an odd bit of melancholy.

this weekend has been unusual. it's also marked the first time I've felt "depressed" since I started taking anti-depressants over a year ago. the odd thing is, there's really nothing I should be depressed about.

my sleep schedule ended up really messed up. this was unavoidable. I had to drive the boss to auburn at 4am because she was working at her company's golf tournament. since I insisted she work it (ten hours of OT is very valuable in this economy), the least I could do was taxi her too and from. this meant waking up at 4am, driving for two hours, and then going back to bed. I didn't plan on sleeping another five hours, but I did.

I made several attempts to be social this weekend. they all failed. unsurprisingly, it's summer time and people were busy. many were entertaining friends and family from out of town. still more were out of town themselves. it's just disheartening to know that of everyone I know, I couldn't find a single person available to hang out. so I slept more.

now, it's 11:30pm on a sunday, I have to be awake at 6am, and I can't sleep. probably because I slept approximately thirty of the past forty-eight hours.

what also weighs heavily on my mind, for no obvious reason, is the death of a girl I don't know and never would have met anyway. she was the friend of several old friends of mine, most of whom I haven't seen in years, and only really keep in contact because of social media like facebook. I have nothing in common with them anymore, so it's not surprising we rarely see each other. but she was 32, and drowned in a rafting accident. from what I can tell, she was being stupid. no life vest, got caught in some underwater branches or something, and couldn't be resuscitated. playing in rivers this time of year is always dangerous. the water is cold and quick because of snow runoff, and there's always debris just below the surface from spring flooding. I suspect she wasn't the strongest swimmer, and compounding all of this by not wearing a life vest makes it worse. I don't know if alcohol or drugs were involved. probably? even without, there was enough bad ideas in that equation to warrant the bad ending.

so I witnessed a lot of people freaking out and a lot of mourning on social media this weekend, which only added to my awkwardness and ill-feeling. and it's impacted me, despite not knowing the deceased. it hit me the same way it hit everyone else. she was 32. she's dead. it could happen to anyone.

but unlike everyone else, I'm enough of an asshole to recognize I only feel bad because I can put myself, or someone I care about, in her position. I did some searching for stories on the incident online, and saw so many people offering prayers, whatever, for someone they never knew. I find it hard to believe people can be that empathic towards other human beings with no self-interest in the relationship. they all feel bad because it makes them think of their own mortality. they just hide it behind trying to be polite or whatever. really, what does offering prayers do? bupkis.

so I'm in a pissy mood. I have an irrational feeling of being abandoned, and an annoyance about a dead girl. of course my brains adds these together and starts thinking about what would happen if I were that dead girl. and I have a difficult time thinking it would make much impact. my family would be upset. a few friends, sure. but I can't imagine people writing glowing prose about my "beautiful soul" or how much my smile will be missed. and they're probably right. I don't have a beautiful soul, and I don't smile very often. when I do, it's usually mean spirited or at the expense of someone else. but I remember back to my grandfather's funeral, and how the preacher sat there and lied to the congregation about how wonderful a husband and father he was, and it has me wondering if ANYONE ever actually means what they say about the deceased. how can you tell who is sincerely missed, and who is just getting lipservice for the sake of social politeness?

I've been thinking about kids a lot lately too. I'm in the midst of a baby boom. I can think of at least eight people who either have had kids in the past two years, or are expecting in the next six months. it's just my age and a reflection of my peers. but it has me wondering why people bother. I have a house I can't afford, a job I don't particularly like, and I'm just waiting out the next thirty to forty years before I shrug off this mortal coil. everyone talks about how great their children are, but I also see how difficult they make life, and I know how difficult life can be already. I know I wouldn't be a good parent. I'm too moody, too angry, and too intolerant. I feel bad for mooki, and her family, because they deserve better. my parents have three grandkids already, and they're all messed up as it is. I don't think they need any more. but my in-laws would probably like to see some. I just don't think I'm the right person to sire them.

in seven hours, I'll be back at work. I'll have real, honest-to-goodness social interaction with real people. it doesn't matter that I only talk to any of them because we work together. we don't have anything in common outside of work, I'm the weird pariah that no one understands. at least I'll get to talk to people who aren't obligated to put up with me put of marriage, or cats. I get that luxury for the next thirty-one years. I have no idea what I'll do for social interaction upon retirement.

I am such a moody bitch. I wish I could sleep.

the IRS can suck my balls.

so a lot's happened in the past few months. most notably, we bought a house.

recently, as part of the stimulus package, the US govt is now ponying up an $8000 tax credit (ie, free money) to first time homebuyers. y'know, us.

so we bought a house. and the thing about this market, any house for sale needs work. a lot of it. more than $8k worth. it's all foreclosures and short sales and dumps. we bought the latter two...

so we filed an extension on our taxes, since we knew we'd be buying shortly after april 15. we closed on the house june 4. I made the mistake of trying to file our taxes june 2, before the paperwork had gone through... red flag. waited, filed again on june 4. was told great, we have your tax return, and you'll have $8k deposited into your account june 18!

it's now august 24. we still don't have our money.

back on july 12, we got something in the mail asking us to prove we actually bought the damn house. as if sending mail to us at the new address didn't suffice... so we contacted the escrow company, had them send a copy of the HUD-1 statement with all the signatures, and faxed that off. nothing happened. called two weeks later, was told it could take 30-45 days. called two weeks after that, still told it could take up to 45 days. called today. "oh, it's been six weeks, I don't see that we ever got the documents you faxed." should probably send them again. why it took them six weeks to realise they never got them is beyond me. for all I know, I'll probably be penalized somehow for not responding to their original request within thirty days. y'know, 'cos it's MY fault they're fucking retarded.

fucking great. I have a fax confirmation in my hand of the documents I faxed to the number they told me to send to. they're covered in all sorts of sensitive info, like my SSN and all that. and they can't find it.

so I faxed the documents off AGAIN today. they tell me to write my name and SSN on EVERY PAGE this time. sure, why not my DOB, mother's maiden and a DNA sample while you're at it?

meanwhile, there's a lot of work that still needs to be done on the house, we have a contractor lined up to begin a very expensive bathroom remodel next month, and we still don't have that tax credit. the one that was supposed to entice us to buy a house right away. y'know, the one that was supposed to help pay for repairs on the obviously inferior house you'd have to buy in this market...

fuck. the. IRS. up. their. stupid. ass.

four weeks and counting.

it's been over four weeks since I was let go. over four weeks of doing very little aside from household chores.

even tho I have unemployment benefits that are paying nearly as much as I would have brought home in paycheque form, I can't help but feel like I'm not pulling my weight. I've read articles about how layoffs affect men harder than women, because men tie up so much of their self-worth in their jobs. and it's true. maybe if I had kids, I could focus on being a father or something. but really, other than picking up a few extra chores around the house, it's not as if my role as "husband" has expanded greatly.

no, I'm just starting to feel kind of worthless. and to add insult to injury, if I'm not employed by next friday, I have to go into the unemployment office for a three hour orientation to services the UO offers. so far I've yet to actually deal with anyone, it's all been automated and painless. I keep a log of my job searches and that's it. as of next friday, I'll actually have to face other people, in a public setting, and I'll feel ashamed for being unemployed. I may not have the strongest work ethic out there, but I've always taken some pride in my work, and especially in the fact that I'd never been fired from a job.

I have two strong leads for work, both wholesalers and competition of my former employer. both have expressed interest, but progress towards an actual job offer has been very slow, due to the economy. I've even been through the drug screen portion of the hiring process with one, yet it's been three days since I've heard anything back from them.

more than anything, I'd like to begin working while it's still april. that way, on my resume if will simply list my last job ending 3/09 and new job beginning 4/09. that won't look bad ten or fifteen years down the road if I'm looking for a new job, it won't look like a gap at all. if this drags into may (or beyond), I'll suddenly have a gap to explain. and sure, people will remember the recession (depression?) of '09, but that still doesn't look good.

I want to go back to work. I want to do what I know and have been doing most of the past decade. I don't want to start over at the bottom rung of some unfamiliar industry, and need to build a new network of contacts and start with an entry level salary again...

I want someone to call me with a job offer, dammit.

'cos my life needed to get worse.

lost my job. lost "my" house. starting to lose my mind. and now, lost my identity.

my oldest credit card, from bank of america (formerly mbna, formerly wamu) has been compromised. about a dozen fraudulent charges showed up, BoA caught them and closed the account. in the meantime, someone also got their hands my cell phone number and an old email address. I was receiving text spams until I called AT&T to block all texting (at twenty cent a pop, that's fucking expensive spam), and have been receiving a call or two every hour from various places that claim I signed up with them online... bankruptcy lawyers, car loans, weight loss programs, criminal justice distance education... the kind of shite you see advertised on telly, and generally less than reputable business endeavours. one of them suspected fraud and tried to verify the email addy, was surprised to find it was my old hotmail addy. my disposable account that I use for places I don't want to get spammed from.

weird thing is tho, I never use the BoA card online. even the online purchases I've made with that contact addy, it's always been amex. there was a fraud alert from BoA on that addy, looked legit (most phishing scams are pretty weak), so I called them. they said they don't have that addy on file. he pulled up an old account, which was closed year ago, and it DID have hotmail on file. he didn't know where that alert came from, so I forwarded it to their phishing department. they've closed the account and flagged all of the fraudulent charges as bogus.

this still sucks a lot of balls. I'm getting a ton of phone calls I don't want, and feel as though my whole life has been compromised. I've contacted the credit bureaus to put alerts on my accounts, but I can't do an actual freeze without a police report, and I can't file a police report until BoA responds to me with their investigation.

when it rains, it really fucking pours. napalm.

I hate my life.

sigh.

I get my first unemployment cheque in the next couple days. it will be my first taste of "welfare" and I'm not proud of it.

I've been looking for work, but it's not easy in this economy. I have one promising lead, and should hear back on that next week. I had another interview last week at a wholesaler in kent, but they were only looking for outside sales. the commute would have been awful, and i don't have the personality for outside sales.

I've been trying to keep my spirits up, but I'm getting bored. I've been playing video games, and recently decided to netflix the entire BSG series and finally get around to watching it. I've been pacing myself on the job apps and searches to three a week, since I need to make three contacts a week to keep the unemployment rolling in.

in three weeks, I can go into the seattle animal shelter for an orientation and start volunteering there, working with kitties and puppies in the shelter. hoping that will offer some sort of fulfillment.

I've also been bugging miyuki about getting a baby kitty, in the hopes playing with a kitten would cheer me up during the day. she's not convinced yet.

all of this has been a mixed blessing. I was truly unhappy with my old job. but I was also really looking forward to having my own house, and knowing that we've missed a golden opportunity hurts. by the time we've recovered and will be ready to buy, the recession could be over, and the historically low interest rates will have certainly gone up. we won't be able to afford as much house, and will likely need to settle for something less than what we hoped for. that makes me sad.

I do have to wonder why all the crap has been piled up all at once, and I'm wondering what's going to fall on my head next.

whoops.

so yeah. we were supposed to sign the final paperwork on the pinehurst house friday, so we could close and move end of april.

funny thing. I got laid off wednesday. "laid off" probably isn't the right word... "fired" was more like it. details are sketchy, but it sounds like has to do with a personality conflict with a "woman" I worked with, who I am pretty sure is the antichrist. since she's threatened 2.3 lawsuits per year for the past 35+ years (seriously), they decided to just get rid of me rather than call her bluff.

I was pretty upset at first. but I applied for unemployment right away, found out I'll qualify for about 85% of what I was taking home anyway, and immediately started networking. I've had several kind words and offers of reference come in, and even had an interview 9am thursday. the interview went well, last over an hour with the manager who has known me since I was six years old. he said he thought he could find something for me if I could give him a few weeks, which in this economy is all I could ask for. the company is better than my former employer (my dad used to work there for twenty years), offering a smaller, more family-oriented environment. plus, the branch is within walking distance of our apartment.

in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy my time off, rake in some unemployment for a few weeks, and hope to be back to work in may. we definitely lost out on the pinehurst house, but I'm planning to still buy later in the summer. I want to get back into the saddle for a couple months, make sure everything is stable, and then see what is available on the market.

the real irony is, the original house we wanted on 199th may be through the foreclosure process by then and back on the market as a bank-owned, which means it'd be even cheaper than what we offered...

funny how quickly things change...

couple things happened recently.

we found out we weren't going to get the house on 199th, which put us back to square one. and the US treasury pumped three hundred billion dollars into the banking system to buy up mortgages and free up money for lending. this drove the interest rates down considerably. like as much as half a percent.

so for the same monthly payment, we realised we could afford a lot more. still would have been nice to have gotten 199th, since the lower interest rate would have meant saving a few hundred a month, but we knew we weren't going to find anything in that old price bracket. so we started looking at the up to $400k range. amazingly, we started finding nice houses we liked a lot.

we found three the first day out that were nice. first was a huge (2100 sf) split level, but very bland and boring. it reminded me of houses my friends grew up in back in the 80s... I just don't know if I'm ready to settle down for that yet. second was essentially a townhouse without shared walls. a small development of several cookie cutter houses squished onto a couple lots. not much yard of privacy, but amazing space and amenities indoors. if not for the busy street it was on, we would have gone for it.

we ended up choosing a bit smaller house that was also a bit less expensive, ONLY a paltry $383k. it's 70 years old, and has the accompanying issues with older houses, namely a small kitchen and tiny bathrooms. but it was immaculately maintained and had gorgeous detail work, as well as a large yard and a 1.5 car garage. we put in an offer that night.

miyuki would have preferred to see more houses in that price range, but I was worried about losing out on this house. it just went on the market, and an open house was planned for this weekend. we offered thursday night, and agreed to a counter the next day. amazingly, we paid full list price, but received a $5k closing cost concession. we did pay $10k less than the assessed value, so while we probably did leave a bit on the table by acting to quickly, we didn't get screwed or anything.

the inspection is tuesday. if all goes well then, we'll proceed with the financing and close april 24. we'll be completely moved in that following weekend.

the house doesn't need much work. we'll want to replace the washer and dryer soon, as they're pretty old. we'll want to pull the wallpaper out of the main bedroom and paint. mostly, we'll want to work on the yard. I want to rip up some of the grass and lay down gravel for extra parking, and tear up the back yard grass to put a vegetable garden in.

we went to the open house today, just to get a second look and make sure we didn't miss anything. while we were there, we met the neighbours from two doors down, and they seemed nice. a couple a bit older than us (late 30s, maybe?) with a son who looked about seven. they told us a bit about the 'hood. only a couple of the houses are rentals, it's a quiet dead end street, and there are a few kids around, as well as a shoreline sheriff and seattle PD officer who live nearby.

as we were leaving the open house, we figured we should introduce ourselves to the neighbours directly behind the house (there's a shared driveway on "our" lot, so it's probably good to make sure we get along), and that was an odd conversation. the guy barely opened his door, maybe four inches, and shook my hand but not miyuki's (I think he may have been muslim? african guy with a big beard that said he didn't shake women's hands). he said they'd raised kids there and been there about twenty years. I imagine we won't see them much. he seemed nice enough, it was just odd that he didn't really open the door.

we've been watching a lot of HGTV and getting ideas for what we want to do. I've also put calls in to a couple local movers to get quotes. I helped a friend move saturday and threw out my back. I'm just getting old, and would rather pay movers a few hundred dollars to do the heavy lifting for us...

so all in all, good news. we'll be out of this shitty apartment and into our first "home" by the end of april!