Reflections on Becoming an Adult....

I've said it before and I'll say it again...I have a horrible feeling I'm becoming a real grown-up. Ever since I got the house and had to start worrying about things like mortgages, grass clippings, dog whisperers and landscaping, I've noticed that I've started to morph into someone else, someone who is definitely an adult.

I think the puppies helped me with that. Even though they can't communicate like children and they're definitely not children, to me, they're the closest thing I have. I realized not long after I brought them home when I opened the door a crack to retrieve the mail and Sookie and Rory escaped that they were, for all intents and purposes, my babies. Sookie went running out, clueless as to the danger and my heart almost stopped as a car headed down our street and Sookie was closer and closer to the road. I finally grabbed her and Rory and pulled them inside. I was terrified. I realized that if I lost them, I couldn't stand it.

I like that I have a family to come home to, no matter how atypical it is. Even though I still enjoy human company a lot, there's something to be said, spending an evening in the garden on my knees, weeding, having two little warm puppies nearby, eating whatever stick they come across. Every now and again, they'll run to me and try to scramble on my lap and give me 'kisses'. It's a nice feeling.

The nicest part is that it makes everything else seem just a little...unimportant. My job is still just a job but now it's just a way for me to buy food for us and keep us sheltered. The politics of the office, the giggling girls who have strange power within the company even though they spend half their days gossiping just don't bother me as much as before. It still irritates me because it reminds me of high school but when I leave the office at the end of the day, I can go home and be welcomed by my pups and settle into my real life.

I always wanted to have a husband and kids. I always thought by this point in my life, I'd be settled. As a kid, it was never a consideration that at my age, I'd still be single. I want a husband but a recent foray into Match.com was a disaster- all I met were men who were unmarried because they were afraid of commitment. I can't be angry about that. After all, I was the same way until recently. I even went out with a chef but he turned out to be painfully arrogant, unemployed and rather bitter at the fact that he got fired from his last job.

I'd like to believe that it's not too late- that the husband is out there somewhere and we'll have kids. I just don't know. I've stopped worrying and stressing about it though. I admit, I used to look at every man who was friendly and wonder if he's married. I don't do that very much any more. I just assume they are and move on.

Still, for now, I'm not too far off from where I wanted to be: I have a house of my own with a lovely back garden ready for me to plant and nurture. I have two little canines who make my life strangely complete and I have a family who I actually like and enjoy spending time with. Oh, and I have published a book which isn't exactly too shabby.

All, I think I'm doing ok. It's not the ideal but usually the ideal isn't, well, as ideal as you hope anyway. I'm accepting my adult responsibilities and it's not as bad as I feared when I was younger. It's actually pretty fun for the most part.

In some ways, I hate that I'm a grown-up though. I no longer look at Hot Topic as a house of fun t-shirts. I see it as a place full of overpriced crap. I'm sad about that, in a way. I no longer think it's funny to drive like a maniac to get where I'm going quickly. I don't think it's smart to cross the street while texting. I think it's weird when little Amish boys carry cell-phones on their belts and buy video games at garage sales. And I find it exceptionally annoying when the dog whisperer's kid spends hours and hours bounching his basketball and trying to shove it through his kiddie-hoop which is actually shorter than he is...no joke.

I hope I'm not going to grow up to be a crappy old lady. Though from the paragraph above, it seems I might already be halfway there. Eek gads....maybe I should go listen to some Justin Bieber. I hear he's all the rage. Except, um, I'm not exactly sure who Justin Bieber is- I just hear his name a lot.

Maybe I'll just play with puppies instead. I think that'll keep me young.

Thanks as always for reading. Happy Tuesday!

Another Step in Admitting I'm an Adult...

It's Monday again. It comes around too fast. I mean, you barely have time to register it's the weekend and then, bam!, off goes the Monday morning alarm.

I like Mondays where I can ignore the alarm. However, until I either become independantly wealthy, win the lottery or write a mega blockbuster-book, I'm not likely to be able to ignore it unless I take a vacation day here and there.

Still, it's the start of a new week. I should look at that as a positive thing. I close on my house this evening, if all goes well. Tomorrow I'll be a homeowner. I can't lie and say the idea doesn't fill me with a little fear. It means I'm a grown-up again. I like pretending I'm not. I like hiding behind my Green Day albums and monkey pajamas and ignoring the fact that I'm a thirty-something. However, I can't really avoid being a grown-up now. The time has come for me to stop renting and start investing in equity. Or that's what people keep telling me. I'm not 100% sure what having equity will do for me but I'm sure if I look on Wikipedia, I can find out. It seems like a good thing, anyway.

So, Monday is a big day for me. After that, it should feel like a relief and I can start getting excited about my new place. Of course, I can't actually get in to my new house yet because one of the reasons I won the bid is because I gave the little old lady who currently owns the property a couple of weeks extra to move out after we closed. I can't begrudge her that. As a widow moving far away, she needs time to pack up properly and say goodbye to her home. Though I will say it would be rather nice if I could at least look at the house without her watching me. That was the problem each time I looked at the home; she never left and so it wasn't like I could walk around and poke into closets. It's still her home, even if she is selling it. I suppose someone bolder than me would have no problem with it but, to me, it felt intrusive. Also, since she watched my every move, it was a little off-putting.

So, when she goes and I get my key, I'll actually be able to wander around, seeing how much work needs to be done immediately and what I can put off until I've moved in. I think I've already picked some paint colours for the rooms that need to be painted because the walls are grubby.

Of course, there is another side to my fear than just me realizing I'm an adult now. It's the fact that it means I'm putting down roots. I might have mentioned before that sometimes I have a little trouble with commitment. I tend to shy away from it because the idea of 'settling', of not having the option to change my mind in a hurry...that scares me a little. It means I can't run back to L.A. because I'm bored in the Midwest. Well, I could but I'd REALLY have to make sure I wanted to because selling a house isn't easy. It means I'm here for a while, it means Ohio is my new home. Literally.

I'm trying to be happy about these things but it's a change for me. Yet if the change feels right, maybe it'll reflect more of a willingness to commit in other areas of my life. Maybe I'll finally be able to date more seriously without being afraid that I might be making the wrong choice for both him and for me. Who knows? All I do know is that I'm at an exciting fork in the road of my life. I don't really have a choice in my direction any more. I am doing this; I am buying a house.

Yep. Those words are still a little scary. I think it's time for a chair-boogie to recover.

Happy Monday.

Monday Musings

It's a gloomy Monday morning but I can't complain. I took today as a vacation day from work and so, for once, I got to sleep in through the gloom.

Naturally, I didn't get to sleep in as much as I'd like. During his time with me in my apartment, I spoiled Sausage by allowing him to sleep in my bed. However, now we're back in his home, my parent's house, he doesn't have that luxury and he's not taking too kindly to it. He likes to bark very loudly from the foot of the stairs which is my wake-up call.

Nevertheless, I don't mind him barking anymore. It's not going to disrupt my neighbours and so I can relax and stop worrying about the dog.

Now I can start worrying about closing on my new house next week. So far, things aren't going quite as smoothly as I hoped. My mortgage broker has turned all my paperwork over to his underwriter. This would be good except...she seems to have lost a lot of my paperwork. I keep getting emails from her asking for things like my paystubs. I've given them every paystub I had for the past four months. Also, she's not terribly pleasant about it. I'm sure it's just because it's an email but the tone of them seems to imply that it's my fault she doesn't have the paperwork. I'm politely just resending everything to her. I'm hoping it goes through.

If it doesn't, I'm not sure what will happen. I have a conference at work coming up the week after I'm supposed to close. After that, the little old lady living in my house is supposed to be moving. I'm not terribly sure what happens if closing is delayed. If it is, I'm not going to be a very happy Monkeypants. I've gone above and beyond to make sure I have everything my mortgage broker could possibly need. He's had over a month and a half to process my loan. Needless to say, I'm trying not to stress but it isn't going well.

Aside from that, the weekend went nicely. Sausage and I arrived at my parent's on Saturday night. We watched some lovely recorded episodes of "Iron Chef America". Also, I've been addictively watching "True Blood" and to my delight, HBO ran the last couple of episodes last night so I didn't have to wait for my Netflix. It's a bit of a silly show but I rather enjoyed it. I'm having a little trouble wondering why Sookie Stackhouse doesn't pick Sam the Sshapeshifter over Bill the Vampire because, frankly, Bill's a bit of a drip. However, it's still fun to watch. The only problem is it makes me want to walk around talking in a Southern accent. Given that I have mostly a British one, this would be a little odd.

This is one of my more random posts, for which I apologize. Sometimes I have a topic in mind; other times, you get these more rambly blogs. Tomorrow, I'll probably be back on track being free from the responsibility of The Sausage as my parent's return from the U.K. tomorrow. I'm still thinking about having him move in with me when I get my house but we'll see. It depends on how much I like my carpet.

Happy Monday.

Adventures in Apartment Dwelling..

I think I might actually have an evening at home tonight in which I don't have to go anywhere at all. These days, that's a rare thing. Buying the house is fun but it's exhausting. Last night, for example, I had to go watch my new home being inspected. It passed with only a few minor fixes but the hardest part to accept is that they're minor fixes I will have to make. Gone will be the days of calling my landlord and saying "[x] is broken!" and having them come and fix it for me. Nope, it'll be all me.

Not that it will be the first time. My first apartment in Los Angeles had some issues and I had one of those landlords who somehow never seems to be around and doesn't know how to answer the phone. I became an expert at repairing my toilet since the stupid ball thingy kept coming off or the chain kept breaking. There was one day when my toilet really broke though and the connection to the water source broke. It wasn't really my fault. I was mopping vigourously and I accidentally hit the piping. It broke. In my defense, I was told that it was really old piping and had become very brittle so it wasn't like my Super Mopping was really to blame. Unfortunately, it meant that the water source to my toilet had to be turned off. Not fun. I had to pour buckets of water from the shower down it to flush it. My landlord didn't fix it for two days. I think he did that on purpose.

My last apartment in Los Angeles was far worse though. I lived there with my roommate and when we moved in, we thought we had a bargain. Well, two years later, I think we were both rather relieved to be moving out. We were the only apartment on the ground floor. The foundations leaked. One day, I found my carpet was wet by my outer wall so I moved back a bookcase only to discover a layer of mildew had grown up the wall and it went all the way around the corner into my storage closet. I rarely went in that closet but I had a lot of boxes in there. I discovered that many of my boxes were soaked and already mildewing. It turned out that the sprinklers on the grass outside were flooding the ground which meant the water had to go somewhere. It went into my room. Not fun. My room smelled bad for days. The landlord threw a sandbag down outside. I had to throw a lot of stuff away. In the end, they didn't even kill the mildew, just painted over it and turned off the sprinkler. Of course, they couldn't turn off the rainy season so I ended up just moving stuff out of the closet and keeping towels on the floor when it rained.

We also had an ant infestation in that apartment. I don't mind ants when they're on their own or even in small groups. I do, however, have a rather strong dislike bordering on fear when I see an army swarming. It bothers me. I got to the point where I couldn't see an ant without getting panicky because it meant there was another swarm somewhere. When I do see a gathering of ants, I tend to squeal. My roommate became a champion ant killer. Me, I'd just keep that can of Raid nearby and get a little fanatical about finding the source of the problem.

The other thing about that apartment is that the ceiling fell in about my roommate's shower. The bathroom above ours was leaking. It leaked into her bathroom. The ceiling fell in. Fortunately, it wasn't while she was in the shower. The landlord came over and tidied up the hole. He never patched it up though and when we moved out, the hole was still there.

You're probably getting that our landlord wasn't the best in that apartment. There were actually two of them. We think they were a couple. The lady was older and obviously 'the boss'. The man was younger. He had a lot of enthusiasm but wasn't terribly useful. He also seemed to drink a lot. He would come by our apartment to fix stuff and tell us all sorts of interesting stories about his cousins and people who were in jail and things like that. He was an interesting character. He kept us amused, anyway. It didn't help with the fact that our apartment was a disaster area but it gave us something to joke about.

My current apartment building/managers couldn't be more opposite. If I want something fixed, it's done by the time I get home from work the next day. It's a clean apartment, well kept. I keep waiting to discover the secret flaw but, so far, there isn't one. I haven't even broken anything of any significance. Well, ok, so I did break an entire bottle of wine and have to clear it up but you can't tell that ever happened. I am also having a bit of a problem with the vertical blinds. Two of the slats fell off and they don't open properly. I'm rather hoping to hide this problem when I move out so that I don't get billed for it. I'm actually going to miss this apartment; it's been a good home to me.

I'm looking on the brightside of the home repairs I will have to do. I can do them on my own time frame, I can choose who fixes them and how they get fixed. There's nothing major wrong with the house which is a wonderful thing. The only thing standing in my way right now from starting the repairs is time. Also, there's a little old lady living in the house. Also, I haven't paid for it yet. Also, I need to pack.

Reality really gets in the way of being lyrical sometimes, doesn't it?

Happy Tuesday...

Confessions of a Book-a-holic....

It has been one of those weeks that has rushed by. It's been nice that the workdays have passed in a blur but it also means my evenings have passed by in a blur also. I'd like to say I don't know where the time went but I do: homebuying is a time consuming business.

Yet my house hunt is over; at least for now. My offer was accepted and all I need to do now is spend a lot of money so it can actually be mine. There are so many little things to be done: title insurance, home insurance, home inspections....then there's the down payment. Yet, I have a steady job. I have a little nest egg. If all goes well, I'll be living in my new home in less than three months. It's a nice prospect.

As a writer, I realized that as I was touring the homes, I was mentally asking myself if I thought I would be able to write in that house. There were some that had an easy answer of yes. Others, no matter how cute and nice they were just felt wrong. I think I'll be able to write in my new home. It has a little patio. There are three bedrooms; one for me, one for guests and one that I am bound and determined to make my library/office. It probably will be more of an office than a library because it's not that big of a room and I have a few too many books to cram into that room. I seem to collect books even when I try not to. Truth be told, I can't bear to see a book be thrown away or underappreciated. Sometimes I buy used books just to give them a home, even if I already have them. This is why I have two hardback copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The library was selling one for $1. It seemed such a shame to leave it there so it became mine.

This is probably why I have so many books. Also, I think I'm a book addict. I wonder if there's a support group for that. "Hello, I'm Captain Monkeypants and I'm a book-a-holic." I mean, I can't not buy books, I panic if I have to get on a plane and don't have at least 3 books: One that I'm already reading, one for backup and one just in case the backup book is bad or reads superfast or if I'm delayed and have extra-reading time. Sometimes, on long flights, to England I take four books. I always have a book nearby or, at least, access to a source of books. If I don't read for a while, I start feeling like something's missing in my life and I go on a binge where I read four or five books in a short time frame so that uneasy feeling disappears. Yup...when I type it out, I realize I'm a book-junkie.

Yet I can't help it. Books have always been there for me since I was old enough to turn the pages. Over the years my tastes have changed but my love of reading hasn't.

I love having enough books that I can divide them into sections which most likely only make sense to me. There's my "Books I adore and that have inspired me" that features books by Neil Gaiman, Stephen King's On Writing because without that book, I wouldn't be a novelist. There are some stray Harry Potter books there because I have doubles. There are some reference books but it's a hodgepodge that makes sense to me. I have a classics shelf with all of the literature that I've collected. There's my Fantasy/Sci-fi/Horror shelf. I also have a "fun books" shelf that has some of the good "chick-lit" books I've liked, primarily Marian Keyes and Jennifer Weiner. There's my "just great books" shelf that houses books like I Know This Much is True by Wally Lamb, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eurinides, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon. This shelf could easily merge with the "Books that have inspired me" shelf but I keep them seperate because...I do.

And then there's the shelf that houses the mounds of paper, the unbound manuscripts that belong to me. To a stranger, they look like worn sheets of paper that have been marked up and thrown in a folder. To me, they're the results of my hours, days, months of work. These are my books, ones that aren't ready to be labeled by being put on a shelf. They have their own place both in my library and my heart because these are my stories, I know these characters better than anyone in the world does. I know them beyond what I've captured on my pages and those messy piles of paper are my organized chaos.

When I moved from California, I tried to get rid of some of my books. In fact, I did donate a lot of paperbacks to the Salvation Army. However, it's been seven months now and, well, there's been a birthday and a Christmas and trips to the library and gift cards and....you get the picture. I'm going to need lots of boxes because those books? They're all coming with me.

That's the part of buying my house that I don't think I like...the packing. I feel like I just did that. Which, really, I did. This time, though, I'm moving less than an hour away and I can move in shifts. So my books will happily ride with me from my apartment to my new home and I know they'll be safe. Last time, I had to trust my books to a moving company and though they did arrive safely, I worried for them. Though, as a confession, during my drive from California to Ohio, I did actually transport one box of books, my favourites, the ones I feel like I couldn't live without with me in my car just so I could keep a watchful eye on them.

I know, I know, that just adds to the theory that I'm a book-addict. I can't help it. I am what I am. Though...as a writer of books, is that the equivalent of having a meth lab in my apartment? eek, gads...let's not think of such things.

I suppose it will soon be time to begin packing my books and everything else up again. I already have a few boxes, I'll need more. I always need more. I have learned that there are never enough boxes when I'm moving; every time I think I'm done...I find something hiding that has to be packed. I will take my time with my books though and I'm sure there will be one box that won't get packed until the last minute just so I can keep my eye on them and just in case I need to read one.

Hello, I'm Captain Monkeypants and I'm a book-addict.

Happy Friday.

Variety is no longer a Ham Sandwich...

It's my last day at work for the week today. There's nothing better than a Thursday masquerading as a Friday for the work week. Even the weekends where Monday is a holiday isn't quite the same because you have to go to work for four days afterwards. It's the weeks that give you Friday off because it's three days of pure non-work-related peace. In my case, I decided to splurge and give myself the full traditional Easter holiday. I'm looking forward to not having to leave my parent's mid-afternoon on Sunday as is usually my habit when I go home for a weekend visit.

This has been a good week; I'm not sure why. Nothing of significance has happened more that it's just felt...nice. We've had all the weather extremes to high 70's on Sunday where it was warm enough that it actually felt humid to freezing temperatures that actually provided snow flurries. We've had rain, we've had thunderstorms. Now we have sun. It's amazing to be able to live in a place where you look out the window and don't have to think..."Oh, look, it's sunny again."

I can hear you all thinking, "What's wrong with that?" Well, as I've blogged before about this, I'll just briefly reiterate my previous point. I enjoy sun yet I also like a little variety. For example, for several years when I worked at USC, I would make my lunch every night before bed. It would consist of either a ham, mustard and lettuce sandwich or a turkey, Branston Pickle and lettuce sandwich. I'd also have some carrots, an apple and usually an orange or other kind of fruit. I enjoyed this habit at first. Then, without realizing it, I suddenly found myself groaning at the concept of making another ham sandwich because it meant I'd have to eat it. For some people, they wouldn't have been able to eat them so often in the first place. For me, I liked the routine until, finally, I realized I didn't.

That's how I feel about the California sunshine. I enjoy it. Yet, like those ham sandwiches, I really have to be in the mood for it otherwise, I inwardly groan at the thought. I recently discovered that though my brain still thought it was a good idea, the actually eating of raw baby carrots for lunch was a no-go anymore. I simply had eaten too many.

Thus, I now live in Ohio and I now have variety for lunch. I think I've made an sandwich maybe twice. Instead, since we have a microwave, I bring in healthy foods to eat without having to spread mustard on that bread every night.

So, over the years, I've learned that though I am a creature of habit, I like a little variety. I'm trying to bring a little to my life at the moment by entertaining the idea of buying a house. Everyone I mention this to gets excited because it's a great time to buy, not a great time to sell which means there are great deals out there. It's not to say I don't love my apartment because I do. Yet our company is moving in the next few months and, once again, I'll be commuting in the mornings and evenings if I stay put. I'll be able to do it for a while; I've had enough practice in Los Angeles. Yet I don't want to do it forever and I also think that it'd be nice to have a place of my own. The beauty of Ohio is that, compared to California, it's very cheap.

I have to say, I'm both excited and terrified about the possibility of buying my own place. It's a huge commitment and, well, I do have a few commitment issues. Yet I also know that if I find the right place, I won't care. At least...that's what I think I'll think.

I'm still in the early stages of entertaining the idea. Until I actually move forward, it's going to remain an exciting possibilty rather than a scary reality. Yet I think moving forward might be nice. Apartment living hasn't quite reached the level of intolerance that I've reached with my ham sandwiches but every time I hear the frat boys across the hall with their not-so-bright girlfriends, every time I hear the stomp of my CEO's footsteps on my ceiling, every time my apartment office hassles me to renew my lease even though I have until August, I think how nice it would be to live in a house where I didn't share walls, where I didn't have to feel like I was under my landlady's tyranny because I'd dared think about hanging a picture on the wall. When I moved into this complex, I was handed a list of prices that every potential piece of damage to my apartment would cost me. So, every time I accidentally spill wine on my floor or I notice a scuff mark on the wall, I feel compelled to pull out that sheet and see how much it might cost me if I don't clean it up perfectly.

At least if I owned my own place, I could charge myself for my calamities. Yes, there'd be a lot more maintenance, yes I'd have to fix things myself but...the idea is new and exciting. I'm hoping that I follow it through. It'd be nice to move from my apartment building while I still had some fondness for apartment living. I don't want it become a ham sandwich in my life. I want it to be like the California sunshine: A fond memory, a nice treat to visit but something that I don't want every day, all day anymore.

We'll see how that goes.

Happy Thursday!