Stop this mortgage, I want to get off!

Wow. Ok. So, plenty of people warned me that buying a house would be easily one of the most delightful and yet despairing times in my life. It was described as quite the roller coaster, but that doesn’t begin to really cover it. One moment there is elation as the plan seems to come together, smoothly and efficiently. It is quickly followed by immense fear and concern, fright that burrows down to the deepest corners of your foundation–financial stability. Then you come up a hill again and whee! The sunshine is bright and the birds are cackling madly in the bushes. Damn, but it’s really one fucked up ride.

Wednesday was the most intense day so far. The week had started out quite badly, what with a wild swing in numbers (not in my favor) and a flaked-out accountant (H&R Block is the devil). Trying to find a new accountant the week after April 15th? Not the easiest thing in the world.

However, after two failed attempts, one minor (ok, major) freakout, and a panicked call to a financial advisor/friend of my parents… I had a new Richard Dreyfus-looking CPA who re-calculated all the bits for half the price… and had them come out, in the end, the way I had been planning originally. Which is to say, I wasn’t going to lose my shirt in order to gain a home. Is it ok to be in love with your tax man? Cause I am, a little.

After I left Mr. Dreyfus’s office, I visited my dad briefly at his office (a block away), and then headed straight for a meeting with my mortgage broker to sign the pre-emptive paperwork and make sure everything was in the clear credit-wise.

I am still on that high. All that remains is the inspection and closing. Or at least that’s what I think they’re telling me. I’m sure some new disaster will loom on the horizon, and maybe it will be averted and maybe not. Some moments I am very excited and others I wonder just what I’ve gotten myself into. I suppose the Truth in Lending statement lets me know just that… and damn it’s a lot of digits.

The inspection is next Friday; close is currently scheduled for June 19. It seems like a long time, but it’s really not. Holy crap, I might actually own a house at 30. Fuck.

Friday five

So, it’s been a while. Maybe the questions are better again. This one’s not so bad.

  1. How do you feel about people who commit suicide? Such as, do you feel that they are too lazy to deal with life, have depression, do you feel sorry for them, etc.?

    My perspective on that is born of how I feel about a person’s right to life. I think that people’s bodies are pretty much theirs inviolate, to do with as they wish… with the only external control being that they cannot use them to harm or endanger others, where ‘others’ is defined as independantly-existing persons of any age.

    I think that because I believe it is very difficult to define what is “right” and what is “wrong.” Sure, there are lots of things we can agree on as a society–murder, theft, assault–but there are also lots of situations where people disagree or digress over time. Things that are considered heinous now were permissable before (smoking and drinking during pregnancy, for example) and vice versa (interracial relationships). We make rules that are fairly arbitrary (only some drugs are illegal). And people often break laws they consider unjust (polygamy or adultry).

    What to do with ones body–and ones conscious exisistance–is really up to the individual. An alcoholic is free to destroy his liver, cause his own impotence, and likely destroy his closest relationships. A woman is free to bear children whenever she chooses. Couples should be allowed to have sex, if they both desire it and are of an age of reasonable consent (I consider most current laws reasonable), whenever they wish. A person is perfectly welcome to smoke cigarettes or ingest drugs if they wish, if they desire that experience.

    And so too about death. Who am I to decide when someone’s done?

    I think that there are lots of reasons why people might kill themselves. Some are truly valid and I take no issue with that. In fact, I think we as a society should recognize the choice and–like reproductive choice–seek to ease the process of it medically and emotionally. There are many afflictions that leave people near death and agonized for years on end. There are forms of suffering that can only end in awful demise–the kinds of deaths we all fervently and desperately wish to avoid. Why do we not offer the simple solution to that most heinous of futures?

    The specific issues mentioned above are more complex, but still rational. Someone who is “too lazy to deal with life” is the most odd, so I will address it first.

    I hate the term ‘lazy.’ People use it to describe others that they have found wanting, either through appearance or behavior. It’s a judgment based on what? What you want for someone else? That’s not yours to decide. If working part-time as a fry cook is as much as somebody wants to do? Cool, that might be their thing. I feel like lots of people spend way too much time scrambling to get to the top of the heap. Maybe if more folks lazed around a little, got off the heap, and checked out the scenery… things might go a little more peacefully around us.

    And, frankly, being lazy is the dumbest reason for killing yourself EVER. I mean, please? Someone lazy probably can’t be bothered with down-not-across.

    Seriously, though, I think the gist wasn’t so much “lazy” but more “tired of life.” That’s sort of a grey area. Sure, it’s a cop-out, but really if you’re going to go with the absolute will of the individual, you kind of have to take all comers. Depeche Mode knows it well:

    But before you come to any conclusions
    Try walking in my shoes

    Who’s to say that some “lazy” person’s reasons for suicide aren’t valid?

    And by the same token, who’s NOT to say that a crazy person’s reasons for suicide aren’t valid? I mean, not that they can’t be, but it’s pretty impossible to tell, what with the mental illness and all. And generally in this world, when we really can’t tell, we err on the side of caution. After all, you can always kill yourself later.

    Flip? Perhaps. But just because some people might die of it, doesn’t mean we can’t cast a suspicious eye on it, and boil it down to something resembling logic.

  2. What do you think people say about you behind your back?

    Whatever they want to.

    People gossip. Taking it seriously is a waste of time better spent being lazy.

  3. If you could own and operate any major business, what would it be?

    Either something creative and interesting where I could be a part-time contributor and general figurehead… or a business that was largely run by a competant and trustworthy general manager, so that I could travel the world and do as I pleased while the profits rolled in and good people were helped with my products. And before you think I’m like every other big-wig Enron-age CEO… I’d set up a European-style workplace, with extensive vacation time and shorter hours for all employees, not just the powerful ones.

    Obviously, I am SO ready for retirement. Or benevolent dictatorship.

  4. Are you/would you be embarrassed to talk to your friends or family about sex?

    Friends? Nah. We talk about sex all the time. How else would you know what the hell to do if not for your friends?

    Now, family? Not so much. I mean, the birds and bees conversation with my mom happened–unfortunately she decided to wait until I was 15, had my learner’s permit, and was operating a motor vehicle. Let’s just say I wouldn’t advise that tactic.

    As an adult, I’ve never been in a sexual relationship that my parents condoned, so it’s a bit of a sticky wicket. Were I married and doing it, it’s probable that I might feel more comfortable chatting nookie with my mom. But my brother or my father? Not a chance.

  5. In some cultures, young women are married and begin families as soon as they start a menstrual cycle. Do you believe this is right or wrong? Why?

    Speaking of sticky wickets…

    There’s several things at play here. First is of course the rights of a parent–rights to choose for their offspring what religion is practiced, what lifestyle is undertaken, and what lessons are taught in the home. How far do those rights extend? Then there is the minor child to consider–she is an independant human being. What rights does she have? Third question concerns the marital relationship itself. What kind of arrangement is it exactly? What rights confer to the husband, in regards to his child wife?

    My first reaction is of course to reject the idea wholesale. It smacks of molestation and statuatory rape.

    But, remember, generations of ancestors operated this way. Menustration was indeed the age of maturity, and young wives were necessary to bear the brutal labors of the time, and to produce as many surviving offspring as possible. There are places in the world where this is still the norm, where infant mortality and mortality in general is still an enormous problem. Girls become wives at an age that we would consider unseemly and mothers at ages we think insane. But it still works. It still meets the first biological imperative: to survive.

    But at what cost? Women in feudal days were little more than broodmares and workhorses. (And not that the men didn’t work–life, if anything, was short and violent for all.) Women who are taken as child brides rarely come into authority. They are subject to their father and then their spouse, a situation that is ripe for abuse.

    And moreso than abuse even, the systemic denigration of one class tends towards chaos. Women feel devalued, depressed, angry, or infantalized. When revolt, dissatisfaction, suicide, and murder are the only viable exit strategies, what result can there really be?

    So I suppose my decision is that it’s wrong–not because parents don’t have that right, or because it’s child abuse on face, but because it creates a scenerio where women are firmly fixed as the underclass, and the patriarchy requires they never be allowed to ascend. In effect, it renders one-half of the gender bloc moot and hands all power to the other. This is slavery, and it is a wrong committed against one by another, which breaks the general (and oft-considered golden) rule mentioned in the response to the first question.

2 responses to “Stop this mortgage, I want to get off!”

  1. Robust McManlyPants Says:

    Oh, trust me, June 19 will zoom up faster than you can imagine. After all, there’s still the dealing with anything that turns up during inspection, negotiating those repairs, etc., etc. But fear not! The roller coaster continues, yes, but eventually you will start to feel the brakes applied and see the exit in the distance.

  2. bascha Says:

    I would like to get off. Or on. Or to the end. Or something. :)

    I have been promised that this is all worth it, and I believe that. I am torn between being very excited (planning colors and changes and furniture) and trying to hold off until it’s a done deal (so that if it falls through, I can see myself in a different place).

    It’s really a great little house that I totally see myself living in, though.

    Is it really geeky that I built a version of it in the Sims?

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