Night...

I just finished reading Night by Elie Wiesel. What a powerful book. And I am really saying that because it is, not just because Oprah said so. Normally, I think Oprah books are pretty crap. This time though, powerful is the best way I can describe it. It is so sparse in it's length in it's words. Somehow, that simplicity makes it more impactful.

I was discussing this book today at lunch. I mentioned how normally I try to rotate my books: read one of substance then allow myself one smut. One of my coworkers said "I don't read to think." As if thinking cannot be part of pure entertainment.

There were a couple of quotes and phrases that really hit me. One was in the preface. It was the original opening of the book...

In the beginning there was faith-which is childish; trust-which is vain; and illusion-which is dangerous.

The final lines of this book seemed just as powerful to me. Who out there who has suffered has not seen the corpse in the mirror themselves? When I see some of the people I work with, try to help, I see that corpse in them. Yet they continue on and continue to live because they have no other choice.

From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.

I guess one other statement I read in the preface is my final thought for Mary, my coworker who does not like to think.

...I believe it important to emphasize how strongly I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both.

Tick tock, tick tock...

I got the news that two of my friends from highschool are pregnant. It's #1 for one of them and #2 for the other. I am such a petty bitch but I am more than a little jealous. Tick tick tick...My clock is a-runnin. Guess it is natural at 32, but it is still there loud and clear.

House, Foot and Pluto news...

SO, I made the offer on the house. Yesterday, they accepted. My mortgage guy was nowhere to be seen. Totally MIA. I got pissed off and went to a different agency. They quoted me a lower interest rate and a payment the was way higher. WAY higher. I pondered it and pondered it and slept on it. And decided that I just couldn't do it. I would have been house poor for the forseeable future. With a balloon payment to follow 10 years down the line. I don't want to live like that. Almost half of my take-home pay would have gone to mortgage. I don't want that type of lifestyle. So I called and unoffered. Kind of a bummer but I am really ok with it.

In other news, I got a spider bite on my foot and the whole thing itches and is really swelled up. Hope I don't die. That would suck.

In still other news, RIP Pluto. You are a planet no more. I don't know why I care about that so much. Maybe because my very educated mother can no longer just make nine pizza pies. Who knows?

Onset of panic attacks...

Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god. I am so freaking out. I put an offer down on a house! Tonight.

This is the scariest thing I have ever done. I am a nervous wreck. I had looked at the house last week but it had an offer on it already. I really liked it and kind of used it as a bench for other houses (most of which are totally meth houses in my price range, by the way). My real estate lady called today totally excited. Apparently the other people offered too low and the declined the offer.

I went back to look at it. I looked around, called my mom and had her come look at it then called and had my dad look at all the guy things.

When I finally decided to make the offer, I started to bawl. I don't cry, I don't know what is up with me. I drove to the real estate office and was totally crying through half of the paperwork. Susan, my real estate lady, kept telling me that we really don't have to do this, but I kept sobbing and saying that I really wanted to buy the house.

I'm finally calmed down and am feeling pretty excited. I know someone else is offering on the same house so we'll see what happens. I'm going to be pretty pissed if I cried in public and don't get the house now.

I think the hardest thing for me is that buying a house is letting go of another dream. You know the one...Where the fab tall dark and handsome comes on his horse, sweeps in and saves me from myself. If I commit to a house, to something this big on my own it means just that-I am on my own. Somehow, it becomes more tangible now. It makes me really sad.

I guess prince charming can come in many forms. Tonight mine came in the form of a 60 year old grandmother who offers to pay the closing costs on a first house for her only daughter. I feel loved and blessed by my family who really does love me, but I also feel more alone than ever.

Fuck, I'm crying again. Time for bed, I guess.

Ok. So I am approved for a mortgage. But not approved for one big enough to actually buy anything I would want to purchase and live in. I saw a totally cute place today but it is really really small. I can afford it. I can more than afford it. It is $20k less than my target price. BUT-it is tiny tiny tiny. I do think it is in a neighborhood that is growing and improving. It is an older home. Cinderblock construction and lots of character. Underground sprinklers and a fully fenced yard where I could keep my basset hound to be. Garage. Two beds, one bath. Hardwood floors that need refinishing. Squirrles in the trees and some really cool features on the ceiling of the living room. Lots of potential I suppose.

The weirdest thing? The washer is in the kitchen but the dryer is in the garage. And there is no dishwasher.

However, I would much rather stay here. I like here. I would love to buy here if I could get my dad to agree to sell it to me. I know he dosen't want to. But I want to stay here.

Shit.

Rory Gilmore's Book Club...

I love love love the Gilmore Girls. I found this list from a link from some other site. This is a book list worth aspiring to...

Rory Gilmore's Book Club

I'm a bit embarrassed to find that I have read a grand total of three of the new classics-and one of those was the awful Nanny Diaries. I need to bone up my summer reading list a bit.

I fared quite a bit better with the classics. If you count the movies I have seen of both new and classic books, I do ok.

Note to self-go to the LIBRARY more often!

Mr. Clean and after dinner stalkings...

So, I don't really date much. In fact, I really don't get out of the house much at all. Yes, I get lonely sometimes. Yes, I wish I had someone in my life and at times I feel a tad desperate about it. HOWEVER, I have a yucky, 50-year-old neighbor who is stalking me. He is creeping the hell out of me. I am not that desperate. I have finally found my boundary and 50 and weird it is.

Since I have moved in he has waved at me each time I drive by his house. Ok, I can be as neighborly as the next girl. No problem there. One day, I was one town away from home (about 20 miles away) and I saw him there. He acted like he had just won the damn lottery. I smiled, nodded politely and excused myself.

Yesterday at 7:55-5 whole minutes before I was to be at work-I went running out of my house as norm heading for the car. He pulled up in a truck that was not his. He asked me my name, ok, being neighborly again I gave it to him. He asked if my husband was around, ok, getting a little creepy, then he asked if he could come and have me cook dinner. I smiled, pretended he was kidding and got in my car stat.

Last night, after work, he showed up on my doorstep. He decided that he should come and get to know me. He shoved his way in and sort of freaked me out. Because, like a total dumbass, I had already mentioned that I was single, I couldn't even pretend that my boyfriend/husband was on his way to see me. Then the freak asked me what time dinner was. He was actually expecting it from our converation in the morning.

I finally got rid of him after almost an hour. I didn't know how to get him off my couch and out of my house. I tried to emphasize that I was A LOT younger than him, but that didn't sink in. I tried to emphasize that I work a lot-went right over his head. I finally asked him to leave. Then he suggested that we go dutch to the movies. I told him no and locked the door.

This morning, he left a message on the windshield of my car trying to ask me out again. I feel bombarded in my own home. I park on the street, he knows when I am here. How do I hide from this strange old man? Yuck and yikes!

Oh my god...

This comic is the whole reason that generations of women have such a negative body image and why even pretty thin women have no self esteem. Oh my.

Secret Romance

These are pieces of some others. Horrid. Women of the comic past apparently were scheming, marriage obsessed and not too smart. Why oh why couldn't I have been alive then? Hilarious!