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Over the Rainbow

I spent the better part of my day packing up books and spiriting the filled tote bins to our storage unit.  All this is in anticipation of the painter coming next week, the carpet cleaner I’d like to rent from Home Depot on Friday and then the realtors I’m hoping will jump at the chance to list our condo the following Monday morning.

As many of you know, Dennis and I have decided to build a house out in the middle of nowhere and I couldn’t be more delighted. The air is clean. Neighbors do things like wave at you when you drive buy. I’ll actually be able to find a Girl Scout to procure Samoas from this time next year, assuming all goes well. 

Friends and family have long endured my lamentations about city living, and my desire to head for the hills. After living in cities for the better part of the last 15 years, I’ve seen the light at the end of the tunnel. Of course, before moving we’ll need to sell our condo and this is proving stressful (as a co-worker pointed out yesterday, “Well it is the one thing you have no control over and you don’t exactly thrive in those situations.”). I posted a question to Trulia earlier about the state of the Chicago market and became so stressed out at the prospect of an unfavorable answer that I deleted the post.

I’ve worked hard to manage my expectations and have always felt that purchasing this property was a wise decision - I think it’s retained it’s value and the price we’re hoping to sell at (including parking and maybe either a year’s worth of assessments or cash towards closing) is pretty reasonable. I keep reminding myself we bought this place because we wanted a place to live, not an investment and it's the same reason that we're building the house. There's a difference between making a stupid choice and a courageous one. While the market is certainly challenging life doesn't stop and to wring you hands as time marches on would be a foolish mistake.

Nevertheless I find myself sitting on the sofa, worried and nervous. I’m ready for this change, excited for this change but I can’t help but thinking there’s another shoe that’s going to drop. What good is reading about how to paint your garage floor when you may end up losing your construction deposit because some slack ass realtor can’t pull their weight and market your condo?

We’re heading out there tomorrow to sign over earnest money (which will involve reading a contract). If you keep your fingers crossed, I’ll use my lucky pen. In the meantime I’m fixing myself a stiff drink and already planning to put this in my new home office.

 

It's not you, it's me.

When I was little, I lived in Antwerp and London and Houston and Frankfurt. At 18 I high-tailed it from West Houston to various locales inside the Loop. Shortly before my 24th birthday, I picked up and moved to Manhattan. Dennis and I have lived in Chicago for 6 years.

A great deal of my life has been spent living in apartments, riding subways and scurrying amongst the shadows cast by skyscrapers on sunny days but to say I’m a city gal would be a gross understatement. My heart belongs to suburbia. 

Maybe it’s because as a little kid – unable to get her grubby mitts on simple pleasures like Pop Tarts and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups – I romanticized the big-box American experience. Visiting my grandparents in New Hampshire was nothing short of sublime (The mall! Burger King! KMart!) and when we finally moved back stateside in 1984, I was absolutely over the moon. Suddenly not only did we have a yard, we had a cul-de-sac that openly embraced things like an annual Christmas party, playing baseball in the spring and pooling money to buy an excess of fireworks on the fourth of July.

Anyway, as I stand happily at the brink of middle age, spending my hard-earned bonus on having our condo painted and a storage unit I can’t pretend to be upset as we prepare to put our wee slice of Chicago on the market. We’re heading for the hills. BFE here we come. I obsess about decorating a formal living room I don't yet have. I'm researching how to till soil. I fantasize about the day where I can buy paper towels at Costco and actually have a place to store the 12 rolls I'm not using. I don't particularly care that it's probably the worst real estate market in American history; I'm ready to go.

I laid in bed last night (after a particularly traumatic episode of “Little Miss Perfect” on We. Sidenote: why the recent surge in child beauty pageant shows?) contemplating the change. Friends of ours will surely bemoan our decision – how could you leave the city? The restaurants? The rat-tat-tat jazz-driven rhythm of scurrying across boulevards in the hopes of dashing into charming shops in a mid-summer rain?

Fact of the matter is, to quote R.E.O. Speedwagon, it’s time for me (us) to fly. The city is like the bad boyfriend who promises he’s going to change and never does. Eventually you come to your senses and realize that you deserve better than an overgrown frat boy neighbor who likes watching “24” at a volume better suited for an amphitheater, a parking garage that costs more per month than your actual car payment and paying 10.25% sales tax because the county can’t get its act together.

Fare the well, urban living. We’ve had a good run, but I’m ready to move on. It’s not you, it’s me. I know you’ll find someone out there – someone who can give you something I never could. I wish you nothing but happiness. Know that the time we spent together will always mean something to me, but I can’t pretend to love you anymore.

Adventures in Shame: My iPod

Over yonder @ Jennsylvania, Jenn was kind enough to share a cheesy play list with her readers and encouraged us readers to the same. In the spirit of self-disclosure and healing, I offer my premium cheese play list. For those that know me, this will come as no surprise.

In the interest of variety, I have stripped out the requisite tracks by Wham.

“Barbie Girl” – Aqua: Did this come out when I was in college? I don’t know, but I remember listening to this or something like it when I was bumming free tanning bed upgrades from a pal who worked at the local salon, the hysterically named Darque Tan. Never managed to score that free bottle of optimizer lotion though.

“Womanizer” – Britney Spears: Years ago, in the early days of her relationship with K-Fed, my friend Dawn and I mapped out the trajectory of her career. I’m still waiting on the country album, but have otherwise been dead on.

“The Rhythm of the Night” – Corona: For those smart enough to constrain their class schedules to Monday – Thursday, Fridays at the sorority house usually began with Bath and Body Works lotion and Days of Our Lives. By the early afternoon, we’d begin the ritual of preening for the fraternity party du jour. This song was inevitably playing on the radio while we were on route to Contempo.

“Dancing in the Sheets” – Shalimar: As a 9 year old, I sang this out loud in the back of a car on a family road trip. That was the point where my parents took my Footloose tape away.

“Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)” – Joan Jett: Last week I was at a Junior League event and there was, no lie, a woman pole dancing (promoting a lady’s fitness studio here in Chicago). Pole. Dancing. Me, if I were to ever choreograph a routine that had me suspended on a piece of metal tubing, legs akimbo, this would be a first choice.

“I Tried” – Geto Boyz:  You know if Geto Boy Bushwick Bill, a little person who grew up in a tough environment, can survive a self-inflicted gunshot to the eye I really have very little to bitch about. 

“Hangin’ Tough” – NKOTB: I was relentless in my devotion to this band but had enough foresight to put my BOP/Super Teen encrusted poster shrine to them on the back of my bedroom door.

“I Beg Your Pardon” – Kon Kan: I remember dancing to this song after having way, way, way too much to drink. There were strobe lights, I know that much.

“C’mon Ride It (The Train)” – The Quad City DJs: I used to roller blade and, sadly, used to roller blade wearing a unitard. This was on that mix tape which was ultimately destroyed when I wiped out, went ass over tea kettle and landed on my walkman.

“Come and Get Your Love” – Real McCoy: Inexplicably reminds me of Donna and Kelly at the Peach Pit, and how much I hoped Brenda would take a machete to them both.

 “I’m Free (Heaven Helps the Man)” – Kenny Loggins: For those times where you need to thrash around an empty warehouse in tight jeans and a short-sleeved sweatshirt.

“The Warrior” – Scandal: Occasionally I would get my parents to let me listen to Top 40 radio on the way to school. This would always play on the long drive to the magnate school I attended (briefly) in Wichita. I actually cheated to get in, copying all my math answers from my neighbor. You know, I still haven’t ever used algebra.

“Word Up” – Cameo: I only just realized it, but Cameo sounds remarkably like Urkel.

“Good Vibrations” – Marky Mark & the Funky Bunch:  Is it just me or the notion of a bicep curling underwear model rapping really, really funny?

 “You Make Me Feel” – Book of Love: Makes me Jones for an Outback Red Henley shirt and matching scrunchy socks. Fun fact: For years, I thought the lead singer for Book of Love was actually the actress who played Terri in “Just One of the Guys.”

“Don’t Go” – Yaz: I’m  hoping desperately that, before the first season is over, RuPaul makes his “Drag Race” queens lip synch this song.

“Everybody Have Fun Tonight” – Wang Chung: When bad names happen to good bands.