise not to leave if a real job came along. It's sort of an uneasy situation, though, because I've taken on so much responsibility at this job, and we're about to enter a critical transition period. We have to move to a new office and are planning on taking at least a month off to reorganize and get things under control.

I've only applied to the few jobs that really interested me. Right now, a dream job doing criminal defense on the appellate level is open (fingers crossed) and I have a possible clerkship in the works, as well. Both have start dates a few months in the future, so I would be available to help K through most of the transition, but it just makes me feel a bit sneaky. I don't really want to mention anything yet, though, because who the frig knows if I'll even get an interview. First things first.

I watched a great documentary on Tammy Faye Bakker the other night. It was called "The eyes of Tammy Faye Bakker" and was narrated by RuPaul. It surprised me because not only did I learn a whole lot about the PTL scandle, but I found myself actually likeing Tammy Faye Bakker. Her and Jim weren't like these modern Christians, who, to be frank, are sort of scary. Tammy Faye had AIDS victims on her show (at a time when AIDS victims were almost entirely homosexual and AIDS was being called GRID-gay related immune deficiency disorder) and told her viewers that as Christians they should be reaching out to those who are suffering from diseases. She talked frankly about her drug addiction and how nice tripping was, except for when it wasn't (there is also some great footage from their shows to illustrate this period in her life). She even visited with the reporter who broke the scandle, confronted him (and left him speechless) about what she felt was the unfairness of the scandle (out of 158 million dollars Jim Bakker raised, he was accused of embezzling 3 million), and then signed a copy of his book for a charity auction. Watch it if you get the chance-it's good.

Our trip to the coast was fun, although it didn't go as planned. Starting out, we packed up J's comfy old Mercedes with the sun roof, hopped in and started rolling down our very steep driveway. As the car reached maximum incline, there was a thump and then coffee started raining down from above. I ducked when the coffee hit my neck, which saved me from taking a metal travel-cup in the head. The dash was unharmed.

It rained off and on during the drive down, but when we got to Yachats the sun was shining. The beach there is dotted with large rocks and tide pools and all sorts of cool stuff. While we were wandering around, we nearly killed Pogo (again) when an unusually large wave came in. Jude and I ran for high ground. J and Pogo ducked into what turned out to be a narrow dead end between rocks. J got soaked, Pogo got a dunking. Luckily he was still there when the wave receded and he came sprinting out from the rocks with his tail wagging like crazy. When he got over to me, he picked up a stick and threw it about joyfully. I think he was adrenalin rushing-"Look at me! I'm alive!" Weird ass dog.

We took the survivors back to the hotel room where they cleaned themselves and I fell asleep like the grandma in training I am. The next day was rainy and cold, so we slept in and had a monkey and dog pile on one of the queen beds, drinking coffee laced with hot chocolate and listening to NPR while the rain drummed against our roof.

Today is my actual birthday, but I don't feel a whole lot of anything about it. I don't especially feel like celebrating-this last year has been way too draining and disappointing for that. I hadn't been able to think of any sort of present I'd super duper like (besides someone to deal with my creditors) and we're really too brokster to do a whole lotta anything. Still, it doesn't seem right to spend your birthday working, cleaning and then going to bed early.

I have travel on the brain this week. In addition to our short coast trip, I've been wrangling dates, airfares and additional logistics to get my ass back to Wisconsin (w/J in tow) for my cousin's wedding. This is difficult for a variety of reasons, namely:
1. J and I don't have any money.
2. Northern Wisconsin requires a vehicle, thus we will have to rent a car (see #1).
3. My mom lives 5 hours away from where the wedding will be. She lives 20 minutes from a major international airport, which is cheap to fly into and out of. But the cost of getting a car and traveling to the wedding from her house will probably be more expensive than the cost of flying into Rhinelander direct (Rhinelander also has an 'international airport' but no one flys into or out of it, so far as I know). Also, J can't deal with cigarette smoke, so we would have to rent a hotel room for any days spent by the big city. I have a friend we can stay with for any days spent in Rhinelander. All this is further complicated because my mom is paying for airfare, and I want to keep that as inexpensive as possible.

In an ideal world, I could fly into Madison cheaply, show J around, get a free car powered by fairy dust, visit with my grandparents and family in Southern Wisconsin, and then drive up to Rhinelander. In the real world, this would be hideously expensive (see #1). I have limited time and money-I don't want to spend most of it on travel. Blarg. All I know right now is that I will make this goddamn wedding, if I have to walk all the friggen way. Any readers in the great northwoods want to meet me and J up at Horhays for house coffees? Clove and honey goodness!

My mom sent me some bucks that are "for fun only." Personally, I think having electricity and water is fun, but J talked me into taking a trip to the coast for my birthday. We found a great hotel in Yachats (pronounced Yah-hahtz) that doesn't have a problem with dogs and isn't very expensive this time of year. I really love packing a lunch and hopping in the car for a leisurly ride down 101. Yachats is off the beaten track a bit-it's less touristy than a lot of the coastal towns and has a nice peaceful beach. Can't wait to get the frig out of here.

So far it's been one of those mornings-not the sort of mornings that make you say, "Wow, I can't wait to greet the day!" but one of those mornings that make you say, "Urg, blarg, gurntz" because you're not quite awake enough to realize you're fucking up. There's really no excuse for this-J and I have been dragging this week, so we went to lay down shortly after Jeopardy (we're training to be senior citizens).

Bleck. Is soy milk supposed to leave white crusty shit in the bottom of your coffee mug?

Someone at Senate.gov dropped by today-aren't you guys supposed to be working or something? It's not like I'm a dangerous subversive.

My ballot is all fucked up, I don't like it and I don't like getting the run around to fix it. Y'see, around here, they mail you out your ballot and then you mail it back in. I know. Stupid, huh?

Anyhow, I'm registered as an independent. I got two democratic primary ballots in the envelope. Now I'm running around trying to get the right friggen ballot so my goddamned vote won't be invalidated-I'm sure one of those election grannies could have set me straight in about 5 fucking minutes.

Maybe it's just paranoia, but there is a third party governer running who is likely going to take a chunk of fed up dems (and fed up repubs) with him. And here I am, an independent voter who received not one, but two democrat ballots. Anyone want to guess how many independents are in the same boat? How many independent voters are going to be disqualified in this election because they turned in democrat ballots?

Here in Oregon, if you mention how people go to the polls in other places, they start whining at you-at the polls you have to wait in line! At the polls you may run into undesireables! At the goddamn polls, you have to vote on a certain specified day! God forbid participating in democracy be so inconvenient as to force you to spend time with your community.

One of my fonder memories of waiting at the polls is from the election of 1998. It was my first year voting, and there were exciting races afoot. After waiting for an hour in line to register (we can register at the polls where I'm from), we had to wait another 45 minutes for more ballots to be airlifted in (no one expected a good turnout for a midterm election). It was well worth it-not only did we squeak Russ Feingold back into office where he belongs, but we also elected the first lesbian in the House-Ms. Tammy Baldwin. And it was a blast-we were sitting around the school, laughing and talking and just having a good time.

I know everyone is all for convenience-trust me, I am too. But this vote from home stuff does more than just isolate us from our community-it makes error and fraud easier. Its like the difference between going down to the telephone company and talking to someone who lives in your community and who will be there, named and faced, the next time you come in, and calling the phone company up to discuss a bill. Theoretically, calling someone is easier, more convenient-you can do it anytime, anywhere. But anyone who has been bounced around from customer rep to customer rep, always speaking to someone different who happens to not have any record of any previous calls you made and waiting on hold and speaking with various people scattered all over the world knows that taking five fucking minutes to walk in and talk to someone can save years of frustration and sitting on hold.

If you like seeing public figures faced with uncomfortable truths, then you should head on over to www.youtube.com and check out Colbert at the White House Correspondent's Dinner.

Here's what Media Mattershas to say:

But in their subsequent coverage of the event, numerous news outlets focused only on Bush's light-hearted comedy, while omitting mention of Colbert's blistering performance. On the April 30 edition of ABC's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos played an excerpt of Bush's act and remarked that the dinner "gets more inventive every year." That same morning, on NBC's Sunday Today, co-host Lester Holt introduced clips of the Bush-Bridges routine by noting that the "relationship between the White House press corps and the president can be a contentious one, but last night it was all laughs." The footage of Bush's performance also aired on the April 30 broadcast of NBC's Nightly News.

On May 1, all three major networks played clips of Bush's routine on their morning shows, but ignored Colbert entirely. CNN's American Morning did the same.

Similarly, a May 1 New York Times article on the event -- "A New Set of Bush Twins Appear at Annual Correspondents' Dinner" -- by reporter Elisabeth Bumiller recounted Bush and Bridge's performance in detail and provided some background on how the routine was devised. The article reported, "With his approval ratings in the mid-30's and a White House beset by troubles, there is some evidence that Mr. Bush worked harder on his performance this year than in the past." But Bumiller omitted any mention of Colbert or the fact that he had highlighted the White House's current problems at the dinner.

Further, while C-SPAN broadcast the April 29 event live and aired the event in its entirety several times in the following 24 hours, the network also aired an abridged version of the dinner that featured only Bush's performance. Indeed, on May 30, C-SPAN broadcast a 25-minute segment (7:35 p.m. -- 8:00 p.m. ET), which featured approximately 10 minutes of footage of guests entering the event, followed by the full 15-minute Bush-Bridges routine.

And so on, as Vonnegut likes to say. So, go take a look, if only because they don't want you to.

Don't you hate it when you fall asleep on your arm, so when the alarm goes off in the morning you can only flap your dead arm at the snooze button again and again trying to get a few more moments under the covers, curled up and warm.