Long & Winded
They say that no time is ever perfect to buy a house or apartment, and if you keep putting it off waiting for the ideal convergence of savings, interest rates, market pricing, etc., you'll be renting forever. I don't know if that's true, but I hate seeing my savings grow over the years and still not be enough to cover a down payment for most of the places I see advertised. But I think I just need to stop stewing about it and get out there. I want to go to at least one open house this afternoon. Put my toe in the water, see how it feels.
***
Yesterday was a frustrating day. I'd finally made an appointment for an eye exam, after calling ahead and confirming that the place I've been going to over the past few years took my new insurance. I saw the same optometrist, who I really like, and was out in the front picking out frames when one of the employees informed me that, oops, they don't take my insurance after all, sorry. Sorry? So instead of a $10 co-payment, I had to fork out $59 for the eye exam. Then he had the nerve to ask if I still wanted to purchase glasses. I might not have paid for the exam at all except that a)I really like the doctor and it's not her fault and b)I wanted them to give me my prescription so I can just go and buy glasses at another place that takes my insurance. Luckily I was on Montague Street, where optical stores are outnumbered only by real estate agents. (Seriously, there are two of each on every block.) What does this say about Brooklyn Heights? Home of the near-sighted who move around a lot?
***
The head of our department is retiring, suddenly. Seems like one of those "suggested" retirements although I'm too new to really understand the politics of the situation. There is some fear that this may change the nature of our department, but I'm choosing to be an optimist. Next week we are having a cruise/bon voyage party for him, complete with dinner and dancing. I keep thinking of the booze cruise episode on "The Office." I think I'll stick to Diet Cokes.
***
(Funny how I always capitalize Diet Coke but never christian or god or jesus. You could do an entire analysis of me based on my punctuation.) (Like my habit of overusing parentheses - and dashes.)
***
I finished reading Jonathan Safran Foer's "Extraordinarily Loud and Incredibly Close." I'd stopped for a bit because I was revising my own 9/11 related story, and didn't want to be influenced. His novel is about a young boy dealing with the loss of his father who dies in the towers. I loved "Everything is Illuminated," which I think is a brilliant first novel. I went to a reading/book signing when the paperback came out, and he read from an early draft of "Extraordinarily Loud" which was also really good. And it is - but not quite as good. The novel frames the boy's search for answers to a mystery about his father with the grandfather's experience during the bombing of Dresden at the end of the second World War. "Everything is Illuminated" is the story of a contemporary young man's search for information on his grandfather with his grandfather's story during the Holocaust. So not that much of a departure. He's still a strong writer, and there are some wonderful passages, including some great images about the 9/11 tragedy that I wish I'd thought of first. But he uses letters and journal writings (including drawings and photos) so much that I think the "originality" of the structure gets in the way of actually telling the story. Maybe I'm just a traditionalist, but really, there's nothing that fresh or unique about an annotated diary as novel material.
I might just be jealous because, having met Jonathan Safran Foer, I'm forced to face the fact that I will never be a brilliant young novelist. Maybe a brilliant old one, but my chance to be a young hot prodigy are behind me. He's in his late twenties but looks like he's 18. (And he lives in Brooklyn. It's like he's living the life meant for me.)
***
I still can't really bring myself to completely like the HBO series "Big Love." Some of the characters are really interesting and fun, (the hard-on plagued teenage son, the fifteen year old "pre-wife" of the grizzled old prophet, the ex-football player brother with dreams of running a fish farm), but I still can't get my arms around the idea of polygamy. Not the idea of loving multiple people, but the idea that a woman has to happily accept sharing her man but can't get some nookie on the side herself. If it's okay for the husband to behave perfectly normally as he hops from bed to bed, seems logical that the wife should have the same freedom. Why is it godly for him and sinful for her? I know the entire culture is based on male control, but I really want one of the wives to start looking for a new husband to add to the family.
***
My lazy procrastination has cost me $948.06. When I left my last job, I received a letter in the mail with instructions for my 401(k) - I could leave it where it was or roll it over. I didn't do anything right away, although to be fair, I had to wait because they screwed up and paid me an extra paycheck. It took them 6 weeks to reverse the direct deposit, which also meant taking back my contribution to the 401(k) from that paycheck. But a month later, without my realizing it, they took out another $948.06. I only found out in March when I finally got my act together to call to make arrangements to close the account and put the money in another rollover account. It took another month for the plan administrators to research the reason (a miscalculation in my eligibility for company match) and only now do I have my check. But if I'd taken my money out before they did that? They would have been out of luck. And I'd be almost $1000 richer - no to mention how much that would become by the time I retire.
***
I am giving serious thought to getting a blackberry/treo. I know, I know, I'm turning into one of those people. But I don't think I really would - even now I can check my email from any internet browser and I rarely do on nights and weekends, because I like the separation of work and home lives. But there have been occasions where I'm at a trade show or another office or on a train where it would have been easier to deal with email rather than have to wait for a time when I'm busier and it's piled up. But I'm not going to be the person sitting in a restaurant or a movie theater or at a kid's dance recital tip-tapping away. I don't use my cell phone the way other people do, so I don't think it's in my nature.
But the real reason is that I'm a gadget-hound. And with our corporate discount I can get a $750 treo for $315, and the company will pay for the monthly charges after I buy the actual equipment.
***
***
Yesterday was a frustrating day. I'd finally made an appointment for an eye exam, after calling ahead and confirming that the place I've been going to over the past few years took my new insurance. I saw the same optometrist, who I really like, and was out in the front picking out frames when one of the employees informed me that, oops, they don't take my insurance after all, sorry. Sorry? So instead of a $10 co-payment, I had to fork out $59 for the eye exam. Then he had the nerve to ask if I still wanted to purchase glasses. I might not have paid for the exam at all except that a)I really like the doctor and it's not her fault and b)I wanted them to give me my prescription so I can just go and buy glasses at another place that takes my insurance. Luckily I was on Montague Street, where optical stores are outnumbered only by real estate agents. (Seriously, there are two of each on every block.) What does this say about Brooklyn Heights? Home of the near-sighted who move around a lot?
***
The head of our department is retiring, suddenly. Seems like one of those "suggested" retirements although I'm too new to really understand the politics of the situation. There is some fear that this may change the nature of our department, but I'm choosing to be an optimist. Next week we are having a cruise/bon voyage party for him, complete with dinner and dancing. I keep thinking of the booze cruise episode on "The Office." I think I'll stick to Diet Cokes.
***
(Funny how I always capitalize Diet Coke but never christian or god or jesus. You could do an entire analysis of me based on my punctuation.) (Like my habit of overusing parentheses - and dashes.)
***
I finished reading Jonathan Safran Foer's "Extraordinarily Loud and Incredibly Close." I'd stopped for a bit because I was revising my own 9/11 related story, and didn't want to be influenced. His novel is about a young boy dealing with the loss of his father who dies in the towers. I loved "Everything is Illuminated," which I think is a brilliant first novel. I went to a reading/book signing when the paperback came out, and he read from an early draft of "Extraordinarily Loud" which was also really good. And it is - but not quite as good. The novel frames the boy's search for answers to a mystery about his father with the grandfather's experience during the bombing of Dresden at the end of the second World War. "Everything is Illuminated" is the story of a contemporary young man's search for information on his grandfather with his grandfather's story during the Holocaust. So not that much of a departure. He's still a strong writer, and there are some wonderful passages, including some great images about the 9/11 tragedy that I wish I'd thought of first. But he uses letters and journal writings (including drawings and photos) so much that I think the "originality" of the structure gets in the way of actually telling the story. Maybe I'm just a traditionalist, but really, there's nothing that fresh or unique about an annotated diary as novel material.
I might just be jealous because, having met Jonathan Safran Foer, I'm forced to face the fact that I will never be a brilliant young novelist. Maybe a brilliant old one, but my chance to be a young hot prodigy are behind me. He's in his late twenties but looks like he's 18. (And he lives in Brooklyn. It's like he's living the life meant for me.)
***
I still can't really bring myself to completely like the HBO series "Big Love." Some of the characters are really interesting and fun, (the hard-on plagued teenage son, the fifteen year old "pre-wife" of the grizzled old prophet, the ex-football player brother with dreams of running a fish farm), but I still can't get my arms around the idea of polygamy. Not the idea of loving multiple people, but the idea that a woman has to happily accept sharing her man but can't get some nookie on the side herself. If it's okay for the husband to behave perfectly normally as he hops from bed to bed, seems logical that the wife should have the same freedom. Why is it godly for him and sinful for her? I know the entire culture is based on male control, but I really want one of the wives to start looking for a new husband to add to the family.
***
My lazy procrastination has cost me $948.06. When I left my last job, I received a letter in the mail with instructions for my 401(k) - I could leave it where it was or roll it over. I didn't do anything right away, although to be fair, I had to wait because they screwed up and paid me an extra paycheck. It took them 6 weeks to reverse the direct deposit, which also meant taking back my contribution to the 401(k) from that paycheck. But a month later, without my realizing it, they took out another $948.06. I only found out in March when I finally got my act together to call to make arrangements to close the account and put the money in another rollover account. It took another month for the plan administrators to research the reason (a miscalculation in my eligibility for company match) and only now do I have my check. But if I'd taken my money out before they did that? They would have been out of luck. And I'd be almost $1000 richer - no to mention how much that would become by the time I retire.
***
I am giving serious thought to getting a blackberry/treo. I know, I know, I'm turning into one of those people. But I don't think I really would - even now I can check my email from any internet browser and I rarely do on nights and weekends, because I like the separation of work and home lives. But there have been occasions where I'm at a trade show or another office or on a train where it would have been easier to deal with email rather than have to wait for a time when I'm busier and it's piled up. But I'm not going to be the person sitting in a restaurant or a movie theater or at a kid's dance recital tip-tapping away. I don't use my cell phone the way other people do, so I don't think it's in my nature.
But the real reason is that I'm a gadget-hound. And with our corporate discount I can get a $750 treo for $315, and the company will pay for the monthly charges after I buy the actual equipment.
***
posted by medusa at 8:03 AM
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