Don't be a jerk

We had our first fight the other day.  Actually, G is so laid back and understated it's possible we have had other fights and I just didn't notice.  And, it's possible he didn't think this one was a fight either.  Maybe a disagreement, maybe a source of frustration, but not really a fight.  I don't know, because I have a skewed view of fights.  I don't easily get angry, and when someone is angry or irritated with me, I get hurt or confused.  Sometimes I get indignant because the angry person is not seeing things accurately, in my opinion, and it feels willful.  But usually the response is an internal curling up into a ball.  The fetal position has long been my default.

Fights with D taught me that I had it in me to scream so loud my heart hurt.  I found myself saying "Fuck you!" and meaning it.  It didn't feel like me, though.  I had changed my default from fetal position to flailing.  I stopped apologizing or taking my share of blame for the fight, because he rarely reciprocated.  My compassion was seen as capitulation and weakness.  Finally, I just ran out of energy.  I had no more investment in defending myself, I neither flailed nor curled.  Our final fight, the night I left, barely qualified as a fight.  I just looked at him and left.  There was no more fight in me.  As T often said, "when you're 'thu,' you're 'thu.'"

Since then, I have been in some fights, but they remain strangely passionless.  Yes, I've been hurt, yes, I've been irritated.  But mainly, I've just ignored my opponent ("It's his/her problem,") or walked away ("I don't deserve this.")  I still don't have the energy for fighting, it seems, and I don't know if that is good or bad.  Neither, I suspect.  It's where I am, part of the healing, part of the lesson learned.  I never again want to care so strongly or hurt so deeply that I invest in fighting.

For the less personal fights (war, gun control, environment, abortion), I have the good fortune to live in a place and in a way where my safety, livelihood and selfhood are not overtly challenged.  I know that there are real problems, real attacks, and that they do impact me as a human on this earth, but I can live in my bubble and leave the fight to others.  Is this a symptom of the lack of energy, or is it another example of my stunning first-world self-absorption?  As I recall, I've always been that way.  The fights with D were an aberration, as were many aspects of that relationship. Normally, I just want to enjoy what I have.  I don't want to fight for it:  if a fight is necessary, I walk away.

So....our first fight.  As with many fights, it was about nothing.  It was about a game.  It was about an unequal investment in the game.  It was about a lack of caring, a lack of focus.  It was about a misunderstanding.  It was....a fight.  I first realized it was a fight when G handed me the game rules and said "You need to read these, you don't know the rules," and I said, "I DO know the rules," and G said....I don't remember.

I curled up on the couch with the rules and started reading. It was a role-playing game, and the rules would have made no sense to me if I hadn't already been playing the game for several weeks.  Most of the rules had to do with setting up the game (G's job).  But I dutifully continued, occasionally saying: "this doesn't make sense," or "we haven't been doing this," or other mutterings to indicate that I WAS NOT THE PROBLEM.  G passed in and out of the room, sometimes responding, sometimes not.  And then I hit the jackpot.  I laughed and read it out loud:  "Be courteous and encourage a mutual interest in playing and don't engage in endless rules discussions.  Enjoy the game, be considerate of the others at the table, and don't let your actions keep them from having a good time.  In short, DON'T BE A JERK."  Later I kissed him and apologized for calling him a jerk and he said, "That's okay, I know you really care about me." 

I do, but not enough to fight about it.

"What do you want to do with this?"

Two months ago I received a statement from my 401K.   Since I left MCL in April, 2009, I have had access to that money.  It halved in value during the recession, and I also had been using it to cover D's debts, my tripled mortgage, and a joint lifestyle that was beyond my means.  In the past year the trickle of funds became a hemorrhage.  Now, it's almost gone.

I'm still unemployed and so is D.  My  unemployment runs out in June, and the vacation rental apartment is bringing in half what it did last year.  While I have cut travel and entertainment expenses by two-thirds, my mortgage cannot be reduced and I am paying over $600 a month in health insurance.

I face the truth:  I can no longer afford my home or my lifestyle.

To stave off foreclosure, I either need to find a new source of income or sell my home.  I cannot face the latter yet.  Since the job search is looking bleaker every day, I have to find income somewhere else.  I decide on more radical measures.  Although I've reduced my living expenses as far as I can and still remain married, I have one more option available to me:  I will rent my home, live in the vacation studio rental,  and downsize my possessions.

I start planning the downsize. Step 1 is a heads' up to family and friends.  Is there anything in my possession that they have coveted or treasured over the past few years?  It's theirs.  Do they know of anyone looking for a nice home, complete with live-in landlords and pets?  Bring 'em on.  Etc.

The support comes pouring in. I receive names of potential house-mates and professional estate sale managers.  I get offers of help, a breathtaking gift of money, affirmations, condolences, and advice.  I feel loved.  I close my eyes to the emotional reality of this process, and I dive in.  I tell myself that this is what I've needed for years, a chance to de-clutter and get out from under my possessions.  I have let the sheer mass of things and responsibilities overwhelm me, and nothing gets done.  Now I will be able to find what's left and spend my time productively.  Or so I hope.

The Master Shedroom

I begin a modest remodel to create a viable living space so I can continue to live in my home.  I locate a renter for the upstairs.  The revised plan is to live in the downstairs, sleep in the newly refurbished shed, and share the kitchen with the renter.  The downstairs bathroom now has a shower.

The downsize is a bigger problem.  D is a hoarder, and I am not far behind.  We realize that we cannot face the choices inherent in managing a moving sale, and I cut a deal with an estate sale professional.  For 35% of the take, she will take care of everything. We painfully decide which rooms will be off-limits during the sale and which large pieces of furniture will be sold.  She begins contacting dealers and valuing our possessions.  We start the even more painful process of deciding about the "little stuff."

From the start it's a nightmare.  There is so much.  I have lived here close to 20 years, Dave close to 7. The remodel is still happening, and that slows down the process of moving stuff.  We start piling things up, but I really don't want to handle it all twice, nor to live out of boxes.  I want to go through the house, choose what to keep, and put it all away in the non-sale rooms.  D wants to go through and decide what to toss, and what to sell.  It's a radical difference in mind-set, and our discussions are accompanied by bouts of frustration, anger, hysteria, screaming, and tears.  I won't say who provided which, but I do start making plans to be gone during the sale itself.

Although I am adamantly not answering D's constant question, "What do you want to do with this?" I cannot escape the reality.  I am doing more than selling off possessions.  I am jettisoning my life.  I have been a musician, artist, craftsman, traveler, reader.   Soon I will no longer have the means to be any of these things, or at least not at the previous level.  I am selling sheet music and CDs, instruments, darkroom equipment, frames, yarn, craft supplies, paper for origami, junk for "found-object" art, material and scraps, books, luggage, maps.  I have also been a friend, lover, daughter, sister, niece.  Everywhere I look I see gifts and memorabilia from these beloved people. Soon I will only have my memories.  Some of these things are worth real money, some only carry emotional value, but all are worth more than any price the professional will put on them.  Do I really want to trash my life?

I cannot be totally ruthless:  I put snapshots and letters into boxes which I stash in the attic and under the stairs.  Some day I will have to cull these as well.  But 90% of the rest must go now.  My wall space, closets, drawers, and table tops are going away, and I cannot store all the art, dishes, and clothing.

The last two weeks have been spent walking from room to room, sitting at dressers, piling things into bags and boxes.  It's a little schizophrenic:  in the rooms dedicated to the sale, I am bagging and tagging things I want to keep.  In the rooms that will be off-limits, I am bagging and tagging things I cannot keep.  D keeps forgetting which process goes with which room, and then he keeps forgetting that the stuff I'm leaving in drawers or stacking on surfaces is going into the sale.  He says, "What do you want to do with this?"  I say, "Put in the sale."  He says, "Who would buy that (paperclip, broken glass,  cord to lost electronic item)?"  I say, "That's up to the professional."  He says, "What do you want to do with this?"

I snap.  I don't want to do anything with "this." I don't want to sell my memories. I don't want to sell junk, I don't want to sell valuables,  I don't want to determine which is which.  I want to pack a small bag and walk away, move in with my cousin in London, curl up in a fetal position.  But, then I discover my expired passport.  If I had snapped two weeks earlier, I could have taken that escape route.  Now, I'm trapped in the U.S.  Besides, I don't really want to leave my husband.  I just want him to stop asking me, "What do you want to do with this?"

It's down to zero hour.  I have stopped talking about why we are doing this, why we need to let the professional do her job, why we cannot keep taking things back out of the sale.  D has stopped saying, "But we might use this."  He snatches up one last pile of games he cannot bear to lose, and finally he's done.  I wander around the rooms, looking for the mates to 4 shoes.  I cannot find them, and I hope they have not been swallowed up by the bags that are in the dumpster I've rented.  I do find D's "Rogowski box," a handcrafted wooden piece of art, given to him for his first wedding, and I rescue it.  I know this should not be in the sale.  But there is so much else.  Did anything else inadvertently make its way to the sale tables?   Conversely, is there anything else in the off-limits room that could be sold?   I decide that this way lies madness, and I limp down the stairs (I tweaked my knee shoving heavy boxes with my foot.)

Now I am up in Port Angeles, staying with cousins while hordes of strangers tramp through my house, my life, and my memories, devaluing it all in the interest of getting a good deal or a quick sale.  I have been trying to not think about it, and my worry over Carbon makes that easy.  Her laryngeal paralysis kicks in during times of stress, excessive heat, or excitement, and she spent the entire drive up here panting without cessation, sides heaving, laboring after oxygen. I don't know which stressor is coming in to play, but I am facing the fact that yet another loss is imminent.  I sit with my arms around my sweet old dog, sobbing.  I don't know which loss I am weeping for,  but I do know that grief will not disappear with my things.

Olympic Fence Tossing and Divine Love

The hits keep coming.  After my traumatic week, I was feeling like things were moving forward again.  I forgot that in the past year one step forward is always followed by two or more steps back.  Yesterday was no exception.

It started out disarmingly well.  T and his aides had made a good start on the remodels.  We are turning the outbuilding (originally a carpenter's studio) into our "shed-room," preparatory to renting out the upstairs of our house.  The plan is make it into a little guest cottage for us, with an added lean-to for storing bikes and gardening tools.  We'll be sleeping out there and using it as a place for privacy, since we'll be sharing the kitchen in the main house and the open arrangement of the rooms means that the downstairs will also be a de facto shared space.

The ongoing question is, how to deal with the lack of plumbing in the shed-room?  Solution number 1:  T is adding a shower arrangement to the downstairs half-bath.  I call it the Swedish shower, because I first came across the concept when visiting Lise in Malmo.  She had a small WC, with a toilet and sink and a drain in the floor.  When the time came for a shower, the curtain (normally hooked behind the mirror) came down, protecting the toilet and linens, and the hand-held shower head came out.  After the shower, the curtain was shaken and hung back up, and Lise would "do the Pippi Longstocking thing," which consisted of standing on the towel and drying the floor with her feet.

So, we can shower and cook in the main house, but those late night bathroom trips will be a bummer, especially during the rainy months. We have researched composting toilets, the kind that look like regular toilets but don't flush.  Instead, the waste is stored and compacted beneath the bowl.  A fan dries it out, and also vents it to prevent odors.  Reportedly, you only have to empty out the composted waste once a year.  We thought to put it in the lean-to, out the newly-installed western door.  However, I did not want to spend $1500 on it, if it didn't really do the job.  So, I took a trip to M's eco-village to see how the low-tech method works.

M's friends waxed eloquent about the flaws of the commercial composting toilets.  Reportedly, they are not odor-free, and you still have to compost the waste in bins.  They recommend the Loveable Loo, which is basically a wooden box with a toilet seat and cover, and a bucket inside.  It looks like an old-fashioned outhouse toilet (not like the chemical ones they have in campgrounds now.)  You toss in wood chips after use.  D says, this is the 21st century, I do not want an outhouse on my property.  But I say, it costs $200.  Or we can have T and company hammer it together for even less.  So, that's the discussion.

All is still moving forward, when I come home from my field trip to see my control-freak neighbor talking to the Spanish-speaking help.  I get that sinking feeling in my gut.  Every time someone does work in the vicinity of his house, he starts making trouble.  Sure enough, "Do you have a permit for this?  I want to see it."

I'm thinking to two years back, when another neighbor had done a remodel.  Mr. Control Freak didn't like it because the tree that used to be centered between their properties was now asymmetrical.  And I guess there were actual code issues.  Mr. CF reported the neighbor to the city.  The city found no wrongdoing.  Mr. CF sued the city.  They were absolved.  Mr. CF sued the investigating entity.  The neighbor said Forget It and moved to Arizona, planning to sell his house.  Victory for Mr. CF, but that wasn't good enough.  Early one morning the neighborhood was woken up by an dull thud, followed by the arrival of several fire trucks.  Someone had planted an incendiary device in the empty house.  We all think it was Mr. CF, and there certainly seemed to be some investigation into that possibility.

The neighbor and Mr. CF had joint ownership of the driveway and strip of ground that run along the west side of my property.  Mr. CF is very jealous of the property line and has always refused permission for roofers and other people to use the driveway during my various remodels.   Although the strip of ground has no landscaping and is basically moss-covered earth, he is very protective of that as well.   He also has been in control of the cedar fence that goes along the property line.  During my 20-year tenure, that fence has come down three times, because he doesn't ground the posts in cement, and they keep rotting.  This last time, he refused to let the neighbor replace the fence.  So the neighbor, who wanted the fence replaced to aid in selling the rebuilt house, got my written permission to build the fence on my property.

Mr. CF was livid, but couldn't do anything to stop it.  The sections of old rotten fence were left in our yard, and we were slowly chopping it up for kindling.  It wasn't much good for anything else, but Mr. CF wanted it.  He had his brother, who lives directly behind us, ask me about it.  I said he was welcome to come into the yard and take it, which he did not.

So, that's the background.  And now, it's starting again, with us.  He says I have no right to be building onto the shed.  I think, great, he's going to go to the city and complain about our little lean-to and our non-permitted remodel.  He is going on and on about the fence and how the underground concrete is leaking over to his property and how he wasn't consulted on the fence and, and, and....  I say, What Do You Want?  He says, I want the fence moved.  I say, I'm not talking to you any more and go inside where I collapse into tears of frustration.

This gets D into the act.  Although I ask him to not get into a pissing match with Mr. CF, D goes outside.  They do their little dance.  D pretends to be innocently overseeing the work.  Mr. CF goes up  into his face to complain about the fence.  D gets hot.  He says, "Strange things happen to houses in this neighborhood."  Mr. CF says, "Are You Threatening Me?"  D says, "No, I'm Just Sayin'."  Mr. CF says he wants his valuable pressure-treated wood from the old fence.  D stomps to the pile of rotten wood and starts heaving old fence sections over the new fence, SLAM, onto Mr. CF's strip of ground. It's a violent process, but ultimately D's adrenalin rush gets the job done, and he is actually a little proud of his strength.  We decide he can compete in the Fence Tossing events for the next Olympics.


I am now waiting for Mr. CF to complain that we littered onto his property.

But, it being Sunday and all, I'm also thinking about the concept of agape.  I actually have a deep compassion for Mr. CF.  He is clearly a miserable human being.  I can't even comprehend the unhappiness that drives him.  While I do not like his capacity to make people around him miserable, and I think that he is actively malevolent, I wish I could figure out how to take my compassion and interact with him in a divinely loving way.  Not for his sake, because I don't think he is capable of benefitting from it, but for my own.  I truly want to believe that a soft answer turneth away wrath, and that Buddhist principles have value.  I don't want to be angry at another human.

However, there are days when a primal scream seems the only possible response.

The Shoemaker's Elves, revisited

Things have not been going well in the refgoddess universe.  Savings are dwindling, jobs ditto.  We are trying to downsize in every sense of the word, and the strain on the marriage is intense.  However, I see definite signs of an upturn.....

Electronic Elves
On December 28, we drove out to Yakima to pick up my cousin and his girlfriend, do some wine-tasting, and have some good talk before they flew back to London.  The plan was to stay at a Yakima motel and then hang with the folks on the 29th.  However, it was dark before we got to Hood River, the rain was puddling on the highway, and the semis were spraying water up to the car roof.  We stopped to feed ourselves and the car and to switch drivers.  But even D was nervous, so we bailed at The Dalles.  As I worked with the motel office, D started unloading the car, and he dropped the iPad in the parking lot.  When I sat down to play Lexulous, I discovered that the background graphics were all catywampus, letters flickering, colours a wavering fluorescent green and pink.  Most unsettling.  A few weeks later, D took it in to Apple.  Their solution:  trade in for a refurbished one, for a mere $300.  So, I resigned myself to using a less functional iPad, but it added one more thing to the list of Things Not Going Right.

Two mornings ago, I lay on the couch with my coffee and the iPad.  I was wandering about the blogosphere, when I suddenly realized I was looking at pix that were clear and bright.  I went back to the main icon screen:  the background picture of Mahaulepu Beach was sparkling.  The graphics were great, the usual icons were in place, but the screen protector was gone.

D swears he did not replace the iPad, and there was no time or money to do so.  Also, he doesn't know how to synch it or replace the icons.  So all I can think is that the Electronic Elves have taken pity on my distress.

Mystery #2
Earlier the same morning, I was dozing, cuddling with Carbon, trying to avoid the day.  D came stomping in, asking where the camera was.  I mumbled, "It's not by the kitchen door?"  and he went into the usual diatribe:  "a place for everything and everything in it's place...." and after some more fussing went off again to take pix with the iPhone (which does a better job and is easier to download anyway.)  I gave up my ostrich attempt and went into carpe diem mode.  As I was working in the kitchen, I noticed the camera hanging on the nail by the kitchen door, just where it should have been.  D came in and I said, "you found the camera, huh?"  He said, "You're kidding me!"  Apparently he had found it, but not through searching.  After he returned to his breakfast, there it was, on arm of his lounging couch in the living room.  He assumed I had put it there, and, muttering to himself, had put it in the kitchen where it belonged.

Again, he swears he didn't find it and forget about it.  So, again, it must have been Elves.  Carbon and Simone refuse to get involved in our filing wars, and they were the only other beings in the house.

Good things come in threes, or, all things come to those who whine
Back before Christmas, a Missouri visitor to our town got lost driving down our street.  She pulled into the driveway across from us and backed into our car, just as we were coming out to see the Christmas ships with G&W.  Fortunately, we had already planned to use their car.  Unfortunately,  the insurance company is in Missouri.  D has spent many frustrating hours talking to insurance, repair, and car rental businesses.

However, the stars finally aligned on Monday.  We picked up the rental and dropped the Honda at the repair shop.  Being ten blocks from the appliance store that L recommended (after reading my whine about Planned Obsolescence), we stopped by on the way home.   It was a hole-in the wall, with two nice women in their 30s taking care of sales.  It was busy, so there was time to wander about.  Lots of white, lots of washers and fridges and ranges, very few wall ovens.  We were enchanted by an ancient refrigerator with rounded corners, pull-up handles, and a round condenser unit attached to the top.  Not for sale, though.  They were also unable to supply us with what we needed (a 27" wall oven), but referred us to another store in NE Portland.  D started phone negotiations while I went to work.

Yesterday we checked out Appliance City.  D had picked up a phone call just as we arrived, so I went into door number one.  I was met by a toothless elderly man who wasn't sure about inventory but was quite happy to walk me around.  The place was crammed with appliances, but only saw one wall oven, dented on the top and too large to boot.  So, we went back outside and walked down the street.  They have taken over the entire block of shops but have not yet combined them inside.  The outside is painted green and rustic red, and looks very clean and retro with its brickwork and large windows.  The inside is dusty and grimy, appliances stacked in various stages of repair, dim fluorescents shedding a gloomy light.

Another toothless ancient came out from the back to assist us.  They both agreed that we should check in with Michael, and I wanted to find D, so we went back to the first shop and found them both.  Michael was the guy D had been talking with.  He was middle-aged, with a round body, round balding head, and a matter-of-fact demeanor.  We chatted about the models he had found for us and went with the Frigidaire, complete with convection oven, 90-day warranty, free delivery and haul away service.  It costs what it would cost to repair the old one and is about the same age.  It's also white, not black (a definite downside.)  After I signed the paperwork I said, "Okay, now I'd like your opinion....does it make sense to buy a used appliance that is the same age as the old one?"  I was harking back to the Planned Obsolescence rant.  He seemed to think it was a wash, but since I was getting a better appliance that had also been tested in all areas, it might be a slighter better deal.

But, anyway, we have a new oven.  Just needs to be delivered and installed.

So, we are climbing back into the light.  We no longer see through a glass darkly. What once was lost, now is found.  And, while I can't find a platitude for the oven and car,  it will be nice to have those up and running soon.  (Always look on the bright side of life.)