Oh my goodness. I have finally emerged from the mental and cardboard box rubble of home-buying. It is I! Tristan! Owner of a thing! I did not previously really own a thing. My most valuable possession was probably a bed that I bought from Pottery Barn like ten years ago. I also had zero debt. Not even student loans. Now I have much debt. Six figures of it. (Good guess!) I am also the secretary of the condo association now. So, things are looking up already.
Tidbits from owning a home for a whole month now:
- The washer and dryer is everything I'd hoped. The only drawback is that my clothes are so often clean that I wind up wearing the same shirts over and over again. Having to go down three flights of stairs to pay two dollars to do one load of laundry ('the ol' 321,' I call it) had the previously unrecognized benefit of making sure I didn't repeat clothing for many weeks. Like, MANY WEEKS. Now I'm like a cartoon character that you recognize because they always wear the same shirt.
- We have a gas fireplace, which is fun, but it's unvented. For a while, we were not cracking the window when we used it, and we wound up falling asleep on the couch a lot. Like, A LOT. Now we crack the window.
- We have two and a half rooms that have no furniture in them. Dance parties abound! Also, the acoustics in these rooms are BALLER. If you're ever considering casting me in a musical, please audition me in my (as yet, table-less) dining room. Bear in mind, please, that my headshot is 11 years old.
- We joined the block association and went to a meeting with the alderman. We got to eat coffee cake and vote on whether a new restaurant could open. (Everyone voted 'Yea.' Honestly, I can't imagine that the block association truly had any sway on whether this place opened or not, but it was fun to feel like we had a say in something,) Then we listened to an old lady complaining that there was "too much scruff" hanging around by the train station in the mornings, and we need a cop on patrol. Chris and I are fairly certain that "scruff" translates to "black people." Then we voted on offices for the block club, all of which were uncontested. Thankfully, the racist lady did not run. My secretaryship of the condo association was also uncontested (indeed, no one wanted to do it, so I was finally like, "...me? Me will do it?") but still required a vote. Apparently home-ownership involves an extraordinary amount of superfluous voting.
- In all his sitcom-husband glory, Chris ripped down an ugly venting hood over the oven to replace it with a microwave that has a fan and light. Naturally, once he got it down, he realized that he did not have the wherewithal to install the new one. This is not truly his fault - the hood was hard-wired. Regardless, we now have a cupboard-gap with different-colored paint, a gaping hole, and wires poking out. It is very fetching, as you can imagine. I don't use microwaves a ton, but not having one makes me very aware of when I would have. I mean, we have one. It's just the sole thing that currently resides on our dining room floor.
I would hope that Pope combat would involve popish weapons. Like that incense ball thing they have that is BASICALLY A MACE. And that cross on a stick? His staff? So a weapon. Don't get me started on his hat. (I mitre never stop! HO!)
Come on. What am I, an amateur? Of course I've eaten and loved the Potbelly Chocolate Brownie cookie. It is glorious. It is big - which is a downside, frankly, because I can't stop myself from eating the whole thing, and then I feel sick.
A college recommendation? Oh NO! You're such a grown-up. Once in a while someone asks if they can put me down as a reference for a job and I'm like, "HA HA HA, okay."
pH joined a theater softball league. We are TERRIBLE. Even compared to the other actors. And I am one of the worst on our team. It's fun, though, and I like having softball games against Steppenwolf and The Goodman. Have you seen the softballs they use in Chicago? They are SO. BIG. 16 inches. It's truly bizarre how enormous they are. It's like throwing a 2-year-old's head. Which I am used to - you'd think I'd be better.
