it might be too late.

hi!

a lot has happened, and i had written and REALLY long blog post about everything and all my thoughts about it with clever links and such, but i kinda ran out of steam. it might be too late for the really detailed recap, so i'll do a quicker one, with the highlights.

the biggest highlight is selling my mom's house, FINALLY.

after a bunch of stops and starts and it seeming like it might not happen, it finally happened, though up until we saw the money in our bank account, we were still hanging out in a 'we'll see' limbic zone. i know i was afraid to get my hopes up, after things falling apart with the sale the first time.

it's such a miracle that the house sold at all, in this economy, and makes me wonder why these buyers wanted the house so bad, but i'm certainly not complaining. just saying. it was really lucky for us. it was lucky for the buyers, too, since the house is gorgeous and obviously a good buy, being sold for considerably less than it is appraised for, but still. we were worried we'd have to sit on it forever.

with the house sold, we got to close the book on our involvement with allen. up to the last days it was looking like he might fuck the whole thing up, in his own special allen way, but it happened, anyway, thank goodness. it's nice to know there is no reason why i HAVE to answer the phone if he calls; nice to know all remaining ties between us, of unfinished business, are gone. i owe him nothing now, and have no reason to even believe i'll hear from him again. while there is considerable joy associated with that, and SO much relief, there's also some sadness. though he was a source of incredible discomfort and negativity in my life, he was also another connection to my mom. he was crazy and a total asshole, a weirdo and a giant problem, but he loved my mom just as much as i did, and he was the only other person who was as deeply affected by her death as me. i wish we'd been able to share that a bit more. it sucks that his insanity was like a solid wall between us, totally impossible to get through. he didn't seem very interested in connecting about it, anyway, but it would've been nice if we hadn't had so much negativity between us. for a lot of reasons, obviously.

with the house out of my name, and the mortgage paid off, we have a lot more money per month for other stuff. it also means shannon doesn't have to say 'yes' to every single job he's offered, because he can afford to not work for a bit, since we're not trying to digest two mortgage payments, two sets of property taxes. hello, fancy tropical vacation! i've been wanting a really big vacation pretty much since mom got sick, and have taken a bunch of smaller ones, staying with loved ones in LA and NY, but i really want a lying-around-with-drinks-in-coconuts vacation, that looks like a cerveza commercial. that's a possibility now, with the money from the sale of the house and the added money per month that we'll have. i can say truthfully, without a hint of self-effacing or bragging, that we fucking deserve one.

we each got new laptops! they're so sexy and little and light, it's awesome. obvs they're macs. i got the macbook and shannon got the macbook pro, since he's a bit more of a 'power user' than me. it's actually ridiculous how little of my computer i use, in general.

in other news, i've had the flu for a couple of weeks. fever and sore throat for two days in the beginning of last week, then fading to a gnarly cough and copious amounts of yuckiness in my sinuses. i'd like to get more graphic about them because it's a total medical freak show in there, but i'll save it. if you want to details, email me, i'm happy to supply more details. suffice it to say, it's not pretty.

i pulled it together for a saturday afternoon departure for los angeles with shannon. a couple of movies he worked on last year were nominated for awards from the sound editors organization (like the oscars for the sound business), a guy shannon works with was being given his lifetime achievement award, and lots of people from up here were heading down for the awards ceremony, so we decided to go to. in hindsight it was a really dumb idea, totally not worth the trouble, but we did it anyway. i still wasn't feeling the best, but i felt good enough, i thought, so we drove down. we got there about 45 minutes before the dinner started, so we rushed in and changed. shannon looked very dapper in his new suit jacket and shirt and tie, with jeans and some fancy man shoes. (we didn't have time to get his pants tailored and they looked a little silly, but the jeans looked awesome, and were actually more 'him' anyway.) i dressed up, too, looked totally fine, in a new dress and new fancy shoes. my voice had gotten really hoarse and croaky, so i had a rough night trying to chat with people. it was a struggle to make myself heard over the ambient noise, but i persevered. (like anne frank, over here.) neither of shannon's movies won, but it was still fun to see everyone all dressed up and chat with some of my favorites of shannon's co-workers. the meal was nyeh.

by the end of the awards show, my voice was pretty much blown and i was really tired, so i snuck out, without saying my goodbyes, which weighed on me, and headed up to the room to crawl into bed. i couldn't sleep because of the indecorous amounts of fluid in my sinuses, and the gods were cruel in their TV programming. (so unfair! i don't have a TV and only watch TV in hotels or at other people's house, so it's kind of a special occasion!) shannon stayed and hobnobbed for a long, long time, and didn't get back to the room until 1:30am or so, which was unfortunate for both of us, because we had to leave at 5am for the drive home because my friend's baby shower was at noon in marin. oof.

one of my skills is coping well on limited sleep, which is very useful. so, i told myself that i wasn't going to SLEEP, i was laying down for NAP. pretty impressive, huh? it worked like a charm! i woke up tired, but not groggy and miserable, though by mid-morning i was pooped. the drive was long and boring, as usual, though the rain has made the central valley really green, so it was less ugly than usual.

i got to the baby shower in time, despite some rain-related traffic on the way. my voice was pretty much completely gone, and i had a terrible sounding cough, so i checked in with the mama, to see if my wretched soundingness would be unwelcome, and after she checked with her mom, who's a nurse, she said it was fine. i'm really glad i went, too, because it was tremendously beautiful, in a way that i've never experienced with traditional baby showers.

first, a bunch of my best ladies were there, and we've all been friends for over ten years, and it was pretty amazing being there to celebrate the first one of us moving into motherhood. we don't get together a lot, aside from major occasions, and the last times i've seen all of them have been sad ones - my mom's funeral, ana's mom's funeral, some birthdays. it was nice to be in a not sad, not loud gathering with them, where we could really talk.

the shower itself was much more of a rite of passage ceremony, marking zoe's transition from the maiden phase of her life, into motherhood. her mom was there, running things, as were a whole circle of ladies of all different ages, celebrating the transition. there were lots of tears and lots of laughter. in my head, that kind of thing sounds uncomfortable and embarrassing, but it was perfect and lovely and warm and beautiful and i was very thankful to be included. made me a bit baby yearny, but not insanely so. just a little jealous, managably so.

it also made me miss my mom a lot, and wish she was alive still to throw me a magical, goddess-y baby shower. just another of the myriad things i wish she was here to do, but it was painful being in such a motherhood-centric space and gathering, knowing my mom is dead and i don't have that anymore. i've been a little raw about mom again, with selling the house and saying adieu to allen. it's the closing of another chapter of mom's life, and there aren't really anymore of those, that i can think of. yeah, allen was a huge problem for us, and the entire situation with him is still such a throbbing OUCH in my head and heart, but he was mom's partner and was a part of her and a connection to her life. with each chapter closed, it's almost like she didn't live. not really, but a bit. there are less and less reminders, as the physical artifacts of her life are dispersed, and the people spread out. being at the house was so good-bad, and inheriting it was like everything else that was left over, where the reminder was both extremely painful and also comforting. so, losing that was great, because i have one less irritant, but still.

as i'm struggling to recover from the flu, my wisdom teeth have begun to really bother me. lame timing, body. not cool. so, full of snot and coughing, i met with an oral surgeon today, to get them taken out. just the toppers. i guess i don't have bottom ones. (because i have absorbed them, and their accompanying wisdom already, probably. that's what got me through mom's death.) so, removal next week. i've never had nitrous oxide, and i get to take valium, too. so, that's something. i'm really sick of coughing and having to sleep with my mouth open so i can breath through my mouth. i'll be thankful when this all dries up.

i signed up for a workshop next month. i'll talk more about that later, though. it's a long story.