Schadenfreude

While I've never been above a good gloat, schadenfreude in and of itself has never appealed to me.

Schadenfreude, the German word that translates literally as "HarmJoy", describes the state of being happy at someone else's misfortune.

I don't enjoy watching other people suffer.  When someone falls down on the ice or walks into a door, I don't think it's funny.  I cringe.

But when there's some sort of poetic justice in it, when karma bites someone on the ass, I'm not above gloating.  For example, when a homophobe discovers he has a gay son or when a selfish rich prick loses all their wealth, I enjoy it not because I inherently enjoy other people's pain, but because I like justice.

+++++

I've been feeling something like schadenfreude this week as the saga with our Buyer From Hell (BFH) comes to a close. This was the woman who for four weeks kept Betrothed's condo off the market while making our life hell.  We gave her two deadlines to finally pay the balance of her earnest money, and BFH continued to stall and make demands. I was feeling the need to jam a pencil into this woman's neck.

When she ignored our last deadline and sent a nasty message to our lawyer, Betrothed told the lawyer, "I'm through with this buyer."  We had the lawyer terminate the contract and put the condo back on the market.  We decided that the stress of having to try to sell the condo was less than the stress of dealing with this woman for another 6-8 weeks (until the closing.) 

The horror is over.  She can't hurt us anymore.  Now the healing can begin...

Even BFH's realtor apologized to us for her behavior, which made it clear that we're not the only people who thought she was a pain in the ass. Four days later her lawyer sent a message saying the contract had been canceled.  She ended with, "I am very sorry for all of the work that everyone has done on behalf of this matter.  I hardly think that an apology suffices."

So now both her realtor and her lawyer had apologized for her.  Maybe next it will be her dog?

+++++

Here's where the schadenfreude comes in. We heard from our realtor that BFH's realtor was so exasperated by her that she dumped her.  I didn't know you could be fired by your realtor, but, wow, she must have really been terrible if her own realtor didn't even want her business any more.

But it gets better.  Betrothed's condo was only on the market for two days when another buyer came along.  Not only did the buyer offer $5K more than BFH had offered, but she paid all of her earnest money immediately, and even moved the closing date to one that was more convenient for us.  Squee!!  We're keeping our fingers crossed, but if this buyer doesn't flake out (like so many have), all the troubles with BFH may have been worth it.

And here's the icing on the whole HarmJoy cake.  A few days later, we got an email from BFH's realtor.  She received a voicemail from BFH saying that now that now she had some time think about it, she realized that the place was perfect for her and would like to try again to buy it.  The subject line that her realtor wrote was: "OMG - [BFH] is back and wants the property..."

Sorry, we've found a new buyer who treats us much better than you did. 
       

Lies, Damn Lies, and Real Estate

A Den of Lies: The Sequel

Our real estate adventure is way short on sex, but it makes up for it in lies.

Two more lies I've learned about real estate this week:

1. When a realtor says an issue will be settled in the next day or two, it's a lie.  (In this case, it's been 11 days and it's still not settled.)

2. Earnest money is a lie.  A buyer can back out of a deal for no reason and still get their earnest money back. They can jerk you around, stall, keep trying to change the agreement, and if the deal falls through, you still have to sue them for the earnest money.  This lie makes me so mad I could spit.  What's the point of this "deposit" if it has no teeth?

+++++
 
The nutjob who's trying to buy Betrothed's condo tried to back out this week.  Her reason?  She doesn't think her tiny 7-pound dog can get up the stairs.

She's been stalling for weeks about paying the balance of her earnest money, while at the same time hounding us about getting all of her contractors into the place so she can renovate before she moves in.  After one contractor found what he thought were a bunch of electrical issues (the official home inspector found none), we put a stop to that and said she would not have any more access to the place until she paid her earnest money.  We've offered her $2000 to fix all this stuff, way more than it will cost or she deserves.  Yet she keeps asking for all these niggling little things that have nothing to do with us.  (E.g. She says the "intercom" is broken.  Um, there is no intercom.  There's a buzzer to let people in.  That's all.)  You're not ordering a custom-built unit.  You're buying a home.  Why won't someone explain to this woman how this works? And we shouldn't even be having this conversation until you PAY YOUR EARNEST MONEY!!!! Argh.       

Give me da fuckin money!!!  Goodfellas know how to get results. 

The inspection and earnest money should have been taken care of a week after the deal was made.  It's been almost four weeks. 

+++++

But back to the 7-pound dog.  Communicating between me and Betrothed, her realtor, her lawyer, her loan officer, and the buyer, her realtor, her lawyer, her loan officer, and her 17 contractors has been a huge game of telephone.  By the time I hear something, it's been through 9 people.

It turns out the issue isn't that the dog can't get up the stairs, it's that the condo policy is that dogs are not allowed to walk up and down the front steps of the building (but the back steps are fine.)  So to get her dog in and out the front door (but not the back), the buyer would have to carry the dog to the second floor.  From the buyer's lawyer: "Having to carry the 7 lb dog down the front stairs is a deal breaker for the Buyer." To which our lawyer commented, "UGH. cannot believe it comes down to this.. carrying a dog down stairs is a deal breaker."

See how easy it is?  (Not our actual buyer.)

Which is also when we learned that even if the buyer pulls out for this stupid reason, she could still get her earnest money back.  That just made me livid.  She's wasted four weeks of our time during prime real estate season, and we don't get anything for our inconvenience?  

Argh, UGH, and WTF? 

+++++

What I'm learning is real estate is fluid and situations change on an hourly basis. Here's how the situation stands right now:  Last night the condo board voted out the rule prohibiting dogs to walk in the front steps.  So Miss Hissyfit got her way.   

I'll bet our buyer is the kind of woman who carries her dog around in her purse

We are giving her exactly one day to pay the rest of the earnest money.  If she doesn't, we're walking away and putting the house back on the market.  Frankly, I think I'd rather do that than deal with this woman for the next 4-6 weeks.  Because I guarantee you some other issue is going to come up and she'll threaten to walk again.  

But we are firmly decided that she will NOT see the inside of the condo again until the closing.  She has no right to come in and demand things-- to act like she owns the place-- until she actually owns the place.

A Den of Lies

Between the two of us, my betrothed and I are selling two homes and buying one.  That's a lot of real estate moving around at the same time.  (We're also planning a wedding and honeymoon and I'm trying to find a job.  There are a lot of moving parts here.)

After two+ months of swimming in the real estate pool, here's what I've learned:

Real estate is a den of lies.

As a stickler who values truth, forthrightness, and rules, this stuff drives me crazy.  Let's start with the realtors who go incommunicado on me.  Even my new realtor, who I really like, is kinda flaky.  I don't know how many times he's said he was going to do something and then not done it.  It's mostly little stuff, and I'm hoping he turns out to be the harmless kind of flaky.  When he does show up, he does a great job.  But it remains to be seen whether his confidence about selling my house translates into him actually selling my house.

No trickery please, just sell my house.

And then there's the buyer for my betrothed's condo.  She's been eight different kinds of crazy and annoying.  I won't go into all the details, but let's just say that three weeks after her offer was accepted, she still hasn't signed off on the inspection or put the rest of her earnest money down.  (This was supposed to be done five days after the acceptance.)  And yet she's still hounding us about letting her contractor in to the place, and her windows guy, and her electrician, her accountant, her florist, her medium, her hairdresser.  (Okay, those last few are made up, but that's what it feels like.)  Hey, you want access to our condo?  Sign the fucking papers already!  Pay your earnest money!  These are The Rules.  She doesn't seem to understand that unfettered access to a house before she's bought it is a favor, not a right.  Oh, and get this: she's received mail at the place!

I'm not good at this.

And there there are the flaky buyers we're competing with to find a place of our own.  We've seen several houses that we were interested in go "under contract."  This means that an offer has been accepted, and pending the inspection and financing, the house is off-limits to all other buyers. But in three (3!) cases, a house that went under contract was quickly not under contract anymore.  Somehow, the deal fell through almost immediately.  In each case, it happened too quickly for there to have been an inspection or financing issue come up.  How does that happen?  I asked our realtor about it, and she said that it seems like buyers are making a quick offer on something that they don't really want or can't afford.  Then they get Buyer's Remorse and back out of it.  Really?  WTF is wrong with people?

Here's an idea:  Don't make an offer worth hundreds of thousands of dollars unless you're serious.

+++++

Which is how we came to buy the same house twice in one week.  After a week of haggling on a house we really wanted, the sellers accepted our highest possible offer.  I went to the tennis workout Saturday morning telling people, "Sorry I'm late.  I bought a house this morning!"  That afternoon I got a call from my betrothed:  Before we'd been able to sign any papers, someone else had swooped in and offered $15K more than our highest offer.  WTF?     

We went back to the drawing board and made an offer on our backup choice.  (Another case in which it was under contract then went off it.)  But then we had to deal with another annoying buyer. On the same day we made that offer, the sellers told us that they had another offer, and asked what our absolute top offer would be.  They wanted us to engage in a bidding war.

Our bidding war was not quite this sleazy.

When we provided our highest number, we didn't hear from them for two days.  Then we got a vague rejection that sounded fishy.

I'm sorry if I sound paranoid, but there's been too much weird shit going on.  I don't trust people anymore.  Although we were supposed to be in a bidding war, House #2 remains, 8 days later, active with no indication that it's under contract or contingency or anything.  Was there really a second buyer?

Meanwhile, as we were planning to look at another round of houses, and even consider apartments to rent, House #1 was suddenly available again.  Those buyers who swooped in at the last minute and offered way more than we did?  They disappeared.  So we made the same offer we'd made five days earlier.  The sellers accepted.

We wanted to lock it down quickly, so we scheduled the inspection real quick-like.  Before the inspection I asked Betrothed, "What would we have to discover that would be a dealbreaker?  Termites?  Mold?  Dead bodies?"

Betrothed: "Well, dead bodies wouldn't really affect the house."

Me: "Seriously? You would still buy a house with fresh dead bodies in the crawlspace?"

Betrothed: "They could be removed.  They don't affect the structure."

That's what I love about her:  logical and practical.

Luckily, the inspection didn't turn up anything more sinister than an aging roof that will need to be replaced in the next year.  We can handle that.  Otherwise, the house is in great shape.  It's a great deal in a great location.  I can't wait to move in and make it ours.  But we're scared about getting too excited.

So we're cautiously optimistic that we'll have a place to live by this summer.

 

Incommunicado

It's funny to me that we have a word in English that is so clearly Spanish: incomunicado.  I know there are lots of loan words from other languages in English (kindergarten, smorgasbord, bonsai, hula), but incommunicado seems different.  Maybe because it's an ordinary adjective and it sounds so much like an English word (uncommunicative) with a Spanish ending added on.  It's like Spanglish:  "So were over at the parent-os the other day and la mama was very incommunicado..."  And there's nothing about the meaning of incommunicado that is inherently Spanish or Latin American.  It just means out of contact.

+++++

Anyway, this post is not about linguistics, but communication.  Lately it seems that lots of people just suck at it.

The caterer we hired for our wedding is very nice, eager, and competent, except that he never emails when he says he will.  Twice now he's said he'll send us the menu over email and he hasn't.

A tailor that my betrothed was trying to get to make her dress kept saying she would get back to her, but never did.  So she's moved on to other options

I fired my realtor because she was taking too long to get back to me.  The last time it took her six days to respond to an email about setting up an appointment to meet.  Then her suggestion was a week later than when I wanted to meet.  This made it difficult for me to plan things.  I have a life outside my realtor, you know. 

(When I told my realtor I was going to "go in a different direction"-- a euphemism I've encountered all too often in job rejection letters-- she responded within two hours.  Oh, I guess THAT got your attention!  She said she was shocked and sad to hear this news.  I almost responded, but decided it was best to just let the conversation die.  Two days later, she called me on my cell while I was out buying groceries.  I had a very uncomfortable conversation with her in the parking lot of the supermarket.  Her daughter has cancer and that's why she was preoccupied.  I'm very sorry to hear about your daughter, but I really just wanted to get my house ready to sell.) 

Another professional contact took five days to get back to me, apologized for the delay and promised to be more responsive in the future.  I responded, he responded with a quick, "I will get back to you shortly."  Then it took four more days for him to respond.

When I was shopping around for a new realtor, I emailed someone who had been recommended to me.   She never responded.  It's been two and a half weeks and she totally ignored my initial message.  Not even to say, "Sorry, but I don't have time to take you on." 

So there seems to be a case of incommunicado going around.  (And I realize that I'm not using that word entirely correctly.  Officially it means someone who's not able to communicate, not someone who's just too busy to.)  It really does seem weird that so many people are so bad at simple communication.  I wonder if it has to do with modes of communication.  My preferred method is email, but maybe lots of people, especially people who don't sit at a desk all day, don't see it as very urgent.  Another theory is that people are just too damn busy these days.  [Shakes fist at computer like an angry old man.]

My high school English teacher used to say that millions of dollars are lost every year in business due to poor communication. I can think of some specific businesses that have lost some of my money for that very reason.  

Portmandia

I'm always a little bit behind the times, but let's talk about the news last week that Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman has changed his mind on gay rights.  Because his son came out to him, now Portman believes that homosexuals are human beings who deserve the same rights as everyone else.

"That's no homo, that's my son!"

While I want to give Portman credit for owning up to his previous homophobia and doing the right thing-- plenty of other high-profile conservatives have been in the same situation but have not had the same "come (out) to Jesus" moment-- it's hard for me to give him major props for simply becoming a decent human being.

When I first heard this news on the radio, my reaction was not, "Yay for him!" but rather, "Why is it that Republicans only seem to care about social issues when they are personally affected by it?"

This, to me, seems to be a crucial difference between conservatives and liberals.  Liberals try empathize with minorities and others who are less fortunate-- they fight for rights not because it helps them personally, but because it's the right thing to do, and it makes the whole country better when the "least" of us (as Jesus said) are taken care of.  Conservatives only seem to get interested in social issues when it affects them or someone close to them.

These were my own thoughts, but I was glad to see others had these same ideas, and said them much more eloquently.  From a post about Portman by Steve Benen on The MaddowBlog:

We've seen this a few too many times. A Republican will support Medicaid cuts right up until he sees the program up close, with his own eyes. Republicans will be skeptical about federal disaster relief right up until it's their community that sees devastation. Republicans are prepared to deny basic rights based on sexual orientation, right up until it's their loved one who's gay.

It seems the key to American social progress in the 21st century is simple: more conservatives having more life experiences.

Indeed, I'd be glad to introduce Republican lawmakers to more Americans who are poor, in the hopes they'll stop trying to cut health care programs; students, in the hopes they'll stop opposing education investments; women, in the hopes they'll stop opposing women's health care; and African Americans, in the hopes that they'll stop supporting voter-suppression tactics.

To be fair (fairness is another liberal value), I've often wondered if the reverse also isn't true.  There might indeed be life experiences that would make me more conservative.  If I were to meet more people who depend on social programs, perhaps I would see a lot of waste and inefficiency.  I'm sure there are people who take advantage of the system and who make lots of bad choices that would drive me nuts, and if I dealt with that every day, perhaps I wouldn't be such a huge supporter of "wasteful" government programs.

Perhaps.

But I also realize that, as a liberal, we have to accept some amount of waste in order to get the benefits of social programs.  I'd rather err on the side of helping those who need help rather than on the side of denying people who take advantage.  

I Paid For It

I'm not a big buyer of books.  I read a lot, but I usually get my books through the network of libraries I belong to/work at.  The exception are books that I really like and I want to reward the author with a purchase (David Sedaris, Bill Bryson, Elizabeth Gilbert) or books that are too risque to be found in the library (Dan Savage.)

Under normal circumstances I never would have paid money for a book called Paying For It: a comic strip memoir about being a john by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown.

What happened is that as I walked past a book store a while back, something in the window caught my eye.  It appeared to be an atlas of all the lands in Game of Thrones. (Actually the book series is called A Song of Fire and Ice, with Game of Thrones being the first book, but no one recognizes the series name, and plus it's stupid.  "Game of Thrones" sounds way better.)  As I've become obsessed with that world over the past few months, my betrothed encouraged me to buy the atlas.  I don't usually make such brash impulse purchases like that, but I threw caution (and $40) to the wind and bought the atlas.

It was a huge disappointment.  It wasn't actually an atlas but 10 maps folded into two sleeves.  Although the maps looked pretty, they didn't really give me any more information than the maps in the books do, and each map was a separate poster that I'd have to unfold individually to look at.  Each individual map was not easily labeled so it was hard to keep them straight.  I would have much preferred a real atlas that I could page through.

So with buyer's remorse I returned to the book store.  They wouldn't give me a cash refund, though, just store credit.  This was a fantasy/comic book store, so my options were limited.  When my eyes fell to Brown's comic memoir about paying for sex, I liked the tiny pictures and neat script, and was intrigued about the subject matter.  So I "paid for" the book, although I was really just using my store credit.  Does that count?

+++++

So let's talk about prostitution, shall we?  Brown's memoir is a mix of personal discovery, philosophy, and advocacy.  As he discovers and navigates the world of prostitution, he gets in lots of arguments with his friends about the ethics and legality of what he's doing.  

Let me start with where Brown and I agree.  Like him, I think prostitution should be legal.  Women (and men) should have the right to sell such services if they freely choose to do so.   

However, that's about the extent of our agreement.  I think prostitution should be legalized and regulated, so as to protect those in the industry from abuse, harassment, and being taken advantage of.  Brown, whose libertarian tendencies become more and more apparent as the book goes on, thinks it should only be "decriminalized."  Like most libertarians, he trusts government regulation less than he trusts pimps.

Brown's personal story of how he came to become a john is kind of sad.  Basically, he can't handle being in a romantic relationship because relationships are full of messy emotions where people sometimes have bad feelings.  He associates romantic love with pain, and therefore decides not to have any more girlfriends. Throughout the book he posits immature, cynical, and sad observations about love.  (i.e. love and marriage are "evil.")     

So what about sex?  How can he get sex if he's not willing to put in the work toward a real relationship?  His solution comes about in a slow evolution toward prostitution.  He can simply pay someone for that service.  And so the story winds through the dozens of different prostitutes that Brown patronizes over several years.   

[Mild spoiler alert. I talk about the end of the book below.  It's not a huge surprise ending, but if you plan to read it yourself, I'm giving away the, ahem, "anticlimactic" ending in the next paragraph.]  

Unfortunately, the story sort of fizzles out at the end.  After several years of sampling, Brown finds one prostitute whom he feels a strong connection with and stops seeing any others.  They have been in a "monogamous sexual relationship for years."  He pays her for sex, and loves her (though he is not "in love" with her), but never explains their unusual brand of monogamy. I understand he wants to protect her identity (he changes all prostitutes' names in the book), but he seems to gloss over one of the most interesting parts of the book.  How does he manage to create a monogamous relationship with someone he pays for sex?  Does that mean she doesn't have sex with any other men, either for money or for free?  Does he completely support her financially, or does she have a day job? He leaves the reader begging for details.    

+++++

Although I agree with Brown's main point that selling sex should not be a crime, so many of the arguments he makes in the book are annoying.  I don't personally have a problem with him seeing prostitutes.  If he's fulfilled, and the women are happy to get his money, then good for everyone involved.  In the book, most of his friends judge him for paying for sex.  If I were his friend, I don't think I'd be judgy--I'd like to hear more about his exploits.  (Like many men, I do find the idea of paying for sex titillating.  I could just pay a hot young woman to have sex with me?  Maybe because I'm perpetually a 14-year-old boy who's still amazed that any woman would have sex with me for any reason, this idea intrigues me.)  But while Brown is arguing for legalization (or "decriminalization") of prostitution, he seems to be trying really hard to convince his friends and readers (and maybe himself) that what he's doing is not wrong.  So much of the book feels like a personal plea for acceptance.  

One reviewer mentioned that all the faces of the prostitutes in his book are obscured, which dehumanizes them.  I thought it was to protect their identity

It's in the appendix where Brown's most obnoxious arguments come out.  Besides strawman arguments of extreme feminist positions, cynical rants against love, and the naive libertarian belief in an unregulated free market, some of his views are just bizarre.  

Brown claims that there is no moral difference between a wife having sex with her husband out of marital commitment and a prostitute having sex with a john for money.  There may not be any moral difference, but there certainly is an emotional difference.  It's not all about morality.    

Brown's not content to just legalize (and commercialize) prostitution, he wants to normalize it.  In one passage he envisions a future Utopia where prostitution has been legal for generations.  In the enlightened year of 2080, it's perfectly normal for a guy to offer any woman he knows money for sex.  Most men and women have done it-- it's just like dating.  Women don't find this offensive, and if they're not interested they just say no. Everyone's in complete control and no one is harmed or offended.  And the only thing stopping this beautiful arrangement? The evil government!

But here's the thing.  There are lots of services that are legal and normal now, and I would find it highly tacky to ask a friend or a co-worker to do it for me.  "Hey, could I give you $20 to wash my car?"  It has nothing to do with morality or legality, it's just creepy.  Why wouldn't it be the same for sex?  Reducing sex to a commodity where everyone buys or sells it is not a world I want to live in.  Although I'm fine with people paying for sex, I still want the main motivation for doing it to be love, affection, or mutual pleasure.  (Incidentally, sex for mutual pleasure seems to be conspicuously absent from any of Brown's points.)  Brown's dream to normalize paid sex seems to undercut any rational points he does make in the book, because he comes across as a crazy person.       

It's scary how much he looks like his drawings.  Despite this and some of his twisted (and damaged) attitudes toward relationships, he seems like a nice person who wants to do the right thing.  Or at least wants to be fair. 

  

grumble grumble february

At the risk of getting my ass kicked, I think I have a case of the Februaries.  

It may have started when I got a rejection letter from a job I was putting most of my hopes on.  Of all the positions I've applied for in preparation for my upcoming nuptials/move to Chicago, this was the one I was most qualified for.  They rejected me without even an interview.  I can only think of three explanations for this:  1.) they had several internal candidates and they couldn't bother with bringing in someone from out of town, 2.) there's a bias against rural downstate applicants (people in Chicagoland don't take anyone south of I-80 seriously), or 3.) I suck. 

Whenever I get a rejection letter for a job (I've received 10 of them in the past year), this is the voice I hear in my head:


REJECTED!!! RE...RE... REJECTED!!!  Ba-Boom!  REJECTED!!!

I've started to replace the mantra I used to have when I was single-- "No one will ever love me"-- with a new job-seeker's version:  "No one will ever hire me."

But the jobsearch is not my only symptom of The Februaries.  I've been irritable and have been picking fights with everyone, even other drivers.  I've had several highway incidents this month that have left me in a bad mood.

My betrothed and I have had 2.5 fights this month (two fights and one intense discussion), which is odd because we hardly ever have any disagreements.  I felt a lot better, however, when I discovered that other couples we know have also fought in the middle of Crate & Barrel over wedding registries. 

Why do they have 17,000 different styles of silverware?

My amazing tennis winning streak has ended and I'm sliding into another February tennis slump.  This weekend I played in a tournament.  I lost my first match but won my second.  As if to mock me, I received a trophy for it.  I was the "Consolation Winner."  There were five guys in my bracket, and because I beat the worst guy, I got a trophy.  I really didn't want it, but it would have been rude to refuse it.

ARGH. Although I've rotated and saved this pic four fucking times, I can't get it to show up here with the right orientation.  I blame February.

Today I noticed in the mirror that I have a lot of gray hairs on the left side of my head.  I don't know why just that side.  Maybe it's the latest manifestation of my leftitis, my vague annual winter ailment.

To give you a good idea of what this month has been like, perhaps the highlight was going to a funeral.  I got to see my brother and sisters and mom and we laughed while texting with our oldest brother.  

There's just been this dark cloud hanging over me all month.  It's cold and I'm ready for spring.  I have no confidence and keep feeling like no one likes me, despite evidence against it.  I'm not as excited about things as I usually am.

I know that my life is good.  I'm healthy, safe, well-fed, loved, and spoiled.  It's just that February often gets me down.  I'll be better once Spring starts.  Winter can suck it.