I’d Like to Buy a House

I would say, with some glee, as I forked over a spate of pastel colored pieces of Monopoly money. I liked to slowly developed my prime real estate, keeping a few dollars back in case I landed on someone else’s quick built up into hotels.

I preferred the green properties on the Monopoly board.

Not quite the same high end prices as Boardwalk, but nice places, chi chi.

“You’re just like San Francisco,” I was told once in passing, “you used to be hipster and now you’re bougie.”

Ahem.

I was both annoyed and flattered.

It’s kind of true.

I can’t tell you when the last time I went out for a ride on my flip flop one speed Mission Bicycle, although I could if I looked at my social a bit, I do tend to document when I go for rides now.

I call them “bike’ies” instead of “selfies”.

Just my bike leaned up against some cool street art.

I have a lot of those from when I lived in Paris in 2012 and 2013.

These days, not as many.

I tend to walk everywhere.

Yes, I do have a car, but, um, when you score a good spot in your hood and don’t have to move it for street parking until Friday, you, I mean, I, walk everywhere.

I did take the car out today, early this afternoon.

I went to an open house.

I guess this is when the bougie piece comes in.

Sort of.

I do actually want to buy a house.

I always have, but I never really thought that it would be possible.

Until recently.

I had a talk a few years back with a woman I know who is a realtor and helped a mutual friend buy a house.

I knew how much said mutual friend was making and thought, huh, I wonder, when I get into my private practice, I might be able to swing that.

So I had coffee with the realtor and told her my deal and that I was years out, but intrigued.

She told me to get a credit card.

Which I did not want to do, but build up your credit was the advice I was given.

Before I got sober I burned my credit to the ground and it was bad news bears getting out of that financial hole.

But I did.

And I swore, no more credit cards, ever.

NO.

But, the realtor was convincing, and I knew a few folks who used their cards wisely, paid them off immediately, and built credit whilst also getting airline miles.

Huh.

I could do that.

And, do that I did.

In fact, that’s how I flew to Hawaii in February.

Airline miles on a credit card.

I actually flew first class, I had a lot of miles accrued.

It was so worth it and my credit score has gone up significantly.

I don’t keep a balance, ever on my cards, yeah, cards, I now have two.

One is Alaska Airlines for flying to Hawaii and the other is Air France, for flying to Paris.

I’ll be able to fly free the next time I go to Paris, well, not the trip I have booked December, I already bought that, but the next time.

You know there will always be a next time I fly to Paris.

Anyway.

I have great credit.

My car is payed off, I have no credit card debt, and though, yes, I do have a ton of student loan debt, I have started paying it down.

So.

Yeah.

757 is my score and that’s considered “good” to “excellent.”

Rewind a few weeks back to hearing from a couple of people about their house buying adventures and I thought, huh, you know, I wonder.

I texted that realtor from a few years a go and we had coffee last Friday.

She thinks I can.

We started mapping things out.

I have done some research.

I have looked at a lot of things on Zillow and Bay Area Modern Homes.

A LOT.

My eyes are kind of bugged out from looking.

I’m awaiting a call back from a mortgage broker to discuss my situation and I talked with my accountant this past week.

I don’t make an enormous amount of money, but my business is doing well and as my accountant noted, my income is very stable.

I don’t personally make what my business makes, basically I take home about half of what I make.

But that’s enough.

And it’s also not a lot, by San Francisco standards, and as it turns out I make under the cut off for the Below Housing Market in the city.

I’m not interested in a ton of those homes, but I am interested in some of the first time buyer loan programs the city has.

So next Saturday I’m going to sit through a two hour Zoom workshop and take the next steps to move forward to do the work and paperwork for the city to help with a loan.

I’m excited.

Today I went to my first open house!

It was perfect.

And not quite.

The view made me super happy, but it didn’t have much closet space and it had some dingy ass carpet in the bedroom, not my style, carpet.

But oh, the view.

Stunning.

And lots and lots of light.

Which is what I really want.

Give me light!

I’m looking at industrial lofts in the city.

I like how they look.

I always have.

Polished cement floors, exposed beams, concrete, big warehouse windows.

Something Southern and/or Western facing, a corner unit please.

Which is what this loft was.

The view of Twin Peaks was fantastic.

I want to stay on “this side” of Twin Peaks.

I served my time out in the fog and I want to be on the “sunny side” of the city.

The loft was on Bryant Street in the Mission.

18th and Bryant.

A neighborhood I know very well.

I lived just a few blocks over when I first moved to San Francisco, at 20th and York.

I would day dream about a loft conversion that was happening down the block, not the one I saw today, but actually quite close, and imagine one day living there.

I told the realtor I’m working with, maybe it’s crazy.

But.

I’d love to move on Labor Day weekend.

It will mark my 20 year anniversary of moving from Madison, Wisconsin, to the Mission District in San Francisco.

When I had a two month sublet, no job lined up, about 2k in savings, and a used two door Honda Accord (that I donated two weeks later after accruing six parking tickets) with my life packed into it.

How smashingly cool would it be to land myself in a loft, in the Mission, 20 years later?

Pretty fucking cool.

I can’t know what’s going to happen.

I’m not sitting on a big nest egg–I spent that on my surgeries last year, thinking I was giving up on the idea of buying a house.

But, I do feel like it’s possible.

Anything’s possible.

Right?

I got a PhD, my own psycho-therapy business, a car, I mean.

Fuck.

I have come a long, long, long way from juggling three to four to five jobs, and riding all over the city on my one speed to get from one gig to the next.

Hey, Mister Banker Man, I want to buy a house.

This girl’s got a dream.

Let’s make it happen!

Seriously.

Almost Over

The jet lag.

I forget that it takes a bit longer for me to adjust on the way back.

I was sitting at the park watching one of my charges swing and suddenly I got whacked with the tired’s.

I looked at my phone and realized it was 1 a.m. Paris time.

Of course.

I am still surprised that my body doesn’t adjust as fast as I think it will.

But I only had to take a look at the baby this morning as he fell asleep with his head down on the table, to see how powerful it is when we mess with our time clocks.

He was so sweet and out hard.

He didn’t wake up, although he fussed a little, when I removed him from the high chair and got him snuggled down for his nap.

I had a moment of wishing to just hold him and let him sleep against me, but the other two monkeys are with me full-time this week, school’s not yet back in for them, and it would have been too much to juggle a sleeping baby on me and two high energy kids on top of it.

As the case was, the little lady decided to help mom with chores and the eldest and I played Monopoly.

He’s really quite good for an 8-year-old, but he had a hard time with losing.

I didn’t rig it, I won, yes, I am that person, I am the person that will beat a kid at a game.

And not because I’m an asshole.

My mom was an asshole to me the first time I learned how to play Monopoly and was extremely competitive, she and her friends would have Monopoly parties that went on for hours and hours and days at a time.

They would leave the board set up in the kitchen and keep playing until there was a winner.

I was quite fascinated by it and at some point I learned how to play.

I learned how to be cut throat.

It wasn’t much fun.

Although the competitiveness of it was a kind of excitement that I had not experienced before that ramped me way up.

No.

I wasn’t trying to be an asshole, but I was trying to show him what it felt like to lose.

He’d rather win.

What kid wouldn’t?

But he’s also smart enough to know if I was throwing a game.

I have been tempted to before, he likes a couple of card games and he’ll get super upset if I win, but he also notices if I’m not playing with my all, so I just stay honest and play like I mean it.

Which is how I played the Monopoly today.

And he was good, not great, but good, and I could see that he was super into getting the money and collecting the properties and building the little houses and hotels up.

He was also expecting to win and a bit flabbergasted when he didn’t.

I told him how proud I was of him for figuring out big words, and for doing math problems and for playing as long as he did.

I also gently pointed out that there were things that he did super well, that he had ideas about how to make investments on his properties and figured out that he should put more houses on the properties that were landed on most often.

He was picking up strategy.

He didn’t much want to hear it, but I told him anyway, and when he realized that the person with all the money was the winner he went quite socialist on me and it was so sweet.

He decided to make up his own game where all the hotels became public housing and there were gardens and places people could go and get soup and be fed and it was so endearing to watch him draw it out on pieces of paper and talk about how having all the money wasn’t the most important thing.

I don’t know that he’s going to remember our game of Monopoly down the line, but it felt like a little victory, a win even though he’d lost, that he figured out that money wasn’t the most important thing.

It was probably pancakes.

He adores pancakes and I obliged this morning and made him breakfast (and lunch and dinner).

It was a lot of cooking today, but I don’t mind, I do like cooking for them and often I will make things I don’t myself eat, which is fine, I’m not tempted, it’s actually rather nice.

I used to love to bake before I got abstinent from sugar and flour, so it’s rather soothing and fun for me to cook for the family, I get the joy of making things that others enjoy and pancakes were definitely on that list.

So too, apple pie.

Which I will be making two of tomorrow.

I wasn’t expecting that, but dad’s got company coming over and a big request was made for my apple pie.

I don’t mind really, it’s nice, like I said to bake, and truth be told it does make my day go faster.

It will definitely eat up some time.

Which I’m all about on Fridays.

So despite the bit of jet lag, I am making it through.

One more day of work and then a very busy weekend.

I have an early interview on Saturday for a private practice internship, then a dentist appointment, then group supervision, a nail salon date for myself, a get together to do the deal, and then a late dinner with my person.

And Sunday will be full too.

But I’m not there yet.

One more day to go.

Thank God it’s almost Friday.

Feel The Burn!

Although.

Honestly.

I’d rather not.

I’m rather over feeling the fucking burn.

It fucking hurts.

I’ve been having some horrendous silent reflux.

Silent, as in I don’t burp with it, there’s not a discernible regurgitation happening, but, oh man, it’s there, and the pain, well, it’s not silent at all.

I, on the other hand, have been pretty silent about it.

I’ve been rather, grin and bear it.

But about four, five months ago I just could not do it anymore and I went and saw a doctor, with whom I had a follow-up appointment with today.

As my symptoms have not gone away despite being on a three-month dosage of medication to ease the acid in my tummy.

After going over all my food stuff again–no citrus, no peppers, easy on the tomatoes, nothing sour, no alcohol, nothing too fatty–I pretty much cleared everything but coffee.

I have definitely lessened my intake of the beverage, but I’m still drinking it.

I sort of feel like you can pry coffee from my cold dead hands.

Because frankly that’s what it’s going to feel like to not be able to drink it.

I have noticed that the reflux is worse if I drink any in the afternoons, it got bad Saturday when I was in school and had a coffee on a break with one of my friends in cohort.

And today, although it was decaf, I did notice an upsurge of the acid this afternoon and despite taking a second dose of the medication, it’s been pretty horrendous all day.

Then again, it could also be stress.

And let me not belabor the point.

I have stress in my life.

I work full-time in a caring profession, my doctor warned against ‘care taker burnout’ which is feasible, I work a lot for my family and it was a stressful past three weeks with a lot of sick kiddos to contend with.

(Then again, I’ve been a caretaker all my life.  I’m not sure I know how not to be).

And.

I also am a psychotherapist in training, so holding space for 7-8 clients a week, after care taking the family I nanny with, could, yes, contribute to burn out.

Oh.

And let me not forget I’m in grad school full-time.

Plus.

Well.

Personal work and relational grief have been at the top of my charts now for months, god, of course I have an upset stomach.

But.

I think it’s not just the stress, although it is very likely to be a contributor.

I think there is something else wrong and so does my doctor.

So I have to rule out a bunch of stuff.

Number one.

H. Pylori.

Which is a stomach infection that causes ulcers.

If it’s this, which in some way I sure hope it is, the lab test will let me know.

I have to, ugh, do a stool sample.

Never fucking though I would be writing that in a blog post.

If I have the infection it is easily treatable with a heavy dose of antibiotics.

The doc said I’d have to do two weeks of antibiotics four times a day.

Not the most fun, but doable.

The other thing that it could be is that the sphincter muscle in the esophagus is not working right, thereby not closing and allowing stomach acid up into my esophagus and throat, my nose and mouth.

I have acid in my mouth all the time.

I hate it.

I can’t taste it.

But I can feel it.

Hurts my teeth.

I also have a pretty constant sore throat and a tickle that leads to a cough.

I am not sick like a traditional cold, but it sounds like I have a cold.

I also have a great deal of nausea.

I haven’t thrown up, but I have had dry heaves a few times and once or twice did think I was going to vomit during some super stressful emotional moments.

What ever the cause.

I’m over it.

It’s been a pretty consistent life thing to deal with and I am tired of it.

The doctor referred me to a specialist, who can’t see me for a month, so I’m going to try to book another appointment with another on the list of doctor referrals given to me.

Hopefully I can be seen sooner than a month.

I was also warned that should I vomit blood or pass blood I have to go to the ER immediately, that such a symptom is indicative of a bleeding ulcer and I’d need to be seen right away.

Great.

Just what I wanted to hear.

Or that it, the acid, could cause me to have esophageal cancer.

Nobody wants the cancer word thrown about.

Nobody.

So yeah, it could have been th decaf coffee I had with my charge at Maxfield’s today as he enjoyed an afterschool treat with me and wrangled the promise of me teaching him how to play Monopoly, the kid’s going to be great at it fyi, or it could have been the stress of being told I could have bleeding ulcers and cancer.

Happy Thursday!

Ugh.

I was pretty shook up after leaving the office and I had to go to a lab cross town to get the stuff for the stool sample, ugh, ugh, ugh, and then over to Walgreens to pick up more prescriptions for it, and I ended up being pretty teary at work when I showed up.

The mom just gave me the biggest hugs.

It was very sweet, she is so sweet to me.

Hell, I’m tearing up writing about.

And I realized.

I could use a lot of hugs.

So if you see me out and about, stop and say hello and give me a squeeze.

The hugs they do help.

And fingers crossed, this will all get figured out and it will be a very simple solution.

I’ve got faith.

I am being taken care of.

I always am.