Tag Archives: anniversary

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for elise, 2.0


Today’s that last day of working for the year that always feels odd squeezed between Christmas and New Years. I’ll be on the road shortly to go walk through the next old cool building slated to turn into loft apartments in 2005.

Last night it dawned on us… It was our anniversary with Elise.

It was freaky for the guys because it’s only been a year…. It was freaky for me because it felt like there was never an interruption.

Really amazing friends are like that – strong connections defy time and space.

We remembered her nagging about wanting photos, (preferably the sillier ones), of each of us. So we huddled around iPhoto, went through the pictures from this year and got all choked-up reliving some great times.

Found three images, (and after some heavy-handed pounding in Photoshop) – had a suitable series to put in the trip-tic frame we had found earlier that day.

Warm intentions aside – it still felt weird and we kept catching ourselves being apologetic at giving her the present.. It just “seems” ego-freakish:

“Happy anniversary honey… here’s a picture of…. ME!”
We’re just being paranoid… She loved them.

I loved them too. So, ego-paranoia aside, I made myself a desktop wallpaper from the images and put it on my laptop.

I guess it’s no different from putting photos of your family in your cubicle…. And I don’t have a cube.

I don’t have a blog either.

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365 in 707

it’s angel food – we were too lazy to bake ourselves

On this day, (yesterday) – one year ago, shameless_157 and her friend Bev, (our real estate agent), came by the old house in Dogtown. I threw an extra pain pill down my throat and they laid me down, ass up, in the back of Bev’s truck. (I was in my second hellish week of tush-surgery recovery). We were going to go close on our new house.

It was March of the previous year that started the whole house-madness. I had my eye on a house in Dogtown that sat on a double lot with a detached 3-car garage which was going to become my new studio.

I was skeptical we could make it work considering what I had to go through to get a mortgage on the $30K one-bedroom shack, purchased in 2000. My new client at the time, LoanScapes promised that they could find financing for self-employed types. They were right.

We started “the process” and within two weeks, thanks to the buying frenzy in Dogtown, had a contract on the new house and a buyer for our old place. Everything seemed like it was good to go….. until.

The appraisal came in on the purchase house under the contract price. The owner took the Dogtown buying frenzy a little too seriously. While we turned what I still think was an obscene profit on our place – this guy was aiming a little “too” high.

The schmuck refused to re-negotiate and it voided our contract because I couldn’t get the financing. No bank will finance a house for more than it’s worth.

So.. there we were ready to sell our old house with no-place to move to. Fortunately the buyer of our old place was intending to turn the old shack into a rental and let us stay in the house after closing as renters.

For the next two months I would digest my own internal organs. Every weekend and a lot of weeknights were spent walking through countless houses. We tried putting a couple of contracts down on others but were beat out because of the excited market. Other places we liked were priced just out of our reach thanks to the city-housing boom. Other places we could afford were a little “too” transitional. (transitional = “read as: there’s a crack house on the block”)

I was just about at my wit’s end and one night while crying in my beer – a friend at happy hour who used to be an agent asked:

“Hey… You like that 50’s shit don’t you? Have you thought about looking in south county?”

It never honestly occurred to me. I grew up out there…

I punched in the zip codes for the area our friend told us about and on the first page of hits…. I saw… “It”. Our house..

Making a noise similar to when you step on a squeaky dog toy – I picked up the phone and frantically dialed our agent. It was 6PM.

We were pulling in the driveway by 8PM… Dusk… The house was all lit up. My heart stopped. We walked through and I stopped the guys in the backyard privately: “Do you like it? Could we live here?”

They didn’t have to give an answer – their smiles was all it took. And they could tell I was about ready to pass out.

Probably appearing like a melodramatic idiot – I re-entered the house where my agent, the owners and Kevin’s mom, (in town visiting) were chatting about baby diapers. With a tear running down my face and my voice shaking I announced: “My God Bev.. This is it… I don’t care what you have to do…”

I got too choked up and excused myself to the driveway to sob – certain that it would be like the countless houses before… Something would go wrong.

Bev worked her magic inside. The couple had just received a contract earlier that day but hadn’t signed it yet.

The wife had taken a shine to us – (most likely thanks to the charms of Kevin’s mom), and divulged some details of the contract in front of us. It was for a little less than the asking price and outlined some work that needed to be done.

Bev exited the house, grabbed my hand and said; “Common kido, we’re going back to my office NOW… We’re gonna get you this house.”

A contract was drafted for the asking price with NO requests to fix anything and hand delivered to the sales agent at 11:30PM. I didn’t sleep that night.

The phone rang at 9:15am… It was Bev. “Jim… oh honey…. I’m soooo sorry….. (long pause)… But you’re going to have to start packing…. YOU GOT THE HOUSE!”

I don’t remember the closing too well.. I was full of darvocet – but I remember having to stand to sign the papers.

Happy Birthday 707…

I can’t believe it’s been a year already….

I can’t believe I’d blog about this either.

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5

the monkey and the man – Y2K, B.C. (before chad)

It was today in 1999… I got together with my then ex John, a law student at Washington University, to go out and pal around, get a drink and shoot some pool at a little hole in the wall called Manchester Street Cafe.

The bar was a little more crowded than usual because it was a dart league night – nonetheless it didn’t really matter since they were obviously not using the pool table.

Before the first eight-ball was sank, we spotted this staggeringly handsome man sitting on the sidelines of the dart people, looking at US.

“shhh… Stop it John, don’t stare.” I pleaded. But before I could ask again, he had walked over and invited the guy to come over and join our pool game.

We played a few games and John relentlessly flirted with the beautiful stranger until it was time to go. I was too intimidated to chat extensively and avoided eye contact.

We parted ways exchanging emails…. Within two months John was moving back to Manhattan and Kevin and I were dating.

I ran across a bunch of old photos while taking another organizational whack at the catch-all / storage / guest room which made me pause. Wow… we’ve both done our share of aging.jim and kevin in Australia

You don’t notice it with relationships had in your 20’s…. This one, the longest thusfar, has bridged the gap into my 30’s… It’s evident.

In five years we’ve seen two apartments, two houses, three cars, a successful business, humbling professional spankings, an additional partner and… a few more pounds, wrinkles and grey hair.

I’ve never aged with anyone before…. and there’s something nice about it.

It ads a whole new take on the schmoopy Beatles song my mom used to play on vinyl.

How about another five Mr. West – let’s see what else goes to hell. I couldn’t think of a better person to fall apart with.

Will you still need me… Will you still feed me.

(*will I still not be blogging at 64?)

Happy Anniversary Kevin… I love you.

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monster trucks and peter cetera

closet redneck

Valentines Day morning was schnoggy. Flowers, candy, cards and jammy pants.

First stop of our day was Best Buy for our group present: Another box-set volume of MST3K. Given the schmoopiness of the day and thanks to some deft merchandizing, we wound up impulse buying the Chicago Greatest Hits set. The rest of the day’s commute would be spent sopped in 70s and 80’s saccharine. Chad and I fiercely debated Pre and Post Peter Cetera Chicago.

Next Stop? What else would a band of faux-butch, random-adventure-seeking homos do? – Go to a monster truck rally… of course.

Thanks to connections at his work, Chad scored us tickets as well as VIP pre-rally pit-passes to go down on the field and get up close and personal with the monsters themselves.

The sports dome’s floor was covered in what had to have been a few metric tons of dirt, a couple of hundred wide-eyed fans and enough testosterone to make anyone sprout facial hair.

The monster-truck circuit is wrapped with a pageantry akin to Professional Wrestling. The “celebrity trucks” were all on display and winding from them were huge lines of people waiting for autographs from the driver and crew.

We strolled around and took the whole spectacle in… The freakishly scaled vehicles, the big busted team bimbos and the excruciatingly woofy onlookers drooling on both.

Now we’re all honestly not into that sort of thing – but you catch yourself as you’re standing at the foot of a house-sized truck grunting and giggling a little on the inside and saying.. “hehehe… cool.”

We didn’t stay for the event itself – our random-odd-experience fix was satiated.

Stopped by JJ’s to rendezvous with Dr. Steve who was sweetheart-less since Leah is out of town on business. Had a couple of beers and he followed us home for MST3K, chiropractic adjustments and brats.

Great day! Very not blog worthy.