Bite me, slice me, dice me

I'm suffering from a supreme case of writer's block. 

So what do I do? Well. As always, there's Lance. 

I come here more than I should whenever I'm stuck on a story; a paying story. It helps me get over uninspired humps. 

Sometimes.

Today I spotted my first big, red tomato hanging off one of two tomato plants I planted three months ago in the front yard.

If anything should inspire me, it should be this. I've never grown an edible thing in my life. Well, basil. But that doesn't count. The pug could grow basil in his food bowl if he slobbered on it every day. 

The tomato plants were my mom and Joe's idea. There were four big pots in our front yard when we moved into this house, in which the previous owner had planted squatty palms and purple ferns. When we closed on the property, the squatty palms and purple ferns were scorched from too much sun and wilting from too little water, so I pulled them out of the pots and stuck them in the ground, where they are much happier and healthier.

In two pots I planted tomatoes and oregano. In the other two, I planted marigolds and bushy pink flowers. Within a month my bushy pink flowers had tripled in size. And my tomato vines! Ah! I had so many little green buds I felt like Fannie Flagg. The front of my house had suddenly taken on a Better Homes and Gardens look. 

When a storm whipped through the neighborhood last week, I ran out the front door to stake my bent tomato vines to sturdy twigs. After much nurturing, whispering and watering, I couldn't bear the thought of losing my tomatoes. They looked so pathetic in the wind and rain, bent over like a child with a stomachache. I never felt so much like my Oma than when I called for Joe in a panicked yelp, to bring me scissors and string so I could tie my vines.

Now that I've got this big red one sort of poking out at me, willing me to pick it, slice it and serve it over mozzarella and balsamic, I'm freaking out. What if it's too soon? What if it's too late?

If you know anything about tomatoes, please share your wisdom. I'm a novice vegetable grower, whose new hero is this guy: former Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver. 

Weaver, the 5-foot-7 short-tempered, smack-talking "Earl of Baltimore," used to grow tomato plants down the left field line in Baltimore's old Memorial Stadium. He and head groundskeeper Pat Santarone had a contest every summer to see who could grow the biggest, juiciest crop. Rumor has it Santarone once grew a tomato so big it wouldn't fit in his ball cap. 

According to former first basemen Boog Powell, the mens' tomatoes were so large, "one slice would way overlap the bread." And according to Cal Ripken Jr., whose father worked for the Orioles in the 1960s and 1970s, Weaver used to fertilize his giant tomatoes in the Orioles bullpen using horse manure lifted from the Preakness Stakes. 

I wonder if pug manure would have the same effect. 

--

PS. To everyone who donated to my Ride for Roswell: THANK YOU! THANK YOU! In two weeks I raised $675 for the Roswell Park Cancer Institute – $175 OVER my initial fundraising goal. 

PPS. About Saturday's hair post: the top photo was the $50 haircut. In these trying economic times I suggest patronizing beauty schools. No one will ever know your 'do cost five bucks. Unless of course you blog about it.

Luck, faith and benevolent Canadians.

Glorious sleep. Glorious, frothy dream-filled sleep! Keep it coming, Mr. Sandman.

After spending both September and October fending off nightmares, I'm thrilled to report that November has been less cruel to my fretful unconscious.

Employed as a nanny for seven sniveling children, I would dream horrible things. Dreams that would wake me in the middle of the night and cause my head grief the following morning.

In one month I pounded an entire bottle of Advil.

Mostly, I had nightmares about the woman I worked for - the stay-at-home mother-of-seven, who spent her days in spandex exercise gear, scribbling grocery lists on the back of her kids' stick figure drawings, rattling off demands hurriedly and with a tight, cold scowl that pulled her tanning-bed skin into a kind of leather hide that reminded me of the bottom of moccasins that sell for nine bucks on Indian reservations.

The Friday before Joe and I closed on our house, Wall Street collapsed and our pre-approved mortgage was almost denied. Why? Because I quit my job as a staff writer at a newspaper so I could freelance from St. Pete and moonlight as Mr. Belvedere for one humiliating month.

The day the mortgage broker called to tell me my career switcheroo was about to cost us our house, I calmly provided him the name and number of my new spandexed employer, swallowed two Xanax and rehearsed between snot-sucking sobs, how I would break the news to Joe.

Later that day, while doped up on anti-anxiety medication, the mortgage broker called to tell me to breathe. He would use the jaws of life to secure our loan. Staff writer or disgruntled nanny, he'd find a way to approve our mortgage, of course not without first using the phrase, "by the skin of your teeth."

When we closed Oct. 3, and the subject of my employment came up, the woman who owns the title company kicked me under the table, and without making eye contact said to Joe and I, "If anything has changed with anyone's employment situation, please by all means don't tell me."

I never stopped writing for the newspaper. Juggling both jobs, I banked my Belvedere money for furniture and scribbled notes at night about how the protagonist in my novel would never be a nanny, because to subject her to such tyranny would be to limit the depths of her character.

Four years of college and four more years of reporting and here I was, folding some woman's thong underwear into a silk square smaller than a postage stamp. One night, while putting her children to bed, the 6-year-old turned to me and snapped, "You use a lot of big words for a first-time babysitter. What are you a scientist or something?"

"Well," I replied. "Before I was your babysitter, I was a reporter. My job was to write stories for the newspaper."

"Like the St. Pete times?" She asked.

"Not quite," I said. "But something like that."

Two weeks later, on a Wednesday afternoon in mid-October, after Joe had assembled my new pine desk and we'd scheduled our first trip to Ikea, the spandexed mother-of-seven fired me.

Who would have thought that in these piss-poor economic times that getting shit-canned would feel so good?

I started this post weeks ago. At first it began like: "She was a straight up rich bitch, who despised me for reasons I'll never know. She fired me because she claimed I couldn't be trusted with her children ..."

And you know what? I deleted the whole sour-pussed rant. The world is too hopeful right now to mop up my absence on this blog with negativity. The last headache I had was the result of two glasses of champagne, consumed Tuesday night during Barack Obama's acceptance speech. So in the spirit of optimism, I'll spare you the tirade and leave you with a story about luck, faith and benevolent Canadians.

I've always thought lucky pennies were underrated. If you're like me, when you find a lucky penny you forget to note which side is facing up when you pick it up.

As children we're taught (perhaps by grandparents or big-fannied aunts) that pennies are lucky. That when we find one we should pocket it. Forget the fact that Lucky Penny lore only holds true when a coin is found head's side up. For those of us who operate on whimsy, technicalities like this are easy to dismiss.

If you're a hopeless non-denominational optimist like me, you have faith in the idea that pennies can't possibly be cursed. What kind of prick universe would this be if half the pennies we found were responsible for half our misfortunes? If I could add up all the pennies - lucky or otherwise - that I've collected over the years I could probably buy Joe a nice steak dinner on the better side of Tampa. Besides, if all pennies can be used to make wishes then certainly no penny is luckier than another.

But why the subject of pennies? Specifically the crusty, oxidized one that was given to me last month by a Canadian man after my car was pinned between a concrete wall and a motor home while driving 75-mph on the interstate?

I'll spare you the details of what could have been a dreadful accident. As talented an embellisher as I am, I cannot exaggerate non-existent, non-dreadful details. I can only credit my reaction time, the fact that I was listening to The Chemical Brothers, and two benevolent Canadians.

In the nanoseconds that passed between the offending motor home to my left, and the concrete wall to my right, I somehow managed to summon a previous life as a tomboy in the sticks of Western New York, where as a teenager I drove a demolition car named The Vaginator in the fields behind an ex-boyfriend's house.

Locking the brakes on my Honda Civic, I kept the car on a straight skid as I pinballed between the RV and the wall. Had the benevolent Canadians, who were driving behind me when the accident occurred, not pulled over to provide a witness statement, the officer who responded to the crash would have cited me for failure to yield the right-of-way.

"Failure to yield the right-of-way?" Cried the benevolent Canadians. "She had nowhere to yield to!"

"Yes I understand," said the officer. "But if the people in the motor home wanted to argue the situation she would've had a hard time proving her case."

While we waited for the necessary paperwork to wrap up one of the benevolent Canadians handed me a penny.

"I found it by your car," he said cheerfully. "Pennies from heaven you know."

Funny, I thought. My godless family never phrased it like that.

On Tuesday, I got my car back from the collision shop. It looks brand new thanks to four new tires, a rearview mirror, and a week's worth of banging out and buffing up. The guys at Wulff's Collision on 20th Avenue couldn't have been nicer or more skilled.

As for the penny, it went back into circulation sometime last week when I purchased ice cream at CVS. I have no idea if the benevolent Canadian found it heads up or heads down, and I totally forgot to ask.

Dummy watches figure by drinking Mich Ultra

Go Rays!

This is the uber bizarro Rays dummy sitting on the porch four houses down from my apartment.

However, I should point out that Joe and I no longer live at our apartment in Old Northeast as we relocated 20 blocks north to a home we bought two weeks ago on 2nd Street across from the idyllically-named Coffee Pot Bayou. 

Since I'm in the middle of finishing a story that helps pay our mortgage, I best not piss away the valuable midnight hour.

But I promise you I've got a crapload of self-indulgent, heartwarming stories to sum up the last three weeks of my trifling life. None of which will include Saturday night's Tampa Bay Ray's nail-biter victory over the Boston Red Sox. (For more on that click here.) 

So, as my Aunt Dot would say, I hope you have a blessed Monday. We'll be in touch soon. 

How about them apples?

Wondering where I've been?

Yeah. Me too.

I feel like Angela Bassett trying to get my groove back. It's 12:30 a.m. and I'm sitting on my couch, watching a rerun of Desperate Housewives, wearing Joe's noise canceling headphones, my iPod on shuffle. 

I started several posts and saved them all as drafts. 

I started one about Joe's Grandpa. I started one about Bus Stop Pete. I started one about Bus Stop Pete leaving his empty beer cans in plastic CVS bags on the street corner, prompting a post about bad habits and enablers and how Pete isn't entirely to blame for littering since the city removed his trash can weeks ago.

I tossed around the idea of writing about my love affair with Stephen Colbert.

I started another chapter in my novel. I quit my job as a reporter. I flew home for a long weekend with Joe. I flew back Sunday night. On Monday morning, I started my job as a nanny for seven kids who live in a mansion on the water in St. Pete. 

I watched the latest Coen Brothers film. I learned that my friend Sam and his wife Beth are expecting a baby named Nevin. I saw The Smashing Pumpkins at Ruth Eckerd Hall. I listened to the first presidential debate from my bedroom while writing a story for the paper. I rushed my pug to the vet for what I later learned was E. Coli poisoning. I made an appointment with a therapist and cancelled it one week later. 

I watched my first best friend's little brother tie the knot on Lake Erie Beach. Mesmerized by eight industrial windmills spinning in the distance, I was impressed by Buffalo's push toward alternative energy. 

I sat bleary-eyed at midnight, curled in Joe's lap, through so many episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm I lost track of the funny ones, which is a knock on my mental retention since most episodes are memorable.

I'm no fan of Desperate Housewives, and although I'm watching it right now, it came to my attention five minutes ago that Nicollette Sheridan's character is named Edie and so is the protagonist in my novel. (FYI: My Edie is named after the two-for-one CVS ice cream Joe and I got addicted to when we started dating.)

And yes, Joe is asleep right now.

I've been scatterbrained and distracted lately. Save for writing one chapter in the second-from-the-last seat in a Southwest Airlines flight from Buffalo to Tampa, I've done very little writing. I've been clogged. 

This home-buying thing has turned me into a wordless ghost, paralyzed by momentum. Back when I lived in a tiny cottage without air conditioning, I had a neighbor named Matt Orr who liked to pop in with a bottle of wine every now and then. I remember once, the first time I quit my job as a reporter, he asked if I was sure I was making the right decision.

I had just ended an 8-year relationship with my high school sweetheart. Two weeks into the breakup, I had also quit my job. Why? Because neither one seemed right at the time.

"Oh well. Some people just do it all at once," Matt said, sipping from his merlot. "You're probably just one of those people."

"What kind of people?" I asked.

"The kind that do it all at once."

"Yeah maybe," I said. "I think it's better that way. If it's going to be tough, it might as well be really tough, right?"

And then we toasted to being single and to air conditioning, and how climate control is overrated in the company of good friends. 

(Side note: Last year, around the same time I started back at the newspaper, Matt, a Realtor by trade, launched an events-listing web site. He leases office space under my old office, and without actually seeing his face in the window, I'm sure I walked past him every day on my way to work. It was nice knowing he was there. Even though I had moved some 40 miles away, we were still neighbors in a way, which pleased me. To save gas he now drives a Vepsa knock-off and his new company, this week in sarasota.com is doing really well. So congrats to Matt.)

The first time I left the newspaper, I took a job at a local marble yard. I received an e-mail last week from one of my favorite coworkers. His big sister has embarked on a solo cross-country road trip with her dog, similar in nature and gut instinct to the trip I took last summer, which is always inspiring news. Here's an excerpt from that e-mail:

"So my sister Lori is traveling across country in a piece of shit car with her dog, sleeping in a tent and stopping in all the small towns. Does this sound familiar? I don't know if you remember me ever talking about her. I think I may have mentioned once that you and her would get along great. Anyway, I've attached a couple emails that she has sent so far, I thought you might find them interesting. As I read them I found myself thinking about your trip. I hope everything is going good for you. Keep in touch. I want an autographed copy of your book when it's on the best sellers list."

Joe's sister, Rosey, passed the bar exam last week. We helped her move into her new apartment today, drinking our weight in water, and cruising with the radio off on our ride home because there was so much to talk about, so much to plan and so much to be excited about.

As we exited the highway toward our neighborhood, with its cobblestone streets and hodgepodge roof lines, I noted the comings and goings of people in their yards. For the fuck of it, I made a stupid face, pushing my nose up in the air, curling my lip into Elvis' trademark sneer.

"Would you still love me if I looked like this?" I asked Joe.

"No," he replied. "Because with your sunglasses on I can't see your beautiful eyes."

I used to pride myself on my lightness of being. Infectious zest was my badge of honor. Irritating as it was, being bubbly was kind of my modus operandi, but somewhere along the line that gusto turned to fear and anxiety. I'm working on reverting. I'm working on being less selfish. Less brooding. 

For those of you who are interested in the first chapter of my novel, I'm refraining from posting it here. I'm afraid the opening line is too sexy for my Nana, who reads this blog. 

On second thought, my Nana is a fairly racy bird ...

On third thought, I think I'll keep the rest of Edith Armor's story to myself. Some things are too exciting to share. 

--

PS. Photo by Joe - snapped while picking apples at Stonehill Orchard in North Collins, NY.

Once again, a bum is right.

I won't bury the lead here, or wait until the end to mention that we got the house.

And as always with me, the day I was told our final offer was accepted, I kind of already knew.

While walking my pug Thursday morning, a man on a bicycle called out to me, "Excuse me m'am."

Noticing his body was buckling under backpacks and a bed roll, I paid special attention, as homeless men and I share a kinship.

"Yes?"I asked.

"What is your name?" The man on the bicycle asked.

So I told him mine and the pug told him his.

"You're blessed today," he said. "You are beautiful and today is beautiful. Good things come to you today."

And I said, thanks. And he said, good day.

Now. Had I not mentioned this story to Joe upon immediately entering the apartment, I fear he would have outright said I was lying, when later that afternoon, after a lunch interview in Sarasota, my phone rang and Joe said, "We got the house."

And like I said, I kind of already knew, so after squealing, "WHAT? WE GOT IT?" I lowered my voice and said, "Well, I suppose the bum already knew, right?"

And Joe agreed. He's used to things like this by now. We all have guardian angels. I have bum angels and if you ask me, Joe is damn lucky to have a girlfriend with bum angels. Especially in St. Pete, where bums abound.

And so our conversation took a turn, not in the direction of bum premonitions, but in the direction of total baffled shocked. After back-and-forth negotiations this week, we never expected the homeowner to accept our final offer. We were still $18,000 apart. Sure Realtor Randy gave us hope, what with his positive percentages and all. But $18,000 is still a pretty big unflushable turd, if you know what I mean ... or at least it's a turd to be reckoned with.

Cynical journalists. We were still not convinced. Even me, the hopeful one, the dreamy one, the one with bum angels at her fingertips. Even I was not convinced.

So after work we met up with Realtor Randy at The Ale House in St. Pete, where he said he'd be sitting in full Philly Eagles regalia watching a preseason game at the bar.

When we got there we were still so unconvinced that neither one of us felt compelled to order a beer.

"C'mon! Order a round," Randy insisted.

"Nah," Joe said and I shrugged.

"You guys just bought a house. Get yourselves a beer!" He cheered, throwing his own giant stein in the air.

"We'll celebrate when we're at our kitchen table," we replied.

Randy shot Joe a look. The kind of look that said, dude I carted your ass all over St. Pete for two months looking at houses. We find one. The guy accepts your crappy offer and now we're at a bar, signing the final offer and you disrespect me, your devoted Realtor, by denying one celebratory beer?

We could not get past the fact that no one runs away with Florida real estate, not even in 2008. Begrudgingly we each ordered a brewski, and by the time the last line was signed in Randy's stack of Keller Williams paperwork, we were both feeling good and celebratory.

Later that night while grocery shopping at Publix, I noticed that Joe reached for the cheapest, smallest can of bread crumbs.

"You never buy that little can," I said.

"We're homeowners now. We're going to be poor for awhile." He said.

I smiled and clicked my heels. In my head of hopeful girly bubble thoughts, I catalogued this moment under The Most Rousing Line Of The Night and proceeded to the check-out.

--

PS. The illustration above is by New York City artist Kelly Mudge. To purchase this hauntingly excellent painting click here.

Patience & chance.

When the Property Appraiser asks you earlier in the day if you know what time the election results will be in, you know it's a hairy race.

My coworker Kyle is in the Supervisor of Elections media room waiting for votes to be tabulated, as I sit at a downtown diner waiting for him to phone me with results. We could be here for awhile. This is, after all Florida, and inevitably the system will snag on some 5,000 votes, providing endless fodder for newspaper columnists tomorrow.

Kyle and I have been profiling political candidates for months now. Public defenders. School Board candidates. County commissioners. Sheriff candidates. Hospital board members. State legislators. When I was assigned my first interview six months ago it was with an assistant public defender vying for his boss' seat, and I thought I'd keel over from boredom. 

And now, sitting at Word of Mouth Cafe on Osprey Avenue, eating a Mediterranean salad, surrounded by the usual retried foursomes, I think I finally have a grasp on two things - patience and chance.

If interviewing politicians taught me anything this year, it's that some things are out of our hands. We campaign like dogs, then wait for someone else to decide our fate. It's a control freak's worst nightmare. 

Joe and I bid on our second house last night. When we got home from work, Realtor Randy was waiting at our apartment with a folder stuffed with cryptic paperwork ready to be signed.

To reassure us that our lowballer wasn't a complete joke, he said there was a 95 percent chance the homeowner would counteroffer and 25 percent chance he'd accept the bid straightaway. Since the first house we bid on prompted Randy to snort,"1 percent if you're lucky," Joe and I decided these were promising percentages.

Since we weren't so lucky the first time, we expanded our house hunt further north in St. Pete; prowled neighborhoods that weren't Old Northeast. Old Northeast, we determined, was a great place to live if you were a 50-year-old dentist who smoked pot. So we jotted down dozens of new addresses. Some of them on napkins I pulled from Joe's glove box.

The first time we drove past the house we bid on yesterday, I pooh-poohed it. It had no front porch - a deception that Randy later translated into Realtor Language for me: "It has no curb appeal." 

Parked outside the place, I scoffed, "It has no nose."

"Yeah," Joe concurred. "It's nothing special."

But I wrote down the address anyway (out of habit), and when I compiled a list of prospective homes I inadvertently e-mailed Randy the listing that night.

We've toured the home twice now and even though Joe's father, an attorney, warned us that we should never ever get emotionally attached to a house we do not own, we couldn't help but be optimistic about Randy's percentages - 25 percent/95 percent.  Together they equal 120 percent!

So we fell asleep last night dreadfully optimistic, gabbing about how we'd furnish our office, how we'd carry our kayak two blocks to the bay, how my father would help us build a porch, how nice it would be to finally have a kitchen table. Given our addiction to caffeine, we snickered about how suitable it would be to live in a neighborhood called Coffee Pot Park.

Joe called earlier today to let me know that the homeowner countered our offer with a number higher than what we're willing to pay. So I guess the next step is to counter the counteroffer. 

It's a volley. Our Realtor bumps an offer. His Realtor bumps it back. We tell Randy when to spike and the homeowner tells his Realtor, "Don't touch it. It's out of bounds." 

Joe says this is how countries go to war. It's maddening that we can't communicate on our own. 

Ah ... Who knows if we'll get this place. The 12-year incumbent Property Appraiser is, as I type this, losing his race. 

I can't stand when things are indeterminable. 

--

PS. The illustration above is by Portland, Ore. artist a.t. whim. Check out her shop. She rocks. (Note: Her Aug. 16 blog about her adopted pug, Alice B. Toklas.)

Roots

I'm frustrated and tired. I'm wringing my hands and drowning in the sound of Gordon Lightfoot. My pug is asleep next to me, with a pug baby clasped between his paws. He's snoring, and I'm wearing Joe's noise-canceling headphones.

In my living room, Bob Costas is commenting on Olympic marathon runners. Olympic marathon runners with bodies like spaghetti strings are running through my living room.

Today, Joe and I embarked on Home Tour No. 4 with Realtor Randy. And I must admit, I'm decidedly less starry-eyed than when we began this housecapade two months ago.

Of the two of us, I'm the hopeful one. Not Joe. He's the cynic. But today it was me who spent the duration of our real estate look-see with my hands on my hips and a bitchy scowl across my face.

My friend Liz, who reads this blog, wrote me an e-mail recently that said:

"After three weeks of my own house hunting, I found one. I put in an offer and wouldn't you know, it's been accepted. I'm gonna be a homeowner. One of my many dreams is actually going to come true. It's a ranch in the Lakeview Wanakah area off Route 5. I'm scared, excited and nervous all at the same time."

Congrats Liz. I take this as a sign that a house with four walls and a functioning shitter is bound to come my way soon. It's always excellent to hear from you.

(Liz and I played soccer together in high school. We were both forwards. Liz had better aim than me and was faster and more sprite-ly, but we worked in tandem for years, both on and off the soccer field. We were first clarinet chairs in band; clarinet partners until the day we graduated high school. Band geeks really. When all our friends decided they were too cool for band, we begrudgingly stayed the course.)

So why the sourpuss?

Buying a home is a huge emotional undertaking. For me it means planting roots, the likes of which I've not been very good at.

I can't help but picture a big old grandaddy tree when I picture the physical act of home-buying. Say what you will about the ease of buying and selling, and how your first house aint your last house. Buying a house means planting your ass somewhere for more than a year, and let's face it: I've not planted my ass for more than a year anywhere since leaving New York four years ago.

In my Oma's address book, in the spot where my name is written, Oma has five different addresses scribbled, four of which are scribbled out:

Heron's Run Drive, Hawkins Court, Osprey Avenue, Pattison Avenue and now 8th Avenue.

An address has it's own heartbeat. Arteries that run from your place to amenities. Veins that run from your place to neighbors. All of my Florida addresses have had their fair share of veins and arteries. Previous to playing musical apartments, I spent 22 years in one bedroom. The arteries were longer, fewer and more likely to clot in North Collins, which is why I moved.

Granted home buying and apartment-leasing aren't that different. Both mean staking out a spot on some street, on some corner on some dead end - your own earthly space in some earthly town - where at night stray cats moan and homeless men wander, where across the street when no one is watching, the cook from a Chinese restaurant dumps used vegetable oil in a dumpster, where Starbucks serves $5 Frappachinos and where Chipotle serves cheap burritos and guacamole.

It's just a bigger commitment, and other than my pledge last year to go fishing every Saturday morning at 8 a.m., I've never had problems making commitments. It's the owning-property-in-Florida bit that's got me going batty. Owning a house in the Sunshine State wasn't a part of my master plan.

We all have neuroses. Veering off course is mine.

I did a Google search for my hometown the other day and I came across this essay I wrote my junior year at Buffalo State College. My first thought upon reading my standard preachy prose was: Jesus H! What a hung-up old biddy I am. I've changed so little, it's ridiculous. I'm still making a fuss over some kind of rural paradise.

It's sick, folks. If you get your hands on my diaries from ages 9 through 18, you'd piss your pants reading things like: "By the time I'm 22, I want to be in Florida writing for a newspaper. By the time I'm 23, I want a pug. By the time I'm 25, I want to be writing a book."

Old souls die hard. Take this sentence from that same college essay:

"I was a sarcastic kid who thought my life was a big Jeff Foxworthy joke."

This was me at 19. And I tell you what, I'm not that different. Ask my parents. The only difference was ... well, I never once wrote about home-buying in a diary. Truth be told I had no idea where I'd land.

So to quell my anxiety I consulted with John Steinbeck, whose observations have always resonated with me.

This passage is from Travels with Charley:

"I had promised my youngest son to say good-bye in passing his school at Deerfield, Massachusetts, but I got there too late to arouse him, so I drove up the mountain and found a dairy, bought some milk, and asked permission to camp under an apple tree. The dairy man had a Ph. D. in mathematics, and he must have had some training in philosophy. He liked what he was doing and he didn't want to be somewhere else - one of the very few contended people I met in my whole journey."

I was lying on my stomach in bed around midnight when I started this post. The A/C in the apartment was turning my toes into ice cubes, and Joe, to heat me up, had brought me in a cup of hot coffee. As he turned to leave he blew me a kiss, which filled me with a kind of red mercury that anyone who has ever been in love, is familiar with. And I sipped from the coffee I was holding and re-read the Steinbeck passage I was typing, and determined that what I was looking for I couldn't seek.

Contentment is as exotic an adventure as any. I never wrote about contentment in diaries. I think from this point on I will.

--

PS. The illustration above is by Boston, Mass. artist Karen Preston. For more of her work click here.

Grilling & drilling politicians.

If you had lived in a synthetic bubble all your life, and one night were freed at about 8 p.m. on 8th Ave North in St. Pete (where I live) and heard what I hear now, you might think the world had ended or that aliens had finally arrived.

The cicada bugs sound like a dying game show buzzer.

If I were allowed to open the windows in my apartment I might hear them more often, but instead I'm forced to take in their grating mating call from my balcony, which is why it's so important Joe and I find a house with a porch. (For more on our house hunting shenanigans click here.)

I love the cicadas. I love that they're so obnoxious. I love that there are 2,500 different species of them and that they make the loudest known insect-produced sound in the world.

Cicadas are the one rural thing this city has going for it - another reason why I love them.

I'm sitting on my balcony with two citronella candles at my feet and a fire on the grill. The sun is slipping behind Kim and Russell's gargantuan house and Cubbie is roaming the yard below. Joe is watching Countdown with Keith Olbermann, slamming together patties of ground chuck and my sister PK finally, doggedly got a job. It is a typical Monday night and I'm in a fantastic mood.

I have about two hours of tape to transcribe from an interview I had Friday with a state representative. That much I'm dreading.

But before I go, I think it might be fun to point out that last week I interviewed two state representatives in Sarasota, both republicans. The first one said he didn't buy global warming and that plenty of people feel the same way. 

"Ambulences aren't all of a sudden going to run on hydrogen," he said. "They're not going to run on nuclear. The technology isn't there. At the end of the day when somebody wants to go to the hospital they want 300 horsepower under the hood. Not three horses ... This is a capitalist country. We would have figured something out by now. Some entreprenuer would have figured out a cheaper way of producing energy and made himself a gazillion dollars. It's economics."

So I fired back something like this (minus the Toby Keith reference at the end):

"Don't you think we're seeing that now? Four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline is a big motivator. We're beginning to realize it's not the cheapest, most efficient way to power our cars so entrepreneurs are starting to perk up. (Hello T. Boone Pickens.) The market is ripe with money-making potential. It's like when the Wright brothers first started experimenting with flight. Believe me there's money to be made. Dependency on foreign-made goods ain't what Toby Keith sings about."

And then, after chalking up global warming to sunspots and volcanic activity, this same legislator said he supported state-funded research on alternative energy. What we should be doing, he said, is using service tax revenue generated by offshore drilling to support university research on tidal energy.

"I could see ourselves cutting back on fossil fuels," he said. "Over the next 10, 15, 20 years I could see Florida getting 30 percent of its energy from tidal, 10 percent from solar, 10 percent from wind, throw in some nuclear, throw in some natural gas ..."

I couldn't believe it. Towing the party line is one thing. Tripping over it is another. And tidal energy, eh? Surely he got the e-newsletter from treehugger.com. 

Ugh. I'm headed to the couch. Dinner is through and it's ice cream hour now. The cicadas have hushed and the mosquitoes are out. I'm off to itch my bug bites with credit cards and transcribe interview tape. 

Goodnight nation.

Housed.

I interviewed a woman for the newspaper this week whose voice mail message said: "You've reached Diane. I'm not here right now. Please leave me a message and before you hang up tell me one good thing about your life."

In the five seconds the message played two thoughts flashed through my head. 1.) This is a business call. You're setting up an interview. Just leave the basics. You're too longwinded to go into what's good 

about your life anyway. And then 2.) Don't puss out. Tell her you're looking at houses with Joe tonight. She asked you. 

So I left a message for Diane Lane - not the actress, the Sarasota massage therapist who goes by Lane instead of her long spitty German name - and at the end of my reporter's message I said, "And the one good thing about my life right now is that tonight I'm looking at houses with my boyfriend."

After I said it I immediately felt like a 9 year old. But whatev. Isn't the first time I sounded like a child. Won't be the last. 

Here's a rundown of the four grownup houses we looked at Thursday:

House No. 1

The Bachelor Pad of Girlfriend Past

A guy in his early 30s still lived there. He was in the shower when our Realtor knocked on the door. His dogs - a white Maltese-y dog and big white beaky dog - were going ape shit in the living room.

I suspected our Realtor was not a dog man since he grimaced when our pug grunted in his direction at the apartment before we left. 

"You don't know with dogs," he said, unlocking the door and then closing it right away as the big white beaky dog tried to nose his way out.

Joe concurred.

I said, c'mon no biggie. Open the door. Aint no two fluffy white dogs gonna scer me.

Joe gave me The Look. The 'Stop it Bamm-Bamm Rubble' look. So I clutched my hands behind my back and rocked on the heels of my ballet slippers. 

"Do you want me to open this door and risk Joe losing his nuts?" The Realtor asked.

I thought about making a joke about cheaper birth control and then didn't. No, I said. You're right. We should wait for the man in the shower to cage his two foofy dogs.

Inside, the house was decorated like Paige Davis' Trading Spaces crew had gone to town on it. Orange and green walls. Blue walls. Big wooden blocks spelling out the word D R E A M nailed to a dayglo wall in the living room. The 30-something dude in the shower had by then emerged toweling off his hair and I couldn't help but concoct scenarios as I studied the guy's weight lifting bench in the living room. Perhaps his girlfriend had painted the place like Trading Spaces, nailed D R E A M letters to the wall and then several months later dumped him for a guy with bigger muscles. Now he was selling the house because he was heartbroken, or fed up with women and his Trading Spaces house with the D R E A M letters on the wall. One look at the guy's sad sacky face and I wanted to whisper bad karma in Joe's ear. So we passed.

House No. 2

The House That Mortgage Fraud Destoryed

A foreclosure behind Publix. A woman who speaks only Spanish cosigned on the house for her friend who skipped town, ran off with the appliances and left her with a sub-prime mortgage she couldn't afford. The house wasn't bad save for a dead cockroach and a master bedroom smaller than the one we have now. But, c'mon no closet! Most females have a symbiotic relationship with their closets. Without closets our species is endangered. Pass.

House No. 3

The Bookish Bungalow With a Bum View

Ah yes. Our favorite. The one pictured above. A 1920s bungalow in Old Northeast with a porch large enough to tap dance on. Since I get too dreamy-eyed and gung-ho about these things I will ask a passing Joe for his opinion. (Sorry he's no longer asleep. PK just made pancakes and sausage for breakfast - important stuff to wake up to.) 

Says Joe: "I thought it was very ... it looked like it needed the least amount of work." (Typical practical, calculated Joe.)  "I liked the hardwood floors. I liked that it was open. I liked that it was airy. I liked the living room and dining room. I thought the kitchen kind of sucked. I didn't like that it was near that road ..."

By that road he means 4th Street. As we stood on the porch and praised and critiqued the house, paperbag-toting bums filed in and out of the gas station across the street. Tis House No. 3's biggest downfall. However not a deal-breaker. Since I'm pregnant with a novel and looking for a place I can write in I determined this house with it's sweet bungalow charm, ginormous front porch and awesome view of 4th Street shenanigans, has some serious storytelling potential. A keeper, for now.

House No. 4

John Belushi Lived Here

We were the most excited about this doosie based on the photos our Realtor e-mailed us. However when we got there after ten minutes of getting lost, turning around and getting lost again, we determined the place was too Addams Family meets Animal House. The porch swing was great. The upstairs/downstairs thing was cool. The rotting windows? Not so much. There was no yard to speak of. Only a "side yard" about the size of a bathroom, fenced in by deteriorating wooden planks that the current homeowner used to store his random crap in. The house would have been cooler if Joe and I were Phi Sigma Kappas. So we passed.

The goal: 10 houses by the time we leave next month for our romp through the Florida panhandle.

Ready for his money shot.

Lance, meet Heath. Heath, meet Lance. You guys have not been officially introduced. But today I think is perhaps a good day for you two to meet.

A little background on Heath ...

Joe conceived Heath one January afternoon in a fit of obsessive compulsion. Heath is a composition/compulsion notebook filled with my boyfriend's daily budget. In it he accounts for every receipt, every deposit, every bill (cell phone, electric, rent, car, fancy expensive haircuts, etc.) And over the last several months Heath has become such a thing of beauty that just opening its pages is like discovering the DaVinci code or an ancient Dead Sea scroll.

Heath is omnipresent. He is the Buddha of our budget.

If we go to CVS and buy two pints of ice cream, Heath knows. If I skimp on groceries resulting in a rash of Carrabba's takeout, Heath knows. If the price of gas goes up today, Heath knows by tomorrow. If Heath could talk he would sound like Rain Main. "Ten minutes to Wapner. Gotta get my boxer shorts at K-Mart. Gotta keep a receipt. Definitely gotta keep a receipt."

When Joe created this thing he scribbled 2008 Financial Ledger on the notebook's cover and when Heath Ledger died I crossed out "Financial" and wrote "Heath" in it's place. I'm a morose celebriholic I know. (For more on Heath see the April post Dreamy for broken down ferris wheels.)

Today was a big day for Heath. Today was like Heath's first day of kindergarten. Joe and I got approved for two mortgages and looked at four grownup houses in our St. Pete neighborhood ... but more on that later as I'm tired, ready for bed and filled with pizza. Adventures in Real Estate: Take One.

Meet Gaven.

This is my landlord, Russell's grandson Gaven. I set out to write a particular story for my Lance this morning, but as I was sitting on the balcony with the laptop, Kid popped out of the house and started shooting the bull.

(Joe and I live in an above-garage apartment. Our balcony faces the landlord's balcony.)

I decided to scrap the post and started typing this word-for-word instead:

Kid: "Is your dog one or two?" (Holds up two fingers.)

Me: "He's three." (Holds up three fingers.)

Kid: "My dog Onyx is five. I'm five too. He'll die when I'm 16. He's blacker than your dog's ears. Yours is a little bit blacker there on his back and he's a puffy dog. He looks puffy in his face."

Me: "Thanks."

Kid: "He has cuter eyes too. Does he have three teeth?"

Me: "He has many teeth."

Kid: "Does he have eight teeth?"

Me: "He has many more than eight."

Kid: "My dog has vampire teeth. He has vampire teeth because he has a little teeth then a big teeth, then a little teeth, then a big teeth."

Me: "It looks like you're missing teeth."

Kid: "I didn't miss two teeth. I was just missing one teeth because that one was my baby teeth."

(I take a sip of Timmy Ho's and nod.)

Kid: "I have a plant here."

Me: "Do you see all my plants? How well-watered they are?"

Kid: "Yeah. We have a tree between us. We share it you know. One half is for you and one half is for me."

Me: "I'm OK with that."

Kid: "But we get the top of the tree because we have a bigger house."

Me: "Agreed."

Kid: "Do you have a baby?"

Me: "No baby. Only the dog."

Kid: "Where's the husband?"

Me: "He's in the house. And he's a boyfriend not a husband."

Kid: "In my house we have me, my puppy, Nana, Grandma and Zenie and the dog. That makes six of us in this house ... only six of us in here including the dog and the baby. That makes seven. Zenie has a baby ... sometimes when she's mean I call her Meanie Zeanie. Do you have plans for tomorrow?"

Me: "I'm taking a fire arms training pistol course in Sarasota."

Kid: "Do you have some plans for today?"

Me: "I might do the beach."

Kid: "We're going to the beach. I got a lot of digging stuff so I can build a castly by the sea or a starfish. I don't really have a starfish but i have an octopus. But I don't really have an octopus. I have a sea turtle."

(Zenie's husband walks below the balconies pushing a baby stroller and drinking a glass of orange juice.)

Kid: "His name is Jacob and he's my uncle."

(Russell walks out onto the balcony. I say, "Hey Russ. How goes it? We're shooting the bull out here." Russell smiles. Messes the kid's mohawk then asks the kid if he's ready for the beach. Kid says, yes of course. Russell says it's a little overcast for the beach. Kid says he'd like to go regardless. Russell smiles and says, go grab your towel. They enter the house.)

End of scene.