Updates, Changes, and a Home That Never Was

The plan was that Chris and I would live in CA for a year.  And if after that year, we liked this place well enough given whatever seasonal fluctuations we found, we'd start searching for land to build our earthship.

And you all know how that's been working out.

I can't remember if I've mentioned this before.  Forgive me if I have.  Back when I was first moving out on my own, renting was the way.  It was 1997, I was 18 and I could barely imagine coming up with $200 for rent much less buying and managing a house.  I think that was par for the time.  You bought a home when you were ready to settle down.  If it wasn't going to be your final home or a place you assumed you would spend a good chunk of life, then you shouldn't buy.

A few years ago, a metamour of mine who is quite a bit younger than me was moving out of their parent's home.  In their early to mid 20s, they didn't want to do the apartment thing and set about figuring out how to buy a home.  I thought they were crazy at the time, but knowing now how much I've spent over time on rent, and what you have to put up with in apartments, not to mention how difficult it is to build good credit... I think that person was on to something.  Sure, you have to be concerned if your water heater blows up or your roof needs replacing, but this person had that stuff covered.  So, good for them.

The urge to have our own place really is a lot about settling down for me.  I've not moved that much in my life.  I went from NH, to another place in NH, to VT and several iterations therein, then NM, now here.  There maybe was a certain restless energy that characterized my earlier life.  I couldn't quite settle down as I didn't feel that I had enough accomplished to sit back in life.  I needed to search for... something.  I doubt I knew what.

Have I accomplished enough now?  Have I found the whatever?  Ah, no!  But it no longer feels necessary to search for the exact right place and the right whatever thing will come or not.  I still feel the need to seek out new human connections, or at least connections that feed my sense of place in the universe, but I'm good here.  There's sun.  There's ocean.  There're cacti.  There're palm trees.  There're roadrunners (though less plentiful than in NM).  The people are... decent on average.  There are good sex parties and a kink community that, if not amazing, is at least big enough that goodness can be found.  Ditto the polyamory community.  And importantly, my life partner likes his job.  And you know how much better that makes our relationship?  A lot.

Yes, it would be nice to be able to seriously consider New Zealand if for no other reason that they don't have snakes there.  But it's not realistic.  So... I'll just have to deal and invest in cinnamon. (That link has a snake pic.  You've been warned.)

As for Chris, I can't really know what this is all about for him, but I know that a major goal for him is to have a place where the dog can let himself out in a yard.  For those who know Chris, this won't be surprising.  The dog is his life partner.  It's also likely that he seriously wants to leave a place where the five children downstairs scream all the time.  I think that's probably true for most of us in this apartment section.

There is an additional reason we need to leave.  Some neighbors appear to have opened a spacial rift somewhere in the vicinity.  It appears that they store their holiday decorations there as they can not possibly all fit in their home.  In addition, I'm fairly certain that wherever that rift leads, it gives the decorations the power to procreate.  Because seriously.

And it's not just Easter.  You should see Halloween and Christmas!  There are also decorations for more minor holidays and the displays indeed grow each year.  I know you can't see the whole home in this picture, but trust me, it will not hold all of this stuff.  I am quite concerned; and if you do not hear from us for a long period of time, it's quite possible that the rift has widened and swallowed us.  We definitely need to leave before that happens!

Since we last wrote, a few things have happened.  The far out of town real estate agents told us that they needed us to get pre approval on a loan.  I think I mentioned that before.  They sent us to their lending person who said that it would take between 24-48 hours to get the approval.  Nearly two weeks later, we finally had it.  We are approved for a sum I can't even imagine how we'd pay, so we will definitely not be looking at homes at that price.  But it's nice that they seem to have so much confidence in us.

There was also a property that had been kicking around the various sites for at least a hundred days.  It looked perfect with the one caveat that it was 1.5 hours from Chris's work.  So... not perfect.  We finally decided it was time to look at it.  It was under the price that the real estate agents from far out of town were really interested in showing to us, so I contacted the listing agent.  She responded, on a Sunday night, that she'd be happy to show us and would schedule something in the morning.

Tuesday when I hadn't heard from her, I sent a follow up email.  By Thursday I contacted the far out of town agents saying "could you just... find out what's happening?"

It was through this endeavor that we found out the property we were interested in was A. not in livable condition and B. already in escrow.  (For those who don't know, when someone makes an offer on a property, the way they indicate that they're serious is to fork over a bunch of money that sits in a special account called an "escrow" where no one can touch it until the deal is done or dissolved.  Or something like that.)

We also got hooked up with a new agent.  The far out of town agents said they'd recently been dealing with an agent in our area who actually impressed them, and that was good enough for me.  I spoke with Melissa, the new agent, Friday.  I could barely get a word in edgewise, but I have faith that she will prove to be useful to us.  And if not... well, there are plenty of agents.

That's all for now.  TTFN!