Entry 87: House Hunting, Etc.

[Millie & Al's, where I spent much of last night. It's one of the myriad dive bars in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington DC.]

Very tired today. I went to sleep late and woke up early. A bunch of people were out last night, some of whom I haven't seen since being back from Australia, so despite being quite tired from working all week, I decided to join them. Here's the text I wrote to my friend:

"Cool. I'll stop by for a drink. Can't stay out too late tonite tho."

Smash cut to me stumbling into our condo at 3:47am. You should never make pronouncements like I did. You're just asking for the exact opposite to happen. Irony's a bitch.

I woke up early because S and I had to look at some houses with our real estate agent, and for some reason he only had time in the morning. Actually, I know why, he told us. It's because he has dinner guests coming over tonight. I'm not sure why that precluded starting in the afternoon, but whatever.

[A butterfly on some flowers in the yard of a house we looked at in Bethesda.]

I didn't really want to go, it was more of a "keep the peace" move, because S wanted to go, but as it turns out, I'm happy we went. We looked at two places in Rockville, MD, both of which were nice, but it's so far away from where the action is. S and I really want to stay as close to DC as possible, but we also want a decent sized house, in a decent neighborhood that's in our price range. So basically we want something that doesn't exist, but damn it, we're looking anyway. We got a little bit warmer with the third and final place we looked at in Bethesda, MD. S really liked it, I thought it was OK.

It's all very preliminary at this point, anyway. We signed a lease to rent an apartment for five months starting in November, so I don't think we'll be serious about making offers until closer to the spring, but it's a good idea to see what's available at what prices and get a notion of what we like and don't like. Or so S keeps telling me. I can never be sure with that woman. See, she enjoys things like house hunting, whereas I feel they are chores -- you do them because you have to. So, sometimes she'll exaggerate the urgency of the situation to get me to go along with her and keep my griping to a minimum (you can never silence my griping completely, I can always manage something, it's just a skill I have). For instance, when I suggested that it might be a bit early to start looking for places considering our rental lease hasn't even started yet, she told me that it can take three months to close, so we need to start right away. Then, today our agent told us it's usually 30 days, and in fact, 45 days is on the long end, so, not exactly three months. With that said, I am glad we went today, so no harm, no foul.

Changing topics completely, Herman Cain, former Godfather's Pizza bigwig, is the current candidate du jour in the Republican primary. I don't think he's winning (I'm sticking with Romney), but can you imaging if he did.? Cain versus Obama, wouldn't that be something? Not only would it be two black men vying for the presidency, but it would be two black Republicans! (Hey-o! That's my Bill Maher-esque joke. I've been getting a lot of traction out of it.)

[The seed of Herman Cain's political career. A town hall in which he challenges presidential hopeful Bill Clinton on healthcare. Cain does a pretty good job, but check out how smooth Clinton is in his rebuttal, rattling off a bunch of percentages from memory, making jokes. "Slick Willy" indeed.]

Cain's signature issue is his 9-9-9 tax reform plan. Critics claim that it would shift the tax burden away from the rich onto the middle class and the poor. I haven't really looked into it extensively enough to comment, but I don't like Cain for other reasons. I heard him go off about how if you can't find a job you shouldn't blame the government or Wall Street, you should blame yourself. Look, I get the whole personal responsibility thing, we all know people who do more bitching than they do doing when it comes to their stations in life, but for God's sake Herman, do the math. Unemployment is currently around 9-10%, that's about 4-5% higher than it was was in 5 years ago. That's about 7 million more people without jobs. What happened? Did these 7 million people quit so that they could take a government handout? Were they fired for being lazy? Of course not, they were essentially laid off when the economy tanked four years ago, and now they are struggling to get back to work. When you have five people applying for every one open position, what are the other four people supposed to do? This narrative, pushed primarily by the tea bag faction of the GOP, that people just need to buckle down and get to work, simply doesn't cohere with reality right now. Maybe I would have bought this line in the late-90's, but certainly not now. Especially not when you have people literally, lining up and protesting, not for handouts, but for jobs. People want to work. The jobs just aren't there, that's the whole problem, and to a large extent, you can blame Wall Street and the government. In 2007, they're fucked us good.

[Members of DC Jobs Or Else, protesting a constructing site.]

Completely changing topics yet again, I was almost right on the money with my Fashion Week prediction for Project Runway. I said it would be Viktor, Anya, and Joshua, with Laura and Kimberley eliminated, and I got everything right except that Kimberley made it as well and only Laura was eliminated. I didn't know that they sometimes allow four people to qualify for the final challenge. I thought it was three every season. Had I known that, I might have chosen Kimberley to go also.

And speaking of predicting things, I'm in a giant NFL survivor pool, where each week you pick one team to win, and if they do, you keep going and if they don't you're out. Whoever survives the longest wins the competition (and possibly some money). It's down to about 150 survivors from about 700, and I'm one of them. Last week I initially chose the Giants to beat my beloved (but kinda crappy) Seahawks, but I changed it at the last minute because I already had the Giants in a different smaller pool and I didn't want to completely root against my team. Great move! My pick (the Saints) came through, and the Seahawks beat the Giants in a dramatic upset. I watched it at the sports bar amid a cluster of Giants fans, and when the play below happened, oh was it glorious.

[I probably sounded just as stupid as the amateur cameraman when I watched this play.]

Well, I guess that just about puts a bow on this one.