The Color of Character

The good news... the house has sold (well, pending inspection on June 2), I have a new place to live, and I'm going to be able to get my house (both figuratively and literally) in order very soon.

The bad news... Grayson's room is this color:

Yeah. I said it was bad. Krysten, my Fabulous Assistant, voiced exactly what I thought when I saw it the first time: "whoa. Baby shit yellow."

Yup. Baby shit yellow. Dude, that's gotta go. So next week, while Grayson spends a relaxing week with his dad, his mom will be repainting his new room. Something ... not heinous.

I gotta say, I'm over any love affair I may ever have had with painting. Wait... I've never had a love affair with painting. Painting sucks. But, it is a cheap fix to a hum-drum room, smells new, and makes you feel like you've put your personal stamp on a space. So... I paint.

There are a couple of fun quirky bits about this house. One: the Odd Room. The house was built with three bedrooms, but one was taken out to enlarge the living/dining area. For some unfathomable reason, rather than take the whole room out, they took... most ... of it out. Leaving an odd miniature room three feet wide and 9 feet long. With a closet in it. Go figure. Because the door opens into the room, it's an awkward coat closet. But I told Grayson it could be his own personal little Odd Room.

Today when I picked G up from SPARK, Chantelle, who runs the program and is a perfectly lovely woman, told me "He's pretty sad about the move to Norman." I asked why she said that and she told me that Grayson had asked if the SPARK bus picked up kids at his new school. That made me sad. I hope that he will be happy in the new neighborhood and the new school. I hope it's not too hard on him to move. He has been so adaptable through this whole process. I need him to adapt just one more time. Then we'll settle in and get normal.

There are days when I hate G, and every time I see this whole wretched scenario negatively affecting our son, I hate him. Even for the fact that Grayson has to deal with the realities of "Mom's boyfriend." I hate him for that, too. I know eventually I have to give it up, let go of hating him. And sometimes I do. Sometimes I can almost forgive him, I can almost be friendly with him. But underneath is this seething hatred and disgust for the weak, self-centered person that he turned out to be. I thought, I really believed, that he was better than he is. But he has this fatal flaw... this inner weakness that seems to trump and negate all the finer qualities that I also know are there. He's a good dad... but he'll willingly let Grayson go so he can do whatever he wants. He's thoughtful and polite, but doesn't really care about anyone but himself. He's a really nice guy... but he will really nicely let everything that doesn't involve his own pleasure go to hell... and then find a way to exonerate himself, in his own mind, at least... from all blame. Weak of character. Baby shit Yellow.

Why Did the Turtle Cross the Road...

Saved a turtle today, as it was crossing Imhoff. I was coming back to the museum after running some errands over lunch, and I saw him bookin' it across the road. He was clearly aware of his peril. He would raise up high and march double-time across the blacktop when the coast was clear, and then snatch his head in as cars went over or around him. I was terrified he would get hit while I was making my way back to him, in my heels and silk skirt. But I got there in time. I carried him over to the grass he was making his way toward, and left him in some vinca vines. My karma investment for the day. Sorry, I didn't get a picture of him. He was a nice basic brown box turtle. Not the fancy kind. But no less deserving of salvation for that.

Packing and Thinking

A dangerous combination.

Last night I began packing up my shit... AGAIN. Same stuff...the same boxes, even. I'm glad to be doing it, but it's a bit tedious to be doing it again so soon.

I have to say that a lot of this stuff seems a lot less important than it did when I packed and unpacked it seven months ago. I'm looking around at the prospect of re-packing it all and think "Jeez, couldn't I have just left all the little knick-knack crap in boxes? What was I thinking?" But at the time it seemed really important to have all my stuff around me, all placed and arranged and familiar. I remember that...I can respect that.

But damn, I wish I didn't have to pack it again.

Last night it was books. And though I didn't bring a LOT of books with me from the hundreds that are now in storage, nevertheless, it's a good three or four boxes worth... and some of them will not be making the trip to the new house. I sat down last night and listed a bunch of them for sale on Amazon. Another stack of Grayson's books will get dropped off at the library for their sale. And I suspect that after I get settled in the new space, I will be making another sizeable donation, and probably will have another marathon Amazon session. I won't have room in the new house for a lot of book cases, see. Though I'm tempted to put them up in the funky little "secret room" off Grayson's bedroom. It could be like a diminutive library, just 3 feet wide and 9 feet long.

We'll see. I expect I'll be in that house for some 2 or 3 years. So it makes sense this time to get comfortable. And for me that means having my books around me.

And my dogs. I am dog-sitting Kobi and Flower this weekend while Grayson and his dad are at the cubscout camp-out. Friday when I went over to feed them I was frankly a little shocked at how dirty and ragged they looked. Flower is brown with dust and dirt and unshed undercoat. Kobi is just filthy. They were delighted to see me, and I to see them. They crowded into my arms and pushed at me and panted and wriggled with joy. Kobi wouldn't even eat, she was so busy just being near me. So I just held her on my lap while Flower ate. After I fed them, I sat on the back step and spent a good 15 or 20 minutes just rubbing big handfuls of fur out of Flower's coat.

Howard, the neighbor, came out and said hello, somewhat uncomfortably. I guess it's awkward to talk to me. At first I thought he wasn't even going to say hello. But he did at last and told me that the dogs were glad to see me and that they were "lonely." By that I guess he means that they are pretty much just yard dogs now. G probably doesn't let them in at night until 10 or so, and then just puts them out again in the morning. I guess he's doing okay by them. They are fed and sheltered, and he does bring them in at night. But I can tell they are starved for attention. Each time I see them I assure them it's just three more weeks now. Three weeks and our little family will be back together, in a home of our own.

When I was there I looked around and realized there is still a lot of stuff that needs to be dealt with, one way or another. There are boxes of family photos, a whole filing cabinet of papers, random bits of furniture to decide the fate of, and a basement full of Christmas decorations, luggage, tools.... It was disheartening to realize how much still has to be sorted out over there -- a process I'm not looking forward to. I remind myself that this is the end of it. After this last exhausting divvying and packing, no more. Our lives will be well and truly divided and except for Grayson, there will be no ties that bind. I'd like to believe so, anyway. At the very least there will be no more brick and mortar reminder of all that is broken and lost.

When I think of how I felt when we first bought that house...how I loved it. How I believed we would live there for the rest of our lives. It squeezes my heart like a fist. I can hardly bear to look at the knobs on the kitchen cabinets... that I picked out myself and screwed each one into place. Going into Grayson's old room is also painful. I peeled the old rose-printed wallpaper off with my fingernails, glued all the glowing stars to the ceiling, made for him a little boy's room that any little boy would love to have. No, it doesn't bear thinking about. And soon it will all belong to someone else. I hope they can overcome the curse and make of it a home filled with love and joy.

But today is too beautiful a day to think that way. The sun is out. Birds are singing. Soon I will have a yard and garden again. A neighborhood. I'll be able to go out and plant things, pull weeds, water. It will do me a lot of good to be able to get outside again and work in the dirt.

So... here's what I was thinking, as I was packing books yesterday. (Besides "Jesus! Really? Did I have to bring all these???") I was thinking that Domesticity Spoils a Man.

It's like this. I was thinking of B. I enjoy being with him. Enjoy his company, enjoy spending long hours with him cooking or watching movies or ... whatever. And then I'm glad when he goes home. Seeing him is a treat. Not my regular diet. But I sense that being with him all the time, day in and day out, thumping along in our dull domestic routines, would take all the fun out of it. He would be parked in front of the football game, playing his guitar, while I did the dishes, and I'd be resentful. Or else I'd be after him to help me make dinner or do laundry or pick up his socks or stop squeezing the toothpaste in the middle or whatever other little domestic thorn was niggling at me... and he'd be resentful. Men are like dessert, or trash novels, or UV rays. They feel great for short periods of time. But too much will make you sick, or crazy, or miserable. You can't live on a steady diet of them.

Then there's this. Domesticity comes naturally for women. We're hard-wired for home-making. Some more than others, I acknowledge. I myself am at the shallow end of that particular gene pool. I can tolerate a lot of mess and disorder before the domesticity gene kicks in. But for good or ill, in the final analysis, I like to have things the way I like to have them. But I believe that for men, domesticity is not a natural state. Wiping counter tops and picking up towels from the bathroom floor just doesn't come naturally to them. They'll do it for us to make us happy only as long as they are not expected to. But once they move in, it's no longer a favor they do to impress us, or to hide their otherwise filthy existences... it's their full time job. And they resent it.

Meanwhile, we find that we are now raising an extra child, expected to be the site foreman and chatelaine for the entire household, telling everyone what their responsibilities are. And we resent that they won't come up with it on their own. We don't want to be in charge. We only want the shit to get done, so the department of health doesn't come and shut us down. And we don't want to be responsible for anyone but ourselves. Nobody wants to clean up after someone else. Even a man will resent that. Unless of course, we're doing it for him. Then he barely notices.

No. No, domesticity ruins a man. It turns him into something passive-aggressive, lazy and shiftless. I much prefer to let him keep his own digs, and stay out of mine. That way I can have my own haven, as clean or dirty as I want it, with no-one but myself to blame. And he can have his, for which I am not responsible, nor am I obliged to live in it.

There. Got that off my chest. The best of all possible domestic arrangements, I believe, is to live next door to one another. That way, you can always just go home.

I suppose I will never get married again. Most people assume that if you get married, you'll be co-habiting, and I have a dread of that. Wonder how many people are married and living in separate homes? Happily and by choice, I mean. Surely there are some. Well, if I were ever again to inspire a man to believe he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me, which hardly seems likely... I hope he lives nearby.

Good News Comes in Herds

An amazing day of good news yesterday. First, and foremost, WE SOLD THE HOUSE! Woo Hoooo! Yippee! Hooray!

I'm telling it out of order, but since the sale of the house has been my number one priority in life for the past few months, it deserves top billing. I got the call from G last night that we had received an offer. It's lower than we had hoped, but all we care about at this point is that it SELLS. So we signed the contract this morning. The couple is pre-approved. Now the only thing that could harsh the deal is if some huge horror turns up in inspection. So I'm not quite ready to dig up the saint just yet, but I'm feeling good about it.

The next great news is I HAVE A HOUSE TO LIVE IN!!! I was cruising neighborhoods yesterday at lunch, which had become my obsessive lunch-time activity. This time I was in the area north and west of Norman High School, near Cleveland Elementary. I was not getting great results... had only found a couple of iffy properties, when I came down a very nice street and there it was. My house. (See photo)

I called the phone number on the sign, sure that A) the rent would be too much and/or B) they would not accept dogs. But both checked out okay, and the owner told me he could meet me in half an hour to look it over.

So I ate my McDonald's Happy Meal parked in front of the house, and stalked around it in my high heels, checking out the back yard and peering in the windows. There are roses and hydrangeas growing out front. Hydrangeas! How I have missed my hydrangeas from the old old house on 40th street! I couldn't get them to grow at the Cursed house! It took me less than five minutes when we walked in to determine that I wanted it. I followed the couple to their lavish palace on the west side, signed a lease, made out a check on my credit card account and received the keys. Mine, all mine.

I spent the afternoon calling utilities, filling out my change of address form, and even called Cleveland to find out when enrollment is for next year and what we need to bring. B cruised by to take a look at it and discovered that we will be living right across the street from one of his son's best friends... so right away we know there is at least one boy in the neighborhood for Grayson to hang with.

The area is perfect. Within walking distance to the school. In the middle of a long quiet street, with next to no traffic. Nicely kept yards with a few well-behaved dogs. I saw kids' bikes in yards up and down the street, so there will probably be plenty of kids for G to play with. Look at how suburband and peaceful this street view is. The house is in the middle of a long, quiet street. So there's very little traffic, very little noise. So different from living on the roar and whine of Classen in OKC.




The back yard is big and green, with two big trees (one is a giant sycamore - my favorite) and a shed. There's even a doggie door from the back yard into the garage so Kobi and Flower will have a way to get in out of the weather. Life Is Good.

I set a move-in date of June 15. Booked the truck. And tonight I'll drop by the old house and pick up the packing boxes I emptied back in October. Start packing it all up again.

Some things will not fit. The house is small. No larger than the apartment. So I will have to get creative about the use of the space, or else keep some things stored in the garage. And I may have to have an Amazon book sale bonanza. There's no way I'll be able to come up with the shelf space required to house all those boxes of books. But I'll decide on all that after I get everything into the building. Likely I'll be there a couple of years before I'm able to save up enough to buy anything. So I might as well make myself comfortable.

I can't express what a huge relief this all is. So much worry and stress over the past few months, just obsessing about my housing situation and my finances. Now they are both about to be solved, or at least I'll be able to begin making forward motion on the finances... Good News seems to come in herds!

House Search, Day 1

At lunch today I began looking at Norman rental houses in earnest. Early reconaissance outings were discouraging because the houses I looked at were all renting for $800 or $850 a month, which is at least $100 more than I can pay. So today I got the rental ads out and my red pencil and went to work.

At lunch I drove around and looked.

This one is the cutest: it's on Emelyn, right next to the railroad tracks near the end of a dead-end road. A little over-grown, and the fence needs repair. But I liked the little porch and the quiet area. It's near Lincoln Elementary. When I talked to the guy this afternoon he seemed like a very nice, slow-drawling good-ol'-boy from Tulsa, a self described "ol' dog lover" who didn't mind the dogs at all... so it's promising. I'm going over on Thursday to look at it in person.








This one is a bit unprepossessing and diminutive, but the price is right! It's only $450 a month and about two blocks from the school.




These are dreadful. Okay, they're probably nice enough inside, but the neighborhood, though on the west side of Norman in the Truman school district, is deadly. Not dangerous or anything, just completely without character. All the houses look just like these. I just don't think I can do it.

There was one other I looked at, up on Iowa off of Berry Road. When I first drove by I just thought "No." It is really run down. But then I saw a big paint can on the front porch and I thought they must be cleaning it up inside, so I got out to look. I didn't take a picture because there was a neighbor out and I didn't want him to think I was a freak. It has a nice back yard, and is just blocks from Cleveland elementary. The neighborhood is modest, to say the least, but tidy. I have a call in on that one, too, about the dog situation.

Nothing affordable yet in the Jackson or Monroe districts, but this weekend I'll do some more reconnaisance, trolling the neighborhoods looking for signs.

In Which I Ponder the Prospect of Teenagerhood

Grayson has a new hobby. Sort of. He has attached himself to a group of adolescents and pre-adolescents who haunt the open area just under our apartment balcony. He's a hanger-on, a wannabe. He goes out every time he hears them outside, and he just hangs out. So far they pretty much just tolerate him. They range in age from about 12 (I'm guessing) to maybe 15. Mostly boys. One precocious pre-adolescent girl whom I'm pretty sure Grayson has a crush on. Grayson calls them, collectively, "The Teenagers." They are his new favorite people.

He's learning all kinds of valuable stuff from them, not all of it I am comfortable with. First, he came in and said "I know what teenagers do for fun."

"What?" I asked, somewhat apprehensively...

"They text."

The requests for a cell phone of his own began soon after. No, No, and No.

Then last week he popped in and asked me "Mom, what's sperm?"

Erp. Well, honey.....

And later that evening he told me that the girl was running around shouting (albeit gleefully) that the boys were "sexually harrassing" her. Yes, it's an education indeed.

I am not quite sure how to proceed here. There's not really any good reason to stop him from hanging around them, so far, at least. But I'm a bit concerned about what else is being said or done that I'm not witnessing or hearing about. Most of their interactions take place right under the balcony, so I get a sense of it. And G really is just hanging around the periphery. He's not really part of the group. But he's all eyes and ears, that's for sure: just soaking it all up.

Right now he is still so wide-eyed and innocent, open and loving and completely transparent. I dread the day when the Wall of adolescence descends upon him and he begins to be reticent, withdrawn, secretive... absorbed in that self-absorbed private world of teens. Makes me want to snatch him up and snuggle him while he'll still tolerate it. What will I do the first time he turns away or shrugs me off? Sigh. I have to remind myself that every new and wonderful stage of his development involves some loss as well as new gains. And of course I want him to grow up, mature, become his own person. I'm eager to see what he turns into. Just not yet. Not yet.

On a More Positive Note

I know I've been a real downer lately. I'm stressed out about the house, money, my future... blah blah blah.

Once again I feel the need for a therapeutic listing of the good things in life. So, today's list is of Ways I'm Lucky

1. I have a steady, reliable job that I enjoy (mostly)
2. I have a terrific, happy, healthy and well-adjusted kid
3. My parents are fantastic people who love and support me
4. I have a few dear friends I can call on to listen and understand
5. I have sweet crazy Bob, who loves me
6. I'm healthy and reasonably strong
7. I may not have enough money at the end of every month, but I have ways to cover my ass until better times come along.
8. For the most part my divorce is not bitter and G and I are able to work together for Grayson's best interests
9. I'm not fat, ugly or stupid. (no comments from the peanut gallery, please!)
10. I generally have a pretty positive outlook. I may get blue, but I'm not one to wallow in misfortune. I tend to make the best of things.

So there. See? It's not all bad.

AND this morning on the way to work, when I was stopped at a light getting on to the highway, I was fortunate enough to witness a scissortail flycatcher diving for its breakfast over the road. I love the way they open their tails and hover, sweep and dive. What a great state bird to have! It's definitely one of the best.

Iin Which I Visit a King and Bury a Saint

Bob and I took the boys to Dallas on Saturday to see King Tut. It was a loooooong-ass drive, but the boys did remarkably well, sitting in the back together, exchanging electronic gaming devices. They are actually getting to be friends, I believe, which is some relief to me. Life will just be easier if they are friends.

The Tut exhibit was enjoyable, if crowded. I was really ready for some open space after we got out of there. Especially after shepherding the boys through the gift shop. So we went to Dealy Plaza to see the site of JFK's assassination.

It was odd. Just a curve of road. But someone at some point painted two big white Xs on the road to show where the car was when the first and second bullets hit. Bizarre. People kept going out into the road to have their pictures taken while standing on the X... while Dallas traffic roars past, oblivious. We took the boys across the street to stand on the "Grassy Knoll," where the supposed second shooter was stationed. They spent their time rolling down the hill, and we spent ours lounging on the grass, making "grassy knoll" jokes. Bob pocketed a pinch of grass from the Grassy Knoll, with the intention of laminating them and giving them as joke gifts to his friends. Only He would think of that.

Monday, in a fit of desperation, I went to the Catholic book store and bought a $7.00 statue of St. Joseph. I took it to the old house where Gray, Grayson and I made a little ceremony of burying it – upside down and facing the street as prescribed – in the front yard next to the For Sale sign. I'll do whatever voodoo, witch-doctory or shamanism is required, at this point, to sell that damned house. If this doesn't work, I'm sacrificing a chicken.