Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

Thursday: drinks and chat with a gorgeous woman in latex — who's almost exactly half my age, and therefore my son's age. Hey, at least this one is queer.

Friday: mastered meatloaf, slept for about ten hours.

Earlier today: buying a watering can. You'd think that as a crazy plant lady I'd have one already, but I finally got tired of trips to the sink and spilling water with fertilizer mixed into it.

Later today: devil girl manufacturing, perhaps the Mercury. The Mighty Orb seems to have taken a short break.

Woman #1: Good Sister was in LA visiting my filmmaker niece M1. She called to give me an update about the mom's house... which she can't really do anything about until she gets home tomorrow. In any case, the plan is to get a new real estate agent, make improvements the new agent suggests, and yank the place off the market for a couple of weeks*.

Oh, and for GS to legally finish with the estate? Does not require the sale of the house, says a better lawyer than she had before. In fact, this better lawyer told Good Sister not to waste money hiring a new one. Hurrah for Good Sister! And, I guess, the United Sister Front, since the money paying for this belongs to all of us.

Mental note: if I ever make it down to LA again, drop M1 a line and see if she wants to get something to eat.

Woman #2: Speaking of eats, Dancer wanted to have cheap eats, debrief me about Petting Zoo, and make (ahem) plans for the weekend. Done, and thoroughly enjoyed. There are many far worse ways to spend a Monday evening.



*Apparently that isn't long enough to "delist" the house. To do that it would have to be off the market for 90 days, which none of us want to do.

So I mentioned my successful experiment in sleeping with a bonnet, but that still left tying my hair back in the shower. And why? The bathroom in the old Devil Girl Pad didn't have a fan, which meant that my shower cap mildewed.

But! I've been in the Devil Girl House for not quite three years now, and it finally dawned on me a few weeks ago that my bathrooms are mildew-free. Why not try again with a shower cap? I did, and reader, it's working. My hair looks better, and the cap dries out just fine.

This may seem like the most minute of minutiae, but hey, everyone loves a good hair day.

In other news, I'm almost halfway through The Expanse series. The books, that is. See you in June sometime, maybe.

I live in one of over a dozen recently built townhouses on my block. I can see five others from my living room.

A few days ago I noticed that one of them had its blinds open and all of its lights on 'round the clock. It looks impeccably tidy inside. I checked its front door yesterday. Sure enough, there's a lockbox on the front door, but no for-sale sign. I'm guessing it's an AirBnB now.

Never mind how AirBnB has distorted housing markets around the world for a second, even if that could theoretically work to my financial advantage. I would much rather have houses near mine occupied by people who live there. It's better for safety and livability.

The location doesn't even make sense to me. I think my neighborhood is a terrific place to live, but as a place to visit it's nothing special. If I wanted to stay anywhere near my place for the short term, whether recreational or occupational I'd go half a mile downhill, closer to the much larger commercial concentration.

The fellow who lived in that house last year helped me get my heavy telescoping ladder to my house, which was mighty decent of him. Is he the landlord now? Now I don't feel so bad about not inviting him to my Halloween party.

I've been spending my evenings cleaning like a fiend because I'm having people over on Saturday. That includes cleaning the railings out front, which I haven't done in the two-and-a-half years that I've lived here. They had thick dust on them that turned sponges black quickly. I can't help but wonder a) what's in it and b) how much of it have I been inhaling? I do live half a block from a very busy arterial.

Oh: East Neighbor's dad apparently removed a bunch of weeds poking out between the pavers on both our properties. I should thank them. I wonder if any of them know or care where the property line is.

I had another talk with Good Sister about the sale of Mom's house. Niece E has moved out — I hope GS have her a big break on the rent — and the house is now listed.

But can we legally sell it yet? Uh, not quite. There's one more thing that the court has to do for us, and our lawyer was in a car accident recently. Good Sister was born with her umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, and that has set the tone for much of her life to date.

Nevertheless, we've had an offer. It's nearly 7% below ask, which is a thing that doesn't happen where I live. GS read the offer in detail, and she says it's because they're at the limit of what they can borrow. We sympathize, but GS doesn't want to accept such an offer even if she could right now.

The irony there is that this sale is the last of a years-long series of irritations for Good Sister. If she wanted to rush through, I wouldn't blame her. She asked me, "Are you hard up?"
"No," I said. And it's true. But it speaks well of her that she asked. Good Sister: a pain in the butt to live with, but the salt of the earth.

Oh: Evil Sister provided us with some real estate market intelligence. House flippers are uncommon in Gainesville, FL, except in areas closer to the U of F where there are a lot of students. My old neighborhood isn't such an area.

It occurs to me that someday somebody is going to tear up the brick sidewalks that my father laid with his own thands, hurting himself and swearing all the way. And somebody's going to undo my mother's attempts at improvement that were done with questionable taste and competence late in her life. Maybe someday another child will live in the bedroom just north of the master bedroom; I hope it makes them freaky and geeky.

Saturday: lunch with cupcake_goth's pal T. I got to show her around lower Fremont and buy a couple of things, namely a little mead and a lavender to replace one of the hydrangeas that the builders planted in direct sun. Nice & mellow.

I'd planned to hit the Merc with Dancer Saturday night, but she was in some wedding-related drama with her sister and wasn't feeling it physically, due to poor sleep, or emotionally. I was disappointed, but I understand. I told her the tale of my Good and Evil Sisters, which she found a bit shocking.

And speaking of Evil Sister, she & I have exchanged mailing addresses — directly, and without Good Sister on the text thread! It's the first one-on-one communication that we've had in sixteen years. Might this be the beginning of something? Wayell, I don't have my hopes up. So far she's acting as if she never treated me like shit, which isn't OK.

But back to the Merc: a lovely time was had. I wore my spiky black bra and scratched people with it. I danced in heels for the first time in months and wrecked my feet a little. I was annoyed to see that the late-night schedule on the bus home from the U District has changed to hourly. It seems that the optimal time to catch the train is 0030; I left too early.

Sunday: art at Base Camp Studios with Tacoma Girl, and then at her suggestion Uwajimaya for grocery shopping, which both of us badly needed to do. I really like hanging out with her, and no, that's not dirty.

Dinner at Meesha with the Womanhandler, a drink and very trans chat at Mr. B's, and then some womanhandling until I got tired. I don't regret shifting my schedule to the mornings, but it does put a crimp in my dating life.

During one of the wee hours, my intestines emptied out rather dramatically. What did I eat that caused it? Either Meesha, which I don't want to believe because it was delicious, or the badly needed snack on the way home from Uwajimaya.

Good Sister has sent the other two of us the first paperwork for selling Mom's house. I think she's working ahead in the grandest GS style.

Edited to add: Sometime shortly before I finished my bike ride yesterday, I punctured my back tube. The back tire is bald and I found a crack in it through which I could see daylight, but I felt around for something stuck in the tire, found something, and extracted it. Or so I thought: I replaced the tube, but that one's now flat too. I'll be getting my exercise today by walking to a bike shop and getting a new tire and tubes. Le sigh. But honestly, it had been a long time since I had this kind of problem, and I really need to replace that tire before the fall rains. I'm kind of proud of myself for completely trashing a bike tire in less than a year and a half.

After a sugaring appointment rendered a little chaotic by a four-year-old* I took the bus to the train, and then got the Wendling to pick me up because the 50 is the most useless bus route in Seattle. And where did this epic journey take me?

To Both Ways Cafe, where Ex was having a party for her sixtieth birthday. The food was amazing, of course, because Ex made most of it, and much of it was gluten free. Ex's brother, niece, nephew, cousins, dog trainer lady, rabbi, etc. were all there. Some of them flew in from California, but I was still the best dressed person there. In a few cases it took me several minutes to remember people's names despite sobriety. They remembered mine, of course.

It was kind of trippy telling Exbrother's bi daughter, whom I've known since she was a baby, about the Wildrose. Ex's childhood friend P, who's been having some success at writing (!), tells me she's given up on dating. Mayunn, het men need to suck less, especially the ones around sixty years old.

But Ex provided me with another reason to be there: I commissioned from her a pair of red ceramic horns to the balcony on the front of the Devil Girl House. You see, the ones that I have made of red tape and wire haven't withstood the elements despite some serious coating applied. They look perfect, and I intend to install them today. I have some neoprene to use as padding, which I think will be necessary.



*The lady who does my sugaring has a young son who inherited ADHD from both of his parents. He's... a handful, and his mother doesn't really have a reliable alternative to having him with her there at the salon. I feel sorry for her. And I'm glad I wore boots there yesterday because he broke some glass.

I used most of my tax refund to pay off my sewer connection charge. That means I saved $1200 spread over eight years, which could easily have been a wash due to inflation. However, non-payment of that bill is one less thing that can go wrong now. And if anybody ever needs to sell the Devil Girl House, that's one less thing standing in the way. Go me, I think. I occasionally act like an adult.

I fulfilled a promise to seelenschwester and went to the Mercury in the full Devil Girl outfit, including the murderous boots. (I'd meant to wear it for either Christmas or New Year's, but I was sick for both.) It took a while for the night to get rolling and I was crashing by 2330, but I did get to see A and bond over "Cars" by Gary Numan. I also got to show Dancer the glory that is the Devil Girl.

And another good part of the Merc outing: I didn't see Temptress's trash boyfriend. I didn't see her either, unfortunately, but it's still a win.

Over dinner* last night, my son and I started talking about taxes. He said something about the tax implications of moving in with me.
I stared at him, and told him that since he's a renter, there are no tax implications. "Don't you know the difference between renting and owning?"
"Yeah, but..."
"You don't own the place unless your name is on the title."

Characteristically, he told me to just forget it. But I didn't, natch. This is just another example of the bizarre ideas that just... appear inside his head from no source that I can identify. I can only speculate that I'd told him about the mortgage interest tax deduction, and he somehow thought that would magically apply to him.

I texted Ex. She, too, thinks it's odd, but she's not as concerned. I'm sitting here wondering what other... happy horseshit? Baubles of bullshit? Have materialized in his head. As if autism, ADHD, and anxiety weren't bad enough, the Wendling occasionally sees reality through something that makes it much prettier than it is. Maybe it's the flip side of anxiety, the voice that told him to drive down a steep hill on an unplowed side street to buy a magazine.

What do I do?



*Welsh rarebit, salad, and blueberries.