Originally posted 5 September 2002

I've been in love with crayons ever since I can remember. The first box I remember having is the child-sized 'basic eight' which were large and long and only half-round, like a bunch of wax logs, split for easy use, and wrapped in colorful paper. They're supposed to be easier for young children, those who haven't yet developed fine motor skills, to handle. You know you're growing up when those fat coloring sticks become too heavy, the tips too large, for the work you want to do. But what I liked about them is that you could fill a page with color in next to no time, and the points never broke.

Later, probably beginning in Kindergarten, our lists of school supplies began to include personal boxes of crayons, or, in the wake of budget cuts, teachers would ask every child to bring in boxes of tissues, boxes of crayons, glue, etc., and all would be shared among the community of the classroom, over the year. I never went to grade school in California, except for sixth grade, by which time they tried to wean us away from crayons, and my vague recollection of the schools in New Jersey was that they were very structured, so maybe this was just a Colorado thing – after all, it was the seventies, and it was an open-classroom school.

Now, I'm the proud owner of a 96-pack, which contains the eight newest colors, as well as the eight that were retired several years ago. I've never used it. I might, someday, or I might not, but just having it means I can pick it up, and look at the riot of colors in that yellow and green box of artistic possibility. I can smell the combination of wax and construction paper – it leaves the merest trace of a metallic taste at the back of my throat, and I've never been sure if that's just a trick of the mind, or if it's a faint memory of the times, as a young child, I must have eaten a crayon. (Has any child ever /not/ eaten a crayon?).

I hate to be a brand-whore, but it's really only Crayola® Crayons that have the smell, and the color quality, that pleases me. I know this because once someone gave me another brand, and the blue wasn't blue enough, the red looked pink, and the brown was just disturbing.

Originally posted 13 September 2002

It's overcast this morning, and for once I'm the first person out of bed. This rarely happens, and a part of me has to wonder if the overcast morning was somehow calling to me. Not that I don't like sunshine – quite the contrary – but fall, or autumn if you want to be all proper, has always been the season I'm most attuned to.

My latest theory about why I love Fall is that it has to do with being born in August, and that the cooling of the days, the lengthening of the nights, and the turning of the leaves were some of the first things I encountered, outside the circle of love that was Mommy.

Or, perhaps it's just that I know the rainy season will start, and I absolutely love rain. Once, when I was nine or ten, I had a rainy Saturday all to myself. I remember wearing my favorite rainbow sweatshirt, the jeans I'd been given for riding lessons earlier that summer, and my favorite red Keds, adding a very spiffy raincoat, taking my very spiffy bubble umbrella, and practicing the Gene Kelly curb-thing from Singin' in the Rain. I'm sure I must've looked extremely strange, but when you're nine or ten you can get away with such things, and at the most, they'll call you 'creative'. Now, they'd call me 'touched' – or worse.

Rain is the one element of weather that I know I experience with every sense. I love the taste of ozone in the back of my throat, just before the clouds burst, love the way the air seems to still, love the smell of the world being washed clean, however briefly. I love the way it tingles on my skin. Natalie Goldberg wrote once about how she took a bunch of grade-schoolers outside and tried to teach them how to walk between the raindrops – this is something I, too, have tried. It doesn't work, of course, but it's still fun to let go, and pretend. And, I confess, I still love splashing through puddles.

Today, of course, it's much too early in the year to expect actual precipitation. But even the haze of morning brings a hint of that pre-rain tang, and cools the morning a bit. True, it'll all be gone by eleven, but by then I'll be cocooned in my office, with music playing and a macchiato at my fingertips, and the world Outside will cease to exist at all for several hours.

Until then, I'm going to curl up with the fall editions of some favorite magazines, and imagine decorating the new house for Halloween, and pretend that the sound of the water from Zerimar's shower is really rain.

* * * * *

Bright before me the signs implore me:
Help the needy and show them the way.
Human kindness is overflowing,
and I think it's gonna rain today.

A couple weeks ago, in a fit of low self-esteem, I created another journal where I'd intended to post the results of self-imposed writing practices. I have that impulse a lot, really, because shedding a virtual identity is so comparitively easy, and because my moods change I want to be able to change the title, the very username I use, to reflect that, sometimes.

And then this morning, posted a probably-rhetorical entry that had in it the question, “Does anyone have any useful advice about writing,” and of course, I offered the words of my own writing guru, Natalie Goldberg, and that sparked an entry, and a minor epiphany.

This is the entry.

Here's the epiphany: If I'm truly interested in using this as writing practice, I have to stop censoring myself, because none of Ms. Goldberg's techniques work when you have a closed mind.

Does this mean y'all get to read my unsubmitted entry from OD's last sex week? Well, not likely. But it does mean, Calla-Lily is dead and I'm bringing the couple of entries I wrote for that over here.

After all, it's MY journal. I can do what I want.

Those are the words at the top of my mind right now. I try to be patient, I really do, but lately it seems I've been surrounded by incompetence.

Like the bottle-blonde bitch who represented the buyer in my real estate transaction, who pushed and pushed to close early because her buyer did a fifteen day rate-lock in this market and would lose her lock, and managed to get the lender to agree to fund and record without having section I termite items cleared. And while that doesn't really adversely affect me (I mean, okay, I'm technically renting my own condo for the next ten days or so, but that is less money than my full month's mortgage, so what do I care?), it annoys me, because SHE got her paycheck today, but the loan officer doesn't get paid unless the section I stuff is cleared. And it's unfair.

And then, to cap it all, this same woman called the title company yesterday to demand that they NOT record, so her client wouldn't have to pay interest over the weekend. (This is illegal. If you fund a loan it MUST record within 24 hours. This is why we're lucky to be in Santa Clara County were you can do 'specials' – fund and record in the same day.) Note: people who have been in the biz for 20 years should know better than to ask the escrow officer to do an illegal thing. Especially when the escrow officer has a business relationship with the seller of the property, and not with them.

But, no, that's not enough. In addition my OWN lender hasn't yet managed to do their paperwork. They've had my conditions for OVER A WEEK, and have known since DAY 1 that a review appraisal was required. So today, I had to find a review appraiser FOR THEM. Aaack. Idiots.

And then, apparently, my job has been extended to include training other people's employees, because I just spent half an hour educating a new underwriter at a lender in Santa Rosa about the concept of Deminimus PUD's (like the Stepford Houses off of Park) where there's a nominal HOA for gardening and security, but no real HOA documentation. And this same underwriter seems to think, “Um, yeah, this is D. and you should prolly leave a message” is a professional outgoing VoiceMail message, and doesn't know enough to include his extension when he leaves the phone number, knowing they don't have a human receptionist.

Whether or not you read the rant, here's the practical upshot: I'm bitchy and moody and need a lot of Vodka, and September cannot end soon enough.

This morning, I bribed my escrow officer with a mocha, so that I could sip my chai for an hour and not feel rude for drinking in front of her. She's a wonderful person, so it was all to the good.

We no longer, as of tomorrow, own our condo, although we'll live in it through the first week in October. Maybe.

Now, we're pushing our lender to do their thing, and pushing our realtor to do her thing, so we can close on the purchase, probably late next week, after the Section I termite work is done.

Saturday, we're going to the house to look at the bathrooms, so we know what color tile to pick for replacements, and measure the gaps where appliances will go, and such.

On a side note, the woman who bought our condo currently lives in the same apartment complex where we lived for six months in 1998, just before buying said condo.

Just a token “small world” story.

The thing about working so many hours is that it leaves me with very little energy, and since I'm at a computer all day, I have periods where, much as I love certain online activities, I'm just not in any kind of mood to be in front of a computer all night. Shocking, I know :)

In any case, with all the books packed save for the four I bought with birthday money, and have already finished, and the one I'm about to pick up tonight, the only thing left to do is veg in front of the tv. And since we moved furniture which apparently killed the downstairs cable feed, if I don't want to be in the computer room, the only thing I can watch is movies.

So, we've been having an orgy of DVD rentals, lately, and not from NetFlix, because I've emptied my queue there, until after we move.

Last week, for Fuzzy's birthday, we saw Signs in the theater, and then came home, and plowed through The Time Machine, The Imposter, and Legally Blonde, and over the last week, we've seen America's Sweethearts and An Ideal Husband, as well as various episodes from Season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is one of my guilty pleasures.

Most of these have been things we've both watched, though some have not. I don't think Fuzzy was in the room while Dinotopia was playing, for example. Last night, though, I not only cooked real food (only chilli, but, still, not from wrappers), we watched a movie we both enjoyed: The Count of Monte Cristo. It wasn't at all true to the letter of the book, but I loved the use of Malta as a stand in for early 19th-Century Marseilles, and I think they kept to the spirit of the books quite well.

And on that note, my last page is printing, and I'm ready to shut down the copier, and head home.

Fuzzy and I never managed to see MIB2 when it was originally blasting it's way through the summer movie scene, and had pretty much decided we were stuck with waiting for it's eventual release on DVD.

Yesterday, however, we got a pleasant surprise. We'd been arguing. Well, no. I'd been stressing, and lack of protein and stress made lose all control, to the point where, I'm sad to admit, I flung a pair of shoes at my poor, innocent husband (black suede lace-up MIA's with very hard chunky soles, if you really want to know). Yogurt, of all things, helped me calm down enough to become human again, and when I was looking for ideas on where to eat (we tend to avoid cooking at home, these days, because there are PEOPLE traipsing in and out to do STUFF all the time, and it's easier to just not worry about whether or not things are done) I found out that the Camera Seven in the Pruneyard was playing MIB2 that evening. We could just make it and eat, too.

So we went, and when we got there, they said, “It's actually a double feature with Spider-Man.” Well, cool. I mean, we'd seen Spider-Man, but the novelty of a double feature made our decision for us. And it didn't cost any more.

So, I had a salmon-salad sandwich, and he had roast beef with bleu cheese, and then we got a large drink and popcorn at the concession. (Note: While I find it horrendous that these people charge nearly five dollars for a large drink, I like the fact that they give free refills of their large sizes, which, for a double feature, makes sense.)

Fuzzy's favorite part of MIB2 was the dog. This should surprise no one.

Then we stayed and the crowd got bigger, and Spider-Man started. Except fifteen minutes into the film it got all streaky. And then the sound s l o w e d d o w n. And then it stopped. A few minutes of some weird hoedown music, and it restarted. Still streaky. Stopped again. Repeat process, including hoedown music.

After the third time they gave up trying to fix the projecter, and came in to offer money back, free passes, and the right to wander into anything still playing. Or some combination thereof.

There was nothing still playing that I wanted to walk into the middle of, and since we'd seen the movie we wanted to see, we saw no point in getting our money back, so we have free passes. Yay.

I have to say, the crowd was really polite, and most people found humor in the situation. And the whole thing reminded me of when my parents would take me to movies in Idaho Springs, CO, when I was about seven. It was the only theater for several towns, and I think the projecter from the Flintstones was more sophisticated. In winter, you'd have to bring blankets to keep warm. And almost every night the bulb would over heat and stop the film, and everyone would throw popcorn at the projectionist, and scream. Not in a malicious way, just as part of the ritual.

Anyway, we drove around the neighborhood that will soon be ours, trying to figure out (in the dark) if the new house has line-of-sight to a certain building, because we're some minimal number of feet to far for PacHell to do DSL, and while we can get T1 through Fuzzy's company, there's a wireless option that's considerably less expensive, and can install w/i three days.

Results were inconclusive, but we did scope out a park about half a mile from the new place, where we can go to let the dogs RUN every once in a while. Yay, parks.

And even if we didn't get to see all of Spider-Man, we still got 2.5 movies for the price of one, and to me, that's a good deal.

I'm feeling very fractured and not at all coherent lately. Maybe it's the 20 files I still have on my desk, or maybe it's being caught in two escrows. Probably it's both.

The buyer of my condo is the most anal person I've ever not-quite-met. She fails to understand basic things like, no, we are not going to tent the entire complex because she doesn't want to have to re-treat for termites that are ONLY in one teeny section of the garage wall, in a year.

Her realtor, someone I've encountered before, is an uptight bottle-blonde bitch, who pushes everyone else to do things at her speed, but then doesn't return phone calls. I hate folks like that.

So, I'm irritated, and grumpy, and lunch was brought to me at 11:45, and here it is 7:21, and I managed to drink the energy blend, but the omelette sits, untouched.

Who has time for things like food that requires actual utensils?

For that matter, who has energy? We've been living on so much fast food (which neither of us even likes) for so long that we're going to end up preserving our own livers.

I wish I had a fairy godmother who would whisk me to her cottage and cook me a fabulous dinner, which I didn't have to help make, or clean up after.

Well. One can dream.

[Whine mode, over. I promise.]

So, the buyer of our condo has docs in title, and has to sign by Friday or she loses her rate lock, and our realtor hasn't yet sent us their last laundry list, or answered my message from this morning, but I refuse to worry, because with docs in title, if she decides she doesn't like what we counter with, we keep her deposit.

And I won't even mention that we STILL haven't negotiated a rent-back.

Nope, no stress in my life.

Have cold.
Am grumpy.
Cannot open windows (at all) in house because mold test is tomorrow and there's some thing about needing to capture inside air.
House is hot and stuffy.
Am tempted to sleep on deck, but there are spiders there.

I hate spiders.

Bed now.