22 May 2003

Sarah notes that "Crazy Uncle Joe" gets a ton more hits than "Crazy Uncle Bob." This is true, but many of them appear to be the same guy, signing a lot of posts in various places under that name. So I'm not sure how to count that one. All of the C.U.B.s seemed to be different.

And Karina opines that once someone gets out of the mists of the Bobby stage, the very fact of him choosing Bob as a nickname for himself says some Crazy things about him. Perhaps. Further thoughts?

I didn't watch Buffy, so I have nothing to say about that. I didn't watch American Idol, either, but I'm glad the fat black guy won. And not just because I read a silly Salon article about how there was no way an African-American could win, either. (The claim there was that we were all Too Racist. And I don't think that this proves that Racism Is Dead or anything like that, but...it was a silly claim in context.)

I finished reading J. Martin Rochester's Class Warfare, and let me tell you -- do not read this book! It is not worth your time. Even when he's being reasonable, he's so obnoxious that you start thinking, "Well, gosh, maybe assigning essays about their favorite number is a good way to teach sixth graders math. Maybe nobody should use standard grammar in any context." Just so that you don't wind up agreeing with this man! The worst is when he's trying to be jocular. He is the PTA version of That Guy. And he claimed at the beginning to be a liberal, and I kept muttering, "Oh yeah, you're a liberal. You're so liberal you're freakin' Eugene Debs" and other such sentiments. Because, you know, hallmarks of liberals include believing that inner city public institutions are already adequately funded all across America; assuming that you can tell something about how well an administrator will do a job based on his/her gender; declaring it "obvious" that racial quotas have been used in a given situation in lieu of standards...all that is totally liberal. (I'm not saying it's conservative, either. I believe "reactionary" and "delusional" are the two words that came to mind when I was reading the charming way he put this stuff.) So...if you think, "Ah, perhaps I should read an incisive and insightful book about the state of American education," let me tell you that this is not it. Run away from this book.

Gah. David and I went to Half Price Books down in Fremont, because Timprov wasn't feeling good, and I'm glad we did, because now I can wash the taste of this book out with Dark Lord of Derkholm.

(It wasn't just because Timprov wasn't feeling good. If we went there every time T was feeling yucky, we would have no money, and I think they might kick us out, and the Chinese place is closed for renovations, so we couldn't even wander over and get lettuce cups. Not that I'm jonesing bad for lettuce cups, mind you. It was that T was feeling yucky, so we didn't go to the baseball game, so we did go to Half Price. Got it? Good.)

So. One of my intentions for today is to get really, really clean. Yesterday, the water pressure died on me as I was starting my shower. It was a pitiful little trickle at first, and it went downhill from there. I managed to get my body soaped and rinsed and my hair wet down before the water died down to essentially nothing. No problem, I thought -- we have another shower, and it's not like I've never washed my hair in the sink before. No water to the other shower. No water to any of the sinks. No water. Well, water. Just not more than a pitiful trickle at a time, not enough to wash this kind of hair. So I had wet, unwashed hair. I was not too nasty to be taken out in public, but I still feel a little more grody than I usually would at this hour of the morning.

But! Mark got the last of the paperwork yesterday, so we can call the plans for this fall final. Yay! So I can tell you-all what we're up to. I know I've been talking about moving to Minneapolis as a "when" and not an "if" for awhile now. Here's the deal: we decided that the best option is actually for Mark to work for his current company for awhile longer. They will allow him to telecommute. Which means Bay Area salary, Midwest cost-of-living. (Also means his stock options will finish vesting, for whatever that ends up to be worth.) Can't beat that with a stick. So he'll be finishing up his thesis writing -- they're scheduling his defense right now, but his thesis is already somewhat written, as they do things in an order that isn't always intuitive. Anyway, he'll finish up his thesis writing and get his software to a point that he likes, and then we'll pack up and head out, probably in the fall. We're planning on early/mid-October, as that's kind of our cutoff date: after that, we don't feel particularly safe about crossing the Sierras in a U-Haul (or even in our trusty Zeph, and we'll have to have both). If it was before then, it would be all right with me, but I'll plan for the worst-case scenario and be happy if we can go sooner. As that stands, Mark may be coming back and spending a bit more time out here before he settles into a telecommuting routine, but we will deal with that if we need to. They'll also want him out here a few days a month, and they want him to be able to be flexible about that. But since they're paying for travel and lodging when they have him out here, flexibility is our middle name.

I'll bet you thought the K. stood for something else.

We'll be looking for a house, either to buy or to rent. Since this is not a permanent job situation, I think we're leaning towards renting, but if the housing prices are really good, we'll just have to see what's out there. We don't have a lot of constraints in location, although we'd like to be nearish to the U and the airport. (Mom: "You just want to be close to C.J. [who lives five minutes from the airport]." Me: "Duh." But seriously, a lot of our friends live down that direction, and it's another incentive.) Actually, it's kind of funny, because we'll live where we find a good house for sale or rent, but...it's the Cities. So I already know where a lot of stuff is, and I also know how to make fun of all the suburbs already. For example, I would mock us endlessly if we lived in Edina. Edina! Hee. I would be an Edina Girl, then. Hee hee. Edina. I'd have to get That Haircut and dye my hair That Color. Hee. Edina. Every time I told people my address, I would have to use That Voice. So we're probably not moving to Edina. (I realize that this is of limited hilarity to the rest of the world. But hee, an Edina Girl, me! Heehee. Here's an ad: "EDINA COUNTRY CLUB Rare opportunity!" Yeah, the opportunity to make fun of myself and my neighbors on two counts. Don't know how rare that is.)

I said, "Heck, we're so flexible, we could even live in St. Paul!" And I got Such A Look. So we're not living in St. Paul, even if there's an absolutely perfect house there. But still. House. Cities. Me. Heeheehee. What kills me is that some of these ads say, "Vw lk" or "Nr lk." Hee. If you can't vw a lk in Mpls, the odds are you're inside a Lutheran Church or a Chinese restaurant, and even then, sometimes you can. Mark says I'm being very silly. But it's not a bad bet, statistically speaking. You're always nr a lk. It's the lnd of 10000 lks, fr hvns sk.

Also, the exclamation points amuse me. There is, for example, an ad for "Hopkins! 3BR 2BA." But they had lost me to the giggles at the !, because Hopkins has never, in its entire history, deserved an !. I'm not saying we wouldn't live there if the house was right. I'm just saying no ! for Hopkins itself. Also, I have no need of 2FP. I don't even particularly care about 1FP. I don't see FPs as a big selling point, myself. Less room for bookcases. To quote my mom when she's car-shopping, "Don't need it, don't want it, not gonna pay for it." She repeats this mantra as often as necessary. It's a good thing they don't have to buy cars often, because she makes car salesbeings fairly uncomfortable. It's a good mantra. (Ooh, here's one, "4BR, new bths, vw lk mtka." Lk mtka, no less! I'm surprised they didn't give that one a !. I might have.)

But whether we end up with "3BR all appls" or "5BR/3BA C/A," we will be moving home in the fall. That makes me happy. And I can't stop looking at the ads. People, we could have a dock. Do you understand this? Don't need it, don't want it, not going to pay for it, but still: for what we have paid for this apartment, they are willing to give us our very own dock as well as a house. Whereas I think you could get a dock here for that price, but no house to go with it. Looking for housing out here was not nearly so exciting. I have learned the differences in code: "Executive" means, "You can do better for the same price." Out here, "Executive" means, "You can't afford it." But if we wanted to, we could afford a lot back home.

It's that other meaning of afford. Afford is changing so much lately. "I can't afford that" doesn't mean, "we couldn't buy groceries if we did that." It doesn't mean, "we couldn't ever go out for dinner again if we did that." I mean, there are still things that qualify that way, but with Mark's salary going to full-time instead of part-time, there's a little more elbow room on what we can consider to be affordable. Also, being able to drive to see family and friends is going to be good good good, emotionally and financially. And family and friends can drive to see us. Also good.

These ads just make me happy. There's so much potential in them. We could live on a cul-de-sac with other people's small beings running around screeching and barking! We could have a lg fncd yd! We could bk on prk! We could put our books in the fam rm! You know what has me excited right now? Stairs. We could have stairs inside where we live. (And probably will -- need somewhere to go in the tornado warnings. Hey, the sky will turn green sometimes! Skies are supposed to do that. It's How Things Are.) And we could have a garage. We could put our car in the garage, perhaps even with the other car, which we don't own yet but will when we move. We could get a shovel and a rake and put those in the garage with the car(s). Heehee.

Nr lk. Pretty much no matter where we go, that's gonna be us. Aw yeah.