Done. Just. Let. It. Be. Done.

So, back two months and five days ago I wrote a post about looking at a house. Two months and three days ago we made an offer on a different house. Yada yada you SERIOUSLY do not want the details, but we are still in the process of buying said house, two weeks past the closing date, no end in sight, and I, well I am still LIVING WITH MY MOTHER.

IN ALL CAPS!

My mother is also the REALTOR!

And the whole thing is a mess! AND I LIVE WITH MY MOTHER, THE REALTOR.

I seem to spend a lot of time SPEAKING IN ALL CAPS TOO.

My coworkers notice. Which is undeniably embarassing.

I have given my coworker very specific instructions about which mental hospital hospital to send me to if I have a visible nervous breakdown while at work. And which one to make sure I DO NOT WIND UP IN NO MATTER WHAT.

I think she thought I was joking.

I hope she was paying attention.

Today really iced the damn cake. Today Boyfriend was im-ing with me while talking to the loan processor, loan officer, back to the loan processor who was setting the closing date for later this week when BING we get an email from the realtor announcing the sellers have YET ANOTHER DAMN PROBLEM and we are delayed. AT LEAST TWENTY DAYS. The fuckers.

Anyway. Boo. Boohoo. Blah blah blah.
---
I haven't listened to Leonard Cohen in a long time. I didn't even know who Leonard Cohen was when Boyfriend and I got together.

We dubbed the 'apartment' where he lived then the Chelsea Hotel. Because it would drive someone to do heroin if they lived there long enough I think.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,

Because it was old and small and we had a lot of sex there.

And drank tequila. And other stuff. And cooked dinner on hot plates.

A friend called me in the middle of the night there once. She is better now.

I smoked cigarettes inside for the only time in my life there.

I quit being a vegetarian there. By roasting a chicken for Thanksgiving dinner. In a toaster oven.

For a few weeks, when we were just getting together, I slept there. Like a normal person. Who sleeps. For multiple hours on end and then wakes up with enough energy to have sex, go running, and then go to work.

And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left.

That was a LONG time ago.

We talked a lot then. We didn't make our relationship public for a long time and we didn't go out and there was no space or furniture or television, so we talked. And we like each other. And we like talking to one another. We would fall asleep and wake up at four just to start talking again.

It was different then.

Although we still eat sushi more than is fiscally practicable.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.*
---
Tomorrow I have to write a statement of professional objectives.

That is intimidating.

My objective is mostly to have a profession. Because I need one. I am pretty convinced that I will have one of those professions that wind up being sucessful and yield a reasonably sizeable 401k. I am ambitious. I am competitive. I like being able to buy stuff and I am tired of stressing out about money. I'll just do it. Whatever "it" is.

Breaking rocks out here on the chain gang

Breaking rocks and serving my time

 
I will undoubtably spend a large part of that time wishing I could be living a whole different life. I wouldn't much mind a trust fund. Or a rich husband. Or my own winery in the fall with a small cafe that serves gorgeous food out indoors but with big open window walls where you can feel warm fresh air all the time.

I heard the judge say five years

On chain-gang you gonna go

I heard the judge say five years labor

Yeah, but I don't live in Southern California. And I don't go outside that much where I do live. And you can't make wine here or have resturants where window open.

been

working and working

but I still got so terribly far to go**

---

I resent faith. I resent people who have faith. Not just in Jesus. Just Faith. Blind belief of good in the universe, that it comes out in the wash, that the right thing happens in the end. 

I wish I had that I guess. 

Maybe not.

Maybe I used to know how to do that. To let go. 

Now I fret and spend my nights memorizing the ceiling, or the insides of my eyelids, or listening to my baby sleep when I am so privalidged to be able to hear her snores. Or some combination of the three. Or I read. Or I crack out on the internet or Jon and Kate Plus 8 or bad television in general. Or I just lay in bed because I'm so tired that my whole body aches all the time and laying down is better than sitting up. 

Maybe its because I still don't understand the how or the why.

You had and lost the one thing

you kept in a safe place

Maybe its the guilt.

remember the face, the girl who had made you her own

and how you left her alone

Maybe its the fear.

and if you burn the road that'll lead you back to her in time

I'll watch you turn to stone

I really hate three a.m.

*Leonard Cohen, Chelsea Hotel #2

**Nina Simone, Work Song

***Joshua Radin, Star Mile

A place to hang the dishes.

I have been looking at a house.

We went twice this weekend.

Daughter loves said house. Has declared it the "NEW MOMMY HOUSE" despite the fact that it is not "lellow" like the last Mommy House.

There is enough room for all four of us (Daughter, Boyfriend, and Boyfriend's Son should he choose to spend any amount of time with us which we are all hoping that he will choose to do.)

Its pretty 80's which isn't a major complement in this town. It needs some work, but some of the big upgrades have been done...the kitchen is very stainless and steely.

Dear, sweet, compassionate Boyfriend who has never in his life bought so much as a decent car, has pretty much signed on to buying this place having only seen a steady stream of photos in an effort to keep me moderately sane. Things have not been going very well in the Current Living Situation/Sanity Department. Not very well at all.

In September, Daughter and I relocated back here. Since that time I have been staying at my parents' house and she has been splitting her time between her Dad's House and here. I think (hope?) that it is challenging for people who have a positive, well-boundaried relationship with their children's grandparents to reside in the same place. We do not have such a relationship and it is more or less hell. Mostly for me. Daughter likes it here, but even she has been asking more and more and more and more about When! there will be! a New. Mommy. House?

There was an incident this past week that really put the last nail in the coffin (pulled the last nail out of the coffin?) of my ability to stay here. It involved my sister and her husband and a bunch of people hiding from me the fact that they were coming for a ten day long visit. Which was difficult. My relationship with those two people was more or less sacrificed on the alter of my divorce and I'm ok with that. We don't like each other. We don't see the world even REMOTELY similarly and we can not find a common, civil ground, but so long as I am staying in this house with my child I feel that I have a right to know who else will be here so that I can judge whether or not I need to make alternative plans for my child and I to maximize our time together and to minimize emotion! and stress! that she may be subjected to if there are people in the house who refuse to look at/speak to/acknowledge the presence of her mother in a room (just for example).

I feel like I was intentionally deceived and that I have no reason to trust my parents. Period. For the last time. So, despite the fact that Boyfriend isn't here yet (will be at the end of April) and that shopping for a house would be a new, interesting thing for him, we have decided that we need to get out of this environment and into something else as quickly as possible.

Hence the house hunting. Please send good karma our way. We really need a break in the weather and a light at the end of the tunnel. At least I do. I need something in my life to tell me that I can hold my shit together. That my long, three year adventure of living in boxes while attempting to raise a well adjusted child will soon be coming to an end. That at long last we can look at each other and say that we are moved into a life with a set course and a real path to follow. (And also a place to hang all my beautiful pots and pans that have been wasting away in storage for months and months and months and months and months and months and months...