Tag Archives: 2011

I’m now, again, hearing a dog pain-whine coming from S___’s — not sure what’s going on there.

And back to housing — I thought yesterday at 5, while burning papers, … that [my grandparents] never really had that much money. They’ve always just scraped by. They had a farm, yes, but they have often/mostly (always?) done things on the cheap — like Papa’s machine shed built from scraps, mismatching metal, etc. — or this upstairs on the house, built from plywood removed from a restaurant demolition. Not that these ways are wrong, but then Papa also doesn’t maintain things well — partly because he’s old, partly because he’s got no money, and partly because it’s probably just his nature. … I’ve heard [my grandma] say, at times, and not so often lately, that she wants the farm to look nice. I recall her making a point years ago about mowing up to the buildings, not having grassy edges everywhere. But, I mean, is the ugliness of stuff here a function of a lack of money, or is it merely a practical aesthetic (a non-aesthetic?) that doesn’t care what stuff looks like so long as it holds together? (the engineer mindset, though even some engineers are move into neatness)

[From journal of Sat., 28 May 2011, J141, pages 67-68]

Housing is consumable. I know it’ll take more money than just the mortgage and taxes. There will be necessary maintenance and also style upgrades (for ourselves or for selling it, making it appeal to buyers) and I don’t have that kind of money now — we have very little savings, so we get the home warranty and other insurance. In Out of Africa, I watched yesterday, Meryl Streep as Isak Dinesen says “insurance is for pessimists” after her coffee barn burned down. Yeah, I can agree with that. I do believe in the value of insurance — protect against the downside. I had a moment Thursday, walking around M’s office building, where I thought, what if we let house insurance lapse and then house got destroyed? What a huge hole that’d be. There’d be no money to rebuild. How hard that’s gotta be for people who lose their house, through foreclosure or whatever — yikes. That’s grim.

I watched Out of Africa yesterday early afternoon. It’s a nicely slow-paced movie. Reminded me of how she didn’t have any TV or radio living on that Kenyan farm, and how I could go a few days without TV or other media myself — my annual summer attempt at a media fast. Eh, not a bad idea, really — and yesterday, though, just to get myself to let down, was intentionally — eh — I was choosing to watch TV, Out of Africa and then Wayne’s World 2 (lot of jokes there are also used in later Mike Myers stuff: the eye joke, not being able to look away, like the mole joke in Austin Powers 3, and blatant movie allusions — Garth after sex [acts] like Tony Curtis in Some Like it Hot, and The Graduate ending — not really funny, just merely a reference) and so, that’s OK. You know — I kinda wanted to let go of the need to go. So I sorta told myself to indulge. Does that make sense?

Well, so, where was I? Oh, yes — consumable housing: no, we don’t have much cash now. We wouldn’t be able to upgrade much now, so I’m counting on the fact that we’ll make more money in the future — that it’ll get easier to pay the mortgage because I’ll keep getting raises (for another 8 years, at least, even if there’s no raise in the base pay, which hopefully there will be, once economy recovers).

[From journal of Sat., 28 May 2011, J141, page 64-66]

M said Friday, no, I can’t recall the day — maybe Thursday — but M had said [a lawyer colleague of hers ] acts put-out, put-upon, in court. That’s a rhetorical technique he’s using, I said. She told me the next day (Thursday, I think — I said it Wednesday at her office before we went for Mexican food) — M said it was a good idea of mine — that it helped her to think of what he was doing as a rhetorical technique. Oh, we were driving up River Road when M said that. I was picturing it in my head as Route 72 near vet clinic, west-bound.

[From journal of Sat., 28 May 2011, Journal 141, page 58-9]