Michelle's House of Horrors

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
–the Beatles/Blackbird

Well who hasn’t been there before?
I come round, around the hard way
Bring you comics in bed, scrape the mold off the bread
And serve you french toast again

Well, o.k. I still get stoned
I’m not the kind of girl you’d take home
–Sheryl Crow/If It Makes You Happy

Going over boring, depressing financial stuff, and it is started to sink in that keeping the house might be more money than I can easily afford. I knew that, in theory, but it is starting to actually really hit me. Oh, I could give up extras and do it. But should I?

Logically?
Probably not.

Do I want to? Kind of. Sort of. I really like my house, but I know it is probably not a good idea in the long term. What if I decide I want to move to Montana or Italy? Not that I’m planning on it, particularly Montana, but there are obvious reasons that I might want to be more rather than less liquid right now.

Like most things, it’s not all good or all bad news. The reason I can’t afford to keep the house is because it is worth more money than I thought it might be. The higher the assessed value, the higher the buyout. Simple math. Conversely, the higher the assessed value, the more cash there will be after it sells.

It’s only money. It’s only a roof. I can be happy anywhere. I CAN be happy anywhere. I can be happy ANYWHERE. More importantly, whatever I choose to do, I will be financially better off than the vast majority of people in the world. So, once again, perspective is everything.

From a purely rational look at it, which the best way to look at anything as purely..objective..as money, it will probably be best to sell and split the money rather than trying to love here. (Typo..that should obviously say “live here” but it is really spectacularly Freudian, so it stays)

I don’t really need to own a house. There are practical reasons why it is simpler for a woman living alone to rent. Or any person in a period of transition, I suppose.

But…it’s my house. It’s home, as much as a building can be. I like it here. My books are all here.

What does my emotion about possibly leaving it behind mean, really? It only means that I am used to it here. Being in a comfort zone isn’t necessarily the best thing, but it is hard to move out of. It’s a comfort zone. A place where you want to stay, because IT’S COMFORTABLE. Sometimes things are comfortable because they are right for you. Other times being comfortable means your life has become stagnant. So how do you know which is which?

Don’t ask me. I have no answers, only questions.

I don’t know much about anything, I have learned.
I just keep trying to figure things out and grow.

Sometimes learning to fly means letting go of the things holding you down.
It always means a lot of falling down.
It hopefully will mean a lot of getting back up again.

Not hopefully. I know I’ll get back up. I always do. Call it stubborn. Call it resilient. Call it persistent. I can’t even give up on a book I don’t like.

Give up on something as important as living life?
Not fucking likely.

For one thing, i can’t give up because I haven’t tried that vodka that comes in a skull yet.

Hey, if it keeps me getting back up, it doesn’t have to be profound.

The first time I saw “To Be, Or Not To Be” was in the mid-80’s when I was living in Paris. I was a little bit lost, and ran into a small theater that specialized in classic cinema. Since I was just wandering around as a bit of an adventure, I decided to go in and see whatever movie was playing. By the time I left, I was in love with both Carole Lombard and the director Ernst Lubitsch. He managed to make a film about the German invasion of Poland filmed during the occupation funny.

It was Lombard’s last film, released just a few months after her death.
Because of lingering sadness over her death, and the subject matter, it did not do well at the box office.

That day I also saw “Ninotchka” and “the Shop Around The Corner” and learned about the Lubitsch Touch. Every once in awhile, I have to re watch them.

They still make me laugh.

No writing tonight. I have an old movie to watch…

Tonight I am writing from lovely Springfield, Oregon. The place I grew up, mostly. If you can call me grown up at all given some of the stuff going on, which I suppose some of you would say is really debatable.

Driving down, the weather was…let’s call it variable. It rained. It was sunny. It rained. There were some gorgeous multi-layered cloud formations near Coburg. What is the deal with the clouds in that area? Somehow the sky is always bigger and more dramatic right between Harrisburg and Coburg.

Or maybe I just have a weird cloud fixation.

Hung out a bit with Ma and Little L and shared some of my cherry pomegranate cider with them. They liked it almost as much as Chelle and I do. It’s good stuff. Had a good talk, then went out for dinner and drinks with some of my favorite people on the planet: Sharon and Stewart.

Steak and booze. More talking. Laughing. There is nothing better than having people you can be yourself with. People who know when to cut you some slack or when to get on your ass. People who love you no matter what. People who know exactly who you have buried and where. Maybe they even helped destroy the evidence. Or, just saying, maybe some of the bodies belong to them. Just a for instance.

Those people are rare in life, but I do seem to have been blessed in that department. The people I know are the best people.

I also enjoyed the pictures going up on Facebook from the folks at the KISS show in Vancouver and am currently crossing my fingers for a safe, clean limo trip home for them.

Tomorrow?

I am not sure. Wine tasting, maybe.