Have you ever seen the show, Pimp my Ride, where they take cars and trick them out? If you haven’t, they basically start with a pretty normal vehicle and add things like spinners to the rims and shag to the interior. It’s a huge hit! They even have a version in Asia called Pimp my Scooter (yes, I’m serious).
If you haven’t watched either show, that's OK. I'm actually more interested in whether or not you've read a book that was published YEARS ago by SMITH Magazine called, "Not Quite What I was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure." If you haven’t, do! It’s fabulous. In fact, when it came out, I loved it so much that it changed my entire mode of communication. And I don't mean that I found my inside voice... because I didn't. I mean that I began limiting my responses in conversations to six word summaries. When I told TB, she said, "Finally my prayers have been answered." After I caught the sarcasm, I told her I decided that my six word autobiography was, "My karma ran over my dogma.”
Ergo the name of this blog....
However, those days are over (the karma... not the blog)! I'm bound and determined that the remainder of this year will be better than the first part of it, and my fate will not overrun my philosophy again. From this point on, I’m going to Pimp my Karma so it’s FLY! I have to. I’ll need all the good luck I can get for the remainder of 2010 since DB and I have finalized our blueprint and picked the lot to build on. Now we just have to get two houses sold so we can break ground.
Scratch that. First we have to get the houses ready to sell.
For my place, the realtor said that I needed to, "Enhance my curb appeal," but what she really meant is, "It's clear you spend more time at Ann Taylor than in your yard." Now, if you know me, then you know that's true. I hate manual labor like the Grinch hates Christmas. In fact, after eight hours of moving mulch and staining deck rails, I was positive that I was suffering from dé·jà vu. Without a doubt, I was certain I'd read about this very experience in Dante's Inferno. So much so that I went to Barnes and Noble and purchased a copy in Italian... just in case landscaping was dropped from the English translation.
Now, I studied in Italy in college, and my Italian is pretty rusty, but when I got to the Seventh Circle: Violent Sins, and I read Canto XV-XVI - Sins toward Nature, I was sure I'd found it - the missing passage. It talked about getting fucked and paying for it. To me that means wasting insane amounts of time and money on gardening. Turns out, to Dante, it means sodomy. Really... it's kind-of the same thing; we're both on our knees, and - one way or another - someone's ass is gonna end up sore at the end of the day. That said, even though neither activity is my cup of tea, I know lots of gay men who think it's better to laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints.
But I digress...
As for DB's house, it - on the other hand, is in pretty good shape. He did a lot of the work last summer, which is how we actually started talking about co-habitating. See… we were at his place, playing Frisbee with the puppy, when she saw a skunk. Remember, she eats her own poop. So when she smelled that damn thing and it bolted, she immediately thought, “Sweet – fast food,” and she chased it… and then she caught it… right in the face. I immediately ran inside to get a towel and she immediately ran in right after me. I looked at her like, “Really dog! Could you be more destructive?” And she looked me back, dead in the eye, like, “I could be if I had more time, but it’s almost dark now. Thanks for asking!”
And while I wanted to take her to my mean, little neighbor's house so she could run through his place instead of DB's, I thought to myself, "Self - that would be wrong. Do you have ANY idea what your car would smell like if you drive her over there right now? Besides... what if he's home?" So I didn’t do it. Instead, we chased her around the house until we got her outside, and then we divided and conquered. I took the puppy home to bathe her, and DB started ripping the rugs out of his house and doing laundry.
You know, I don’t know who got the short end of the stick in that deal. He had to get carpets scrubbed and laundry done for days afterwards, but I had to drive around for weeks with my car smelling like ass. I literally drove EVERYWHERE with my windows down, and at one point, I parked beside a friend and co-worker, and she said, “If that stank gets on me or my car, we aren’t friends anymore.” I can’t say that I blame her.
Anyway… around that time, we were lamenting that his house and my car would forever stink, so we started looking at coldwellbankerrealty.com. And that’s when we found it. This amazing, modern, open floor plan, fenced in yard, home that was more than we wanted to spend but worth every penny. So I called the realtor… which was a mistake… because we all immediately fell in love with this house. When the realtor asked DB if he had a home he wanted to sell, my partner looked at him and I’m sure thought, “No – I’m going to burn mine to the ground to get rid of the smell, and I’m going to use the insurance money as a down payment on this place.”
After the walk through, when I told TB about the place and asked her what she thought (in general), she said, “Oh Sweet Jesus! Do you remember what you were like when I bought my new house? The only thing you moved was your ass… from room to room… talking… non-stop… while I did all of the packing. You do know that when it’s your shit, you’re going to have to move more than just your mouth?”
Turns out it was a wasted conversation... It sold before we could make an offer, and that’s just as well - because our blueprint is AMAZING! It's unique and it's modern and it's warm. And the lot is big and its wooded and its private and its perfect... and we love it. This won't simply be a house. It will be our home. Besides, now that my car and his house don’t stink anymore, and the stank-induced headaches and nausea have stopped, we can take our time and get our houses ready to sell. And we really are making progress. Not as much as I intend to make with my fly, new karma – but progress.
Keep your fingers crossed that my 2010/2011 six-word autobiography will be better than my last one. I’m hoping for something along the lines of “ Perfect man, great kids, loving home.” Talk to you next week!
No comments:
Post a Comment