Last post from the mother road.

Last couple of days I've been moving the little stuff I've been afraid to. Pretty much all the pictures and mirrors and things that I hung on the walls are now gone. Still got bathroom things -- herbs and vitamins, mostly -- and various random small stuff I can decide under pressure whether I want to throw away or move clear across town.

Yesterday concentrated mostly on the kitchen. Bought fresh vegetables from a local store five blocks away. Ran into -- who else? -- Don Shraeder. It was a joy to see him, but I got all secretive when it came time to buy potato chips. I was desperately hungry *right then*; and I just *can't* let him see me buying potato chips. (Like he doesn't know I'm eating cooked food.) It's just *too* evil. All the more when moving into a higher-rent place than where I now live. But I'm too far to turn around now, where this house is concerned. All my billing addresses are changed and most of my stuff's moved. And I *still* love and respect him and everything he stands for. I'll be paying more for rent, but in no time, I won't have to drive *anywhere* (except maybe to work, for a month or two, tops). Period -- unless I go out of town.

Delivered the produce to the house, rather than to the apartment. That was a major transition. I live more there now than I live here. (The day before I got my keys confused backwards.) Had to plug in the refigerator. Then made juice and yoghurt dip and ate and ate and ate and ate. I can feel this stuff clearing me out. The house is now almost home, and I'm just staying here (the apartment on Central) 'cause that's where all my heavy furniture (including my bed) still is. Friday I move all the final furniture and make final determinations what goes and what stays.

Worked a couple of hours at the manor today on hearing there may be dissatisfaction by the lady of the house at the rate of weeds' disappearance. I've only worked a few hours all week. We'd discussed my upcoming move with her, but Charles gave me a heads up. I called twice and finally left a message with the maid which I think went well, but who can tell. I'm not used to the politics of large houses with full-time servants on staff. We will see what happens. The "gardening" we do there is extraordinarily destructive. But I understand the visual aspects of it better than I ever have. And I understand that one of the pyrrhic victories of being wealthy is that you don't have to have taste as long as you can pay someone else to have it for you.

Pantex is back up and running. The security guard strike is over. They were being treated *very* badly. Brian Wilkes is an NNSA spokesman. Thirteen guards have quit since the strike started. Lary Schooler (sp?) did a very good story for NPR.

Locally: subprime lenders drive foreclosure rates to among the highest in the country. One in 67 homeowners is in foreclosure here in ABQ. Beware the Adjustable Rate Mortgage. ACORN can be reached at (505) 242-7411. Thank you, Steve.

Renee: what was the name of that German plane that went down in Tucumcari, again? ;^)

Jim: love the wildlife reports but (forgive me, please) why does this matter? So the Mexican Grey Wolves are "endangered". What does that *mean*? Is an "alpha male" in a wolf pack anything like an "alpha emitter"? You clearly know way more about this issue than I do, but I don't understand why these wolves need protection -- or don't. All I know is that it's "controversial". And hell, I'm a *sympathetic* listener. For me (who's never dealt with wildlife) it's like an argument about killing racoons in your attic.

For the Mother Road, U.S. Hwy. 66 West, I'm xeltifon.

Green fest.

Yesterday worked with Charles and Rodney at Sissy's pulling up pansies and violas. They were still stunning but are at the end of their bloom cycle, and Sissy's got enough money that we don't do the sort of gardening for her where you cut back the pansies and hope they come back in November. So when the pansies are done for the year, we yank 'em up out of the ground by the roots and replace 'em with something else for Summer. I came away with a trunk full of pansies and violas which will, if everything works right, provide a little colour outside my living room windows, on the north side of the house.

Exhausting being out in the sun all day but had volunteered to hold down a table for KUNM for a few hours at the "Green Music Fest". It was a good decision. My exhaustion vanished soon enough. Got three really nice comments about my reporting, one from a lady who didn't know me but loved the story on Sandia's air emissions, which happened to be one of mine. Marcos Martinez was there, too -- he's the program director, formerly the news director, who was the person who brought Amy Goodman to our airwaves. Saw lots of people that I knew and met a bunch I didn't. It's shocking to me how many people don't know anything about KUNM who live here and even work deep in the community. The young woman who works with native youth had never heard of "Native America Calling", for instance. Only way I can explain that, I suppose, is that most people choose a radio station and for the most part stick with it.

Listened to a fascinating lecture about building soil. Humus is more important than compost. I shall have to look into that.

Out of 57 species of oak in North America, fully 30 are native to the Chihuahuan Desert. I never knew that. Apparently the place-name "Albuquerque" means "White Oak", as did the native name for the same place before the Spaniards came.

Enjoyed my visit at a couple of booths especially. The New Mexico Solar Energy Association wowed me. Jim did a great job explaining to me about eletricity. Voltage times Amperage equals Wattage, and he used some metaphors that made sense to me, as if electricity were water. I'm not about to become an eletrician or anything but I have a much better understanding than I did when I first looked at their lightbulb display.

Then there's the local online business called GoodMart, which specialises in lighting. I had gone on a compact fluorescent (CFL) lightbulb spree a few years back when they first came out and wound up disappointed enough in the quality of light that I honestly though I would never buy another. I've heard "they're getting better", of course, but figured that was as much marketing "buzz" as reality. But GoodMart had a display with three different CFLs all side by side and the difference was striking between the three. I go up and talk with Virginia, who god bless her, gave me the most intelligent explanation of the difference between them that I've ever, *ever* heard.

I say I want to move in the direction of using CFLs but I simply can not stand the colour. She asks whether I mean luminosity or colour temperature. WOW. I hadn't thought that might be part of the problem. Winds up it is. We talk a good fifteen minutes about my concerns and she strikes me as caring as much about my scientifically inaccurate but designerly concern about sharp shadows as I care about the colour temperature. I get two of the most expensive CFL bulbs they have because they come the closest to casting the shadows that I want, and have the 5000° colour temperature that comes closest to what I would call "white". I'm going to try using one in the kitchen.

Today I mostly just recovered from working with Charles. I did plant those pansies and violas but otherwise have not left the apartment. I love working in Charles' gardens, but it *is* physically draining, which, I'm sure, is why it pays so well. I can't work for Charles *and* move on the same day, though I would love to. I've got to focus on moving for the rest of the week. I need to call Edison -- he offered to help and I intend to pay him. Just for the big things of course. Piano, desk, organ, furniture and stuff. I've got a U-Haul truck reserved.

Busy, busy, busy.

This is a *good* move. I can *feel* it. *Everything* is falling into place.

Got two days jumpstart on moving, 'cause I paid the first month's rent a couple of days earlier than I said I would, thanks to -- who else? -- my mother.

Yesterday went back to deliver another load-o-random-stuff rather late, and found that Jerry, my landlord, had cleared the house of all his tools and put things into place so I could really, truly get moved in. Ahead of schedule.

But -- given the enthusiasm I showed over the *land* -- he left the hoe, the shovel, the rake, and the pickaxe. Also the wheelbarrow, though he apologetically explained to me he might need it elsewhere, in time. The soil is sandy. Way easier to work with than the heavy clays closer to the river.

Jerry's spent these last two days repainting trim and fixing stuff while I worked on moving what I call my "stupid stuff" in. The stuff I want to sell, mostly, which now has a place in the basement, underneath this house which happens to be located in prime "yard sale" territory.

He's already replaced the water main and gas main. He's shored up the foundations, since the last tenant put rocks and bricks in such a place by certain a fence so that his pit bulls (which killed one of the elms in back by chewing off all the bark) wouldn't dig out under the fence, and as a result, flooded the basement rather than alowing the water to run off through the alley. (At the same time that this tentant's dogs killed the tree, he wouldn't use the dead tree for firewood, opting instead to burn one of the landlord's old wooden fences, once PNM finally cut off his gas service for nonpayment. DUH.)

While clearly leery of renting to another tenant who might burn down a fence, Jerry wasn't willing to rent a structurally unsound house with broken mains, so it's been vacant for quite some time. And I had no idea what foundation problems were about (they're *way* nasty) 'til I got under the house and basically inspected things with him. (The basement looks like hell, 'cause "walls" down there, which are in fact, just plastered-over earth, are cracked and buckled, but the structure *over* it all remains basically sound, thanks to the Jerry-rigged™ beams underneath the floor's main supports.) Of course the whole place is just off-kilter enough I'm gonna have to spend a good ten bucks or so just on felt feet so my clocks will run right. (Oh, pity me, the poor exploited tenant!)

Meanwhile, while driving loads of belongings across town, I see that other *very* well known real-estate types (including the ostentatiously gay "JM") that I *had* considered renting from in desperation were paying people low wages to go out and polish their precious "FOR RENT" signs with their priceless names on display in the full heat of day -- meaning, I'm sure, that their actual properties are going obscenely neglected. ("Sorry your water heater's dead, but we were *way* too busy polishing the sign, in hopes of bringing in new tenants who can pay more than you can for the same lousy lack of service you can expect from us, now".)

I think I've rented well, even if it's a bit "pricey" for what I'm used to paying. Not only can I live decently, I know more about this house than I have ever known about any house I have ever lived in, including the one I was born in. I know every crack in the walls and floors and ceiling. I know what to look for in each, to determine whether or not there is a problem.

The wood stove in the living room had served Jerry as a shelf during the renovation process. It has served prior tenants as part "cheap winter heat", part "incinerator", so when it got cleared off of Jerry's belongings, it was immediately clear to me that it *desperately* needed a blacking.

I promptly went out to get some blacking, and returned around sunset to do a load of laundry (allowing me to test the greywater irrigation system he's installed) *and* blacken the stove at the same time. Not the most obvious combination of tasks (clean on the one hand, dirty on the other), but it worked, perfetly.

Since blacking the stove required that I burn something in it to cure the blacking, I did so. He seemed impressed that I would do so. I can't imagine why. It's patently *obvious* to me why these things matter. I'm used to cold winters, at this point. And blacking a stove isn't *just* cosmetic. It's structural: it prevents rust. It's also a safety issue: it prevents fires -- even if the stove *was* installed to code a few years back, there's no telling where things rust through until you've gone over it, inch by inch, and one rusted-through spot can mean the difference between life and death.

But I'll be damned if I invite guests into my house with an improperly maintained and slowly rusting wood stove right inside the front door. That's not "charm", that's "neglect". And I'll be damned if I want to live in a wood-heated house with a rusted-out woodstove that I actually plan to use for heat at the risk of my own existence. If I were a vindictive cheapskate I'd deduct the seven bucks I spent on blacking from my next month's rent. But screw it. If and when I replace the electric stove in the kitchen with gas, I may do some such thing. But that's all down the line. For me, now, I'd no more charge him for blacking than I'd charge him for my bottle of window cleaner.

I seriously think this may be a landlord who is *not* just out to screw me out of money.

The house is on the same street Ernie Pyle lived on when he got killed reporting on the war in the Pacific. It's roughly halfway between my radio station (to the North) and the public library that was made out of the Pyle house, which happens to have vast files of original clippings of his newspaper articles of war reporting. It may not be as overtly "glamourous" (for which, read "run down" as "living on the mother road" but it's no less significant, no less meaningful.

I think it may be the oldest house on the block. It appears to have been built, originally, with steam heat (alas, the radiators are long gone) and no electricity. The neighbourhood has since been rezoned, since it's so close to the University, to allow for four residences on each plot which were originally single-family residences on ample land. The plot to the north of me has been turned into an apartment building, while the one to the south of me has been subdivided into "guesthouses" and "casitas".

Yet somehow, the current owner seems to have no interest whatsoever in subdividing his lot into apartments. I'm going on a hunch, here, which I know is perilous. But it seems to me he loves the house and land as it is, now, and wants someone to take care of it as it stands now. As for me, I am infinitely more than willing to pay way more rent than I am paying now to make the whole place work well as a *house* among apartment buildings.

Spent eleven full hours just moving, today. In that time got rid of most of the stuff I can carry by myself in my car that I care about whether it gets lost or stolen or not. All the guitars and such are moved. So are all the records -- all ten feet of 'em. And the books -- all 18 feet and ten inches of 'em. So's the Los Alamos bookcase. Noticed some very interesting engravings in two of the shelf units I hadn't seen before: the letters "USA" carved, upside down, into the same spot of two of the units in what appear to be two different hands in the same style of lettering. The "A" seems to be the same form as the letter is engraved in the "AEC" (for Atomic Energy Commission, forerunner of the DOE, or Department of Energy) on my stamp-holder. Wonder what that's all about.

Moving, part one.

Paid first month's rent yesterday. Jerry (the landlord) gave me the keys without making me sign a contract. First time having a landlord who *personally* maintains the property. (He was there all day today painting the trim and plugging holes that would increase my heating costs in winter if they went unplugged.) Not a "broker". Not a "realtor". An honest-to-god human being who owns the property and wants to maintain his own hard-earned investments in the property who's willing to take hours out of his days, each day to discuss with me, face-to-face, the details about water mains and foundations. Why *this* crack in the paint is not immediately important, while *that* crack is absolutely *vital* that I tell him if I see certain things happening to it. Doubtless when he has a contract ready, he will want my firstborn. Fine with me. I don't plan on breeding.

Made four trips, moving stuff today, and in so doing, learned just about *everything* that's crucially important to the house.

Aimed for five trips but agreed with myself that even just two good trips would be good enough I wouldn't eat myself alive for not having done "enough". Today and tomorrow are "extra days" in terms of moving things in that I hadn't planned on.

What I moved? Almost entirely the "yard sale" stuff I hope to get rid of and *maybe* not lose *too* much money on when I sell it. The stuff that conventional wisdom tells you "get rid of before you move". Typewriters. The smoker I use for jalapeños, maybe once a year. Old stereo equipment. Stuff that's been cluttering my living space 'til now -- not 'cause I'm a disorganized person (I'm really not), but 'cause I didn't have places to store it all, and having them in the living room ruined the living room.

Five turntables (not counting the one I use, from time to time). Twelve typewriters (not counting the two I use, even more rarely). Heaters that I don't use in the summer, and that general sort of thing. Just having a place to organize things, out of sight, makes a *huge* difference. How useless is it to me? Do I want to sell it? Can I live with myself if it gets flooded? How about if it just gets rained on? These are options I've never had, before.

I've got a decent, small, manageable front yard in which to try and sell these things off, too, for the first time in my life. Prime real estate for yard sales. At the same time, the stoplights are *timed* on the street where I live (rather, *will* live) so that roaring motorcycles won't be anything like the constant and unpredictable annoyance they are here. And of course, I won't live behind the Dairy Queen, with all its pubescent "gangsta" bullshit drama, complete with gunfire, one or two times every summer.

I did get some clear incandescent lightbulbs from Chase Hardware on 4th St. (north of Osuna). It's about the best all-purpose, old-school hardware store in town, as far as I can tell. I know incandescents are "evil" ever since Mr. Occidental Petroleum, failed corporatist conservative "Democrat" presidential candidate Gore made "global warming" an issue even yuppies can talk about without sounding like aging hippies with his little "movie". I don't care. I almost never have more than one lightbulb going at a time, and *far* prefer clear incandescent lightbulbs to "soft white" frosted bulbs, let along the compact fluorescent (CFL) bulbs which, besides containing Mercury, make me look like death warmed over, and make me feel worse. Maybe I'll put CFLs in the basement. I wouldn't count on it. I hate those fuckin' things. I'm about ready to start stockpiling incandescent bulbs.

I got some stuff to shine up the hardwood floors a bit before I move the furniture in, and tested it out in the master bedroom. I'd *love* to refinish the floors, but it's not *my* house, and it wouldn't do me any good, in the long run. While I'm tempted to sand off a few odd paint spills and the like, I really just need to make sure they don't dry out completely, before I start moving my furniture in, after which about the best that I can do is dust the floors, short of going down on my hands and knees to wax and buff.

And I know where all the big pieces will go. I've never planned a move this well. Not that serendipity's not a big part of it. It is. All I can say is it was *meant* to happen.

Once I'm moved in, completely, my life will go back predominantly to workplace stuff, most likely.

Fine with me.

Just give me a decent place within walking distance to go to at the end of the day and I'll be happy.

It's so close now I can taste it.

My new home.

I hope. I think it's going to go through.

The thing I referred to as "the estate" a couple of posts back -- it finally came back to me that I had previously called it "the manor". Forgive me, please, dear reader. I shall refer to "the estate" as "the manor" henceforth to avoid further confusion.

Didn't work today. Long story short -- went to visit Charles after work last night. I love him. Not it a way that any straight man could ever understand. Or even most queers. But I do. He offends everyone -- including me, half the time -- but when it comes time to figure out how I'm going to live or else watch my life fall apart, there he is, and he's got a solution close at hand which just happens to serve everyone well -- himself included, lest anyone think him "kind". One step further, he would be Machiavellian. As it is, he can tell himself he's Machiavellian while actualy doing a freind a favour.

I did some serious heavy lifting at the manor yesterday which is fairly unusual. The lady of the house indicated that the pallet of compost had been there in her driveway for far longer than I had any reason to believe it had been, though it *had* been there for at least the two days since I started working for her -- two days longer than textbooks could sit in the parking lot at Hartman. There was never a command issued. There was just the slightest hint of dissatisfaction at its having been left there, even now. Sounded reasonable to me. So the next day, I cut a few daffodils, and then promptly moved all the compost out of sight.

Charles invited me over to watch "Downfall" -- or so it's called in its English title. That's the "Hitler movie" that caused such a stir, what, one, two years ago? It was amazing. Incredibly well acted. Fast paced enough that only frame-by-frame reviews indicated what was going on between certain characters in certain scenes.

Between that, the well-deserved death of Jerry Falwell (which we toasted), and Charles' best freind in Colorado having just gone into hospital with a mysteriously unexplained high fever, the evening was perhaps a tiny bit more emotionally charged that it would have been had we *only* been watching a movie about the Berlin bunker suicides.

Actually it was a thoroughly enjoyable night.

After the feature, as Charles is wont to do, he showed me clips of countless other films until he fell asleep. I thoroughly enjoyed them all, but finally wore out, and left for home. When I woke up I was physically exhausted. Not fit to work out in the sun, even though the weather's cooperating (for the moment).

I went down to the rental house that I want like I've *never* wanted to live in *any* rental unit. It's so perfect in so many ways that it would take less time to explain what's wrong with it than what's right with it: the refrigerator and stove are both electric and just old enough to not be ideally efficient. And the kitchen is rather darker than it ought to be. Let's see. What else is "wrong" with the property? Drainage is an issue, but that's true wherever I might live in this town. And one of the windows is missing one part of its latch, which the owner's already replaced with a piece of wood which serves better than the latch served to begin with. The house had its porch enclosed at least 50 years ago. But it's 95% what I want in a home. Easily.

All week I'd been planning what I would say to the owner, who is the landlord, about why I didn't call him back sooner (after leaving a deposit on my first viewing), blah blah blah, and if he has any questions about this or that on my application, let me know.

I've underjudged the straights. There seem to be good breeders out there, just as there are scummy queers.

I didn't need to worry about it. I think we've "clicked" so that he knows he's what I'm looking for in a ladlord and I know he knows what he's looking for in a tenant and we're both willing to bend a little bit.

I've never in my life talked with a landlord like I talked with him. And I've never gotten the sense from a landlord that he wasn't just a short-term speculative realtor or broker but genuinely had the time to discuss things with me, in depth, that he would otherwise be spending fixing cosmetic things before I moved in.

I step into that house and he *knows* I respect it. We'd spoken on the telephone briefly before, after I'd tried to drop off my application (having already left a deposit that conveniently, for me, took the house off the market the same morning it went on the market). I ring the bell and wave through the window. He answers the door, telling me he'd left it open for me. I told him I didn't just like walking in to someone else's house. Deposit or no -- hell, rental or no -- it's not mine. We're already on good terms.

Normally when I rent a unit I ask the dumbest questions. "How are the neighbours?", for instance, to which the answer is always "fine". (I know not to ask this anymore, since "fine" can mean anything from physically abusive chauvanist Russians to intermarried Natives whose intertribal family politics I have to negotiate each and every day, to 15 undocumented immigrants living in the one-bedroom apartment above me, whose children take pleasure in climbing in through the balcony from my "private" patio, below, while playing "ninja" games with kitchen knives exposed.)

I don't mean to be racist. I just don't like having neighbours at too close range. Period. I am *very* private. It's one thing renters never can control, and which they're always lied to about when they seek to rent a space. In the eyes of real-estate types, all neighbours are "quiet", which is almost never true, which means almost all real-estate types, be they realtors or brokers, are professional LIARS. They just want someone with a decent credit rating. (Unless they aim to evict you, in which case your credit rating doesn't really matter, in the end.)

I will have neighbours in my new house -- there's a modest apartment building to the North and a sub-sub-sub-divided house to the South. But they're all a good comfortable distance from me, and I've got a yard and fence pretty much all around. If we happen to meet and exchange pies and stuff, that's great, but it probably won't happen. Like I care. It's a peripheral neighbourhood. One side of the street (my side) is mostly university types, the other's mostly worthless speculator yuppies. As long as they stay on that side of the street, I'll be happy. (And really, they're mostly a few blocks off, still: my street's *the* border street between "affordable but unliveable" and "unaffordable but oh-so-fuckin'-charming", and that won't change without major zoning changes and traffic reroutes that would shut down the whole town.)

The property is zoned for four househoulds per plot. (Forgive me if I don't know real estate stuff here.) But basically: The house to the North is now (apparently) an eight-unit apartment building, and the one to the south has had three "guest houses" added on to the main house. But the landlord/owner seems determined that his plot remain a single-family residence, and I'm willing to help him.

He could *easily* add three cinderblock garages, call 'em all "casitas" and ruin the incredible backyard, but he won't do that. He's more concerned that I not step on this or that seedling. He's not the only landowner on this block who feels this way. It's nice to have mixed detached housing and apartment housing in the block, but no more apartments are needed.

I ask him if it's OK if I build a compost heap -- his response? "No problem. I'd even encourage it."

The owner warns me that there's "heavy traffic" on this street, to which I want to say, but don't quite say, "oh honey, I've lived on Central these last three years, what with all the Harley-Davidson yupppie freaks cruising at all hours who fancy themselves Oakies for roaring down the post-1937 stretch of things in their designer leather jackets at the one point in town they know they won't get stopped on noise ordinances".

I just say "I live on Central". He just smiles and nods like he'd heard it before, but not in the way that he knows I'm trying to pull something on him. The bedroom on the "busy" street is the guest bedroom/study, as I see it. And *my* bedroom? You can not hear a thing.

This time, rather than asking dumb questions under pressure, I came with measurements of all my furniture, determined to decide where big things would go before they went there. It will save a lot of trouble knowing "this goes there" before I start to move stuff in.

I may actually live in an uncluttered space, for once in my life. I'd say things like "this window is two inches lower than what I have now, but I think I can live with that" and he would smile and nod. He even offered to replace a closet door that had been removed generations before. I told him it would be nice but it wasn't a dealbreaker.

I asked questions like "how would a piano do here, as opposed to there" given the flooding that happened last summer, and what it did to the foundations"? See, I have been down in the basement and actually have some sense how the house is constructed.

I go out back and survey the entire back yard as though it were my personal fiefdom. We have some honest disagreement over the desirability of Chinese Elms, but none over where that *one* that's taken root is, given how the water runs off during rainstorms. He's got one seedling coming up he's clearly protected. Makes sense to me in terms of how it's positioned in relation to the bedroom -- it'll water itself and will provide useful shade in the late afternoons. So I sit on myself a bit here -- just a bit, since I don't plan to live here longer than the elm will live, and we're effectively agreed.

We're passionately discussing the pros and cons of allowing a single random seedling that has taken hold to live. That's a good thing.

Massive, incredible thunderstorm directly overhead as I write. Powerful stuff.

He uses Roundup to control the weeds. I'm deeply disappointed, clearly, since this is the same man who's gone well out of his way to plumb a "greywater" system from the washing machine out to the trees in front, and the stereotype is that anyone who does such things cares a great deal about chemical contamination of soils. I tell him, wholeheartedly, I'd rather grow bermuda grass than have him spraying roundup, on which he promises me plugs of bermuda grass from his own yard, if that will help cut down on the weeds, which run rampant, and only asks me that I keep them watered.

Hell yes. I agree. Even though I'm not a big fan of lawns. I aim to grow food in at least one good-sized plot back there. The less Monsanto contamination in the soil when I do, the better.

I ask him about whether the trees out front can survive occasional bleachings of laundry, given how the greywater system he's devised is set up. He seems delighted by the question, having apparently never seriously considered it before. He says it's not a problem where he lives, where he's installed a similar system. I don't press him on the chemical pesticides, assuming that I may actually be able to maintain some sort of groundcover or other.

He knows I give a shit.

I know he gives a shit that I do.

Then the big thing: the backyard's been dug up. Bigtime. He volunteers the information long before I even get to ask. The water line broke between the time I put down the deposit on the property and the time I came back. The piping was from the '20s. Corroded through and through. He showed me massive chunks of pipe, left over, which literally fell apart in his hand. To most renters, I can only assume that seeing that would mean "thanks, I'll look elsewhere". To me it meant "this is no longer a problem".

We talked at length about galvanized steel versus copper versus what he replaced the corroded steel with: something called "PEX". He shows me a sample. I write down all sorts of details and remember what he says about polymerization. Am I a little nervous about it? Yes. But I also know enough to see I'm renting a place from the '20s with 100% new gas and water lines, which at least aren't PVC. So I'll filter my water. Sure beats losing most of it to underground leaks that might flood the cellar, besides dealing with having a military contractor in your backward.

When I first met him he said he'd allow me to store "a suitcase" in the cellar, as long as I didn't go and try to make a living space out of it. He saw from the way I looked around under the foundations (and pointed out a black widow spider to him) that it wasn't worth that, so today, he said he wouldn't even lock it up, meaning I can keep old utility bills and the likes down there with no problem at all. So I've got storage too, for my unslightly things. And it's even got a "ridge" running around it where I can protect my papers from all but possibly the most severe of floods.

The front bedroom, which is the smaller of the two, is painted in a sort of robin's egg blue on one wall. While I did take precise measurements based on my furniture, there's no sign he intends to paind things differently in there, which is fine with me. I didn't ask him -- but I don't think I will have any problem painting rooms if I ever want to do so competently.

Next challenges: the hectic, short-term chaos of moving.

I'm happy.

Deja vu.

All over again.

Back at the estate today. Charles no longer lives here and is afraid he'll lose his contracts -- the people he works for have labourers who they hire to pull weeds and stuff in his absence, and they seem to prefer spending their time trying to outdo Charles in pathetic attempts at potted flower arrangements rather than pulling weeds.

If this works out I'll bill the estate's Lady of the House directly.

Need to speak with her in person tomorrow.

Time will tell.

But seems I'm once again employed doing the thing that paid me best which I most enjoyed. At the same time, the work is seasonal -- but I think I've got a good shot at a full-time, non-seasonal job I *want* about when the planting season winds down.

Productive day.

Woke up as usual to the radio.

Got the bug up my ass that I *need* to start *moving*, regardless whether this that or whatever is still kind of up in the air. I can't prepare to move in my apartment during the weekdays 'cause they're still doing demolition and concrete work and other nerve-grating things where I actually live.

Made major progress on the kitchen. Doesn't look like it, maybe, but I did. fixed up the kitchen table a bit and stripped labels from all my "Atlas" jars, which number 29. Got rid of loads and loads of garbage. Cleaned the catbox. Realized that not having a shredder is holding me back.

Went out to get one. To Costco. They wanted 80 bucks. Picked up a ton of baking soda and some other things -- batteries, toothbrushes -- then when stuck in the massive line remembered to ask whether they took regular Visa cards. They did not. I walked out. They lost a $140 sale and a customer. Oh well.

Then to Target. Got just a shredder. Cost fifty bucks. Yeah it's not as powerful or as fast as the one at Costco but it does just as well.

Shredded a whole boxful of papers. Good thing to have on hand.

All my expectations.

Blown out of the water.

For months I've been applying only to places that underwrite KUNM on the theory that "if their profits partly go to support my station I can live with working there".

If worst came to worst, I figured, and I was stuck biding time doing boring crap during such hours that I had no time left over to volunteer, at least I could be somewhat satisfied with whatever turned up, knowing that part of the "excess value" I manufactured for my capitalist exploiters would go directly to the station that's my lifeline to the world.

Time and time again I've gotten responses from "you're overqualified" (whatever the hell that means) to "you're underqualified but we won't tell you why" (the latter being a sure-fire way to make me *never* go back as a paying customer, regardless who they underwrite).

Today applied at one underwriter for a job and actually got dealt with *really* straight. Temp agency called "High Desert Staffing". I wouldn't mention them by name except that the experience was so unusually good.

Filled out the application, and they still took a paper resume to look at, since the online application didn't go as far back in time as the paper resume did. I didn't even have to force it on them. They asked.

They also seemed to overlook the little "yes" box, with explanation, next to the "conviction/guilty plea" question which, in theory, isn't supposed to be a legal bar to employment, choosing instead to look at my actual qualifications for the job. Unheard of.

An employer that actually follows the law. Imagine that.

There *were* about five online tests I had to navigate my way through, but I got a good "sense" from the people there, so I played along. And get this: the minute I started the first test, I knew I would finish the last one. It wasn't bullshit about how I "feel" when "other people" "seem to feel" this or that way about their "perceptions" of my "behaviour". They didn't ask me to read other people's minds regarding my behaviour.

They gave me ACTUAL SOFTWARE SIMULATIONS. IMAGINE THAT. As in, "select this data in these rows and columns and paste them in the rows and columns in such-and-such format". It was computer testing at its best: testing actual abilities in working with computers in realistic simulations. "Can you do this?" as opposed to "how do you respond in simplistic binary when confronted with complicated feelings about how other people feel about you when you feel that they feel you feel this way towards them?" bullshit crap.

Every computerized test I've taken to date has had countless meaningless questions like "I feel happy when..." or "I would rather be an architect than a football player", with choices from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree". Huh? Just show me what you want me to do and either I can or can not.

The tests in this case were *strictly* empirical.

The one test that I only came out *slightly* better than average on, the interviewer (yes, someone actually interviewed me!) got to hear me explain *why* I "failed" it (even though I didn't actually "fail" it, but only "passed" by such a margin that it disappointed me). In turn, I clearly understood from the notes that she took, that I had merely specialized in this-or-that aspect of medical billing so much that some "advanced" questions I *aced* while totally flubbing other "intermediate" ones that kinda spoiled my overall average for that one test.

And I got to review my own scores. They were both surprising *and* helpful.

There's only one "basic" question I flubbed and absolutely knew the answer to: Diagnosis codes. Where I'd worked with them, we'd used a proprietary "shorthand" to refer to them which wasn't the national standard. WHOOPS. One question I *could* have answered better, out of a couple hundred. I'll live.

High Desert Staffing rules.

Ambiguous goodness.

With nothing better to do, I headed to KUNM to help fold t-shirts and stuff 'em into envelopes for members who pledged this last pledge drive. It was a hoot. There's this *amazing* thing made out of cardboard boxes we used to fold shirts -- basically you lay the shirt on top of it and fold: left, right, left, bottom, and you're DONE. Ingenious and elegant. Blue Dragon Cafe sent delicious pizzas and salads, which was an unexpected treat.

Drove by what I hope will be my new rental home, on which I've placed a securing deposit. It's a bit pricey, but it's "off the market", and I love the place as few renters ever do. I'm getting into the habit of doing that. I know it's dangerous to get "attached" to a place, but I already am. It's so perfect in so many ways. If I actually get to move in I will tell you *all* about it, and you may expect to read about it interminably for weeks on end in greater detail than you'd ever hoped to hear.

That job I wanted and applied for fell through, but in a decidedly good way, if that makes any sense. Basically: I'm not qualified. I knew as much when I applied, but figured applying would be a good way to signal my intention to an organization I desperately *want* to work for (there aren't many). Something else in that organization that I *am* qualified for is opening up fairly soon, though, so you can bet your bottom dollar I will be the first to apply for it.

In the meantime, I can realistically work in a kitchen or as a waiter or some other such thing without the attendant existential despair of knowing-without-knowing that it *will* be "forever". I can do purposeless menial work for a few months at a time -- if it lets me live where and how I want to.

It's only when there seems no "out" in sight that things seem hopeless.

Tentatively: things are looking "up".

Busy days.

Forgive me if I do not post regularly these days, let alone frequently. I haven't given up on blogging, but it's not one of my top five priorities these days. I'm rather more engaged outside the online world. (It's in the top ten, though, so please, don't stop reading completely.)

Put down a deposit on a place I *really* *want* to live yesterday. I did the same thing in LA: lived in the cheapest apartment I could find 'til doing so became unbearable; then backed up against a wall, I found someplace I'd *love* to live and decided it was sufficiently worthwhile to swing it. Most places I look at here are like 50% what I want. Albuquerque's positively overrun with substandard buildings: nice old houses sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub divided into postage-stamp sized "apartments" which don't meet even the crudest "decent housing" standards, for which exorbitant rents are charged.

This one's 99% what I want. The 1% that isn't what I want is *mostly* the higher rent, and the one thing that isn't is something that I can change.

I *can* do it. It won't be "easy", but it's absolutely plausible. I've done it before and survived. And it means *way* more to me to have a *decent* place to live than just to have the cheapest place in town. If everything works out, I won't have to drive *anywhere* except when I go back down to Texas to visit.

Speaking of which -- now that I'm the last tenant here, transients have started showing up where I live. Mostly asking "how much are these apartments", leaving me to tell these intrusive and unwelcome strangers that they're *not* for rent.

Rose and Harold showed up, late last night, totally drunk, and looking for shelter at the same place they've found it these last many years. I called my mother around midnight and called my former next-door neighbours shortly thereafter. My former neighbours came back today to check mail, and I spoke with the landlord (manager), and Rose and Harold shortly after that. I think the situation is resolved. But I *don't* want to live here anymore. Not one minute more than I must.

I would have been well within my legal rights to call the cops. I didn't. It wasn't an easy decision to make, either. I know enough -- *just* enough -- how they live and the unbelievable brutality they're subjected to daily not to willfully complicate their lives. At the same time I don't want the people they drag in their wake showing up, either.

Got a bicycle helmet yesterday, a Bell "Citi", which Consumer Reports gave its top ratings for 2006. Went riding. Had my first spill in forever. Painful, and not fun, but served a *most* useful "reminder" to me about what's involved with bike riding. Being my first spill with a new helmet I thought in terms of "protect the helmet!". Dumb, but there's what happens in a split second. My left arm hurts like hell but it's getting better. I'm OK.

LAPD's chief reassigns two top officers following the brutality against protestors and the press. I stand with Carol Sobel of the National Lawyer's Guild (with whom I volunteered in 2000, back when Bob Myers was NLG president) in her comments on "Democracy Now" today, expressing the wish that the press had expressed such outrage in 2000, when far worse atrocities occurred without the mainstream press even present to take notice, much less find themselves victimized on camera.

The job/apartment thing is tricky. But it's been tricky before for me, and I *know* I can swing it. I just need one piece of the puzzle to swing definitely into place.

After spilling off my bicycle, I rode several miles along the trails beside the canal just off the Rio Grande. What a joy. Got glimpses of an Albuquerque I never knew existed before. I've *heard* of it -- the great big system for cyclists to get around clear across town along old irrigation ditch channels, but never had ridden over *any* of it, myself. It was amazing. Even smelled like my grandmother's house, which was right in front of an irrigationa canal.

Not riding today. At this point I'm about doing "every other day" riding. Ain't perfect, but jeez, it's more bicycling and less aimless driving than I have done in *years*. Progress is *definitely* being made.

NPR's Richard Gonzales does a nice little piece about Alcatraz, but doesn't even mention in passing the utterly unique role that island played in the displacement of the Hopi. Sad. It's better than the "Unsolved Mysteries" piece about that one famous escape, to be sure, but still falls far short of what I *hope* to hear from public radio.

Local story: LANL's testing water samples from Rocky Flats. A couple of years ago the woman who blew the whistle on Rocky Flats gave me her empty thyroid pill bottle so I could scramble down (and climb back up) a cliff to take a water sample from the drainpipe leading out of CMR from the *one* place we toured with the Los Alamos Study Group that there were no yellow signs telling us *not* to go there.

"The personal is political": like it or not, this is a concept that I understand, deeply.

Björk has a new record: "Volta". Tempted to get this. NPR's music commentator, Will Hermes clearly conducted a decent interview but missed the point on her long-term artistic development completely, having *clearly* never heard "Glingg Glö". She was just at that music festival I wrote about because Rage Against the Machine seemed to have sort of "come back" into being, there.

I'm not saying it's a bad piece -- far from it, indeed. I'm just saying I could have done *perhaps* a littlle bit better, at least where knowiing Björk's previous work is concerned.

Now it's raining. It's lovely. For once, I hope it keeps up. Everything I need to keep dry is mostly off the floor, and a moat never hurts. :)

My helmet.

After riding around yesterday on quiet residential streets (for the first time in YEARS, which felt GREAT) I realised I felt plain naked without a helmet. I'm used to having one on my head when bicycling.

I dug my old helmet out and it had a crack in the external casing and was in pretty rough shape generally. Despite not having money to burn, I decided to buy a new one. I'll pay off the credit cards, eventually, but I *don't* want a traumatic brain injury.

I *briefly* researched helmets at the Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute (BHSI) website. Great site, btw: one of those precious few cases where *literally* a few minutes can save you *years* of trouble down the road.

Consumer Reports gave "superiour" ratings only to the Bell "Citi" and "Slant" helmets in 2006, based on actual crash tests, and gave them both a "best buy" rating. So I went back to Fat Tire Cycles today determined to get one of those two helmets, even if they *did* cost fifteen dollars more than the basic models.

They had several to chose from, in both lines. In this case I knew *way* more than salesperson did. He was freindly and all, but once I mentioned "Consumer Reports" he backed up and let me have my space. (If his bosses are reading, don't fire him for that. I respect it.)

The "Slant" model had better ventillation, but in truth, I've intuitively known this all along: more vent holes mean more places that your head is *not* protected in a crash. (Not an issue now that I've got a shaved head and a quick wipe with a handkerchief will do, as far as helmet hair's concerned.) It's also got some slick designing for design's sake going on -- what with nifty, slick ærodynamic points coming off the back (for no reason), which I'm sure look great in wind tunnel tests, but pose real danger in terms of getting "snagged" in things while actually riding and (presumably) falling off onto a car's hood or into the bushes.

The "Citi" model's two bucks cheaper and they have one in bright yellow (which besides being visible, happens to match my bike, like I'd planned it). It's also got reflective tape, tastefully applied, on all sides (unlike the pastel colours otherwise available in the same model). It's *not* a hard decision. A hat's a fashion statement, but a helmet's not a hat.

My old helmet, a "Specialized" model of some sort or another, has one decidedly superiour satety feature that I'll miss. The sun visor breaks off almost instantly: it kinda "pinches" the helmet and the least bit of force gets it out of the way, super fast. The Bell helmet, which I otherwise like better, has its visor connected by two strong, sturdy snaps, one on either side of the helmet. Barring accidents, the Specialized visor is something you can snap on or off *while* riding. the Bell visor is something you have to stop to line up, and in the end, it has to be pulled out from *both* sides simultaneously to snap off in an accident.

Thanks to Sheldon Brown for his *amazing* website which led me to BHSI and Consumer Reports in the first place.

Thanks also to the football players who suffer, economically, more than any other population from concussion injuries. You guys are driving the research.

Shopping spree.

Started out apartment searching. Found one I really like, *except* for its weird bathroom situation. It doesn't have a tub. It has a shower -- with the bathroom sink *inside* the shower, no less. But I'm a sucker for hardwood floors and steam radiators and private backyard gardens so I called back on it anyway. We'll see. Checked out a bunch of other places too, but got the voicemail runaround from one realtor after another obviously eager to avoid dealing with pesky tenants.

Needed pants. I keep changing sizes and have *way* too many shirts, nowhere near enough pants, which just makes for dumbass frustration when it comes time to dress for the day, much less when it comes time to do laundry. So after cruising through all the neighbourhoods I want to live in, I got three pairs of really great pants at the thrift store "Savers" up on San Mateo -- still the best place in town to buy clothes, if you ask me. Suffice to say I now have some firsthand experience what makes those Hong Kong tailors just so famous. Kick-ass, hand-tailoured pair of pants. For three bucks. Yay! Now I just have to make my body fit those masterfully crafted pants. :)

Far more important is what I bought at Goodwill. I've mostly stopped going there because (besides not having money to burn) they've kinda gotten the idea that every throwaway item is gold, and sometimes ask *way* more for items than they would go for new. It *had* been a *great* thrift store! It's where I got my William Blake lithograph of a naked Isaac Newton for 19.99 when I moved out here. It's where I got my Colonial Electric lamp, which I love, and my Hammond organ, on the same day that I tested (false) positive. But once everyone discovered it, they kinda seemed to get the attitude that every isolated Winnie the Pooh sock is definitely worth $59.95 and every particleboard coffee table from the early '90s is a "priceless antique". Thanks, but no.

Today, I got lucky.

I now have a bicylce.

Apoligies to palacers whom I've bored, already, endlessly with all of this bicycle stuff. But I first got into thrift stores looking for bicycles, and wound up collecting something like thirty and swapping out parts and making most of them run *beautifully* and giving almost all of them away. I *much* prefer the proven physics and *feel* of classical bike geometry. I look at stewpid "new" designs and think "so what if it's got a spring suspension there, that's *not* where the primary load falls on the frame to begin with, it will just stress and break here, instead of there". At the same time I"m not quite so avid a cyclist that I can justify spending hundreds of dollars on a fixed-gear, singlespeed from Italy. (At least not yet.) So my best bikes come into my hands used. Without exception.

There was one -- a Schwinn Traveller that I *most* dearly loved. Basically it was a road racer. Feather weight. Flawless. It cost me twenty bucks, and I spent easily five times that making it work *perfectly*. Still a good investment. One of few I feel good about, still. I brought it out here when I moved, but quickly found that while it flew like a bird on the smooth pavement in El Paso, it just didn't work with Albuquerque's rotting pavement and heavy traffic. I reluctantly lent it to Harold, who used it for some months for his commute clear across town; and to his credit, he returned it, in the end. But it was ruined -- not bad enough to throw away, but seriously enough that I could not just "tune it up" and use it as my own again without spending a lot more money. The steel toeclips had been broken off. There was a dent in the top bar. I could make it what it was before, but not easily. I ceased to lend things out to people, and learned to be supportive without giving up my most prized possessions to the impassioned pleadings of the common-law Pueblo wives of my next door Navaho neighours. I sent it back to El Paso and determined I would not buy another bike -- new or used -- 'til I found something comprable, but better suited to city traffic.

Today I found *exactly* that. A Schwinn "High Sierra". Same era. Same Japanese CrMo frame, but with mountain bike geometry: built not so much for speed as for bumps in the road In short, this ugly yellow bicycle is my beloved beautiful blue bicycle's more rugged older sister which I can actually *use* everyday just to get around town.

It's well worn (though not structually damaged) and came into my hands utterly "decked out". It's got two water bottle cages. It's got pumpholders welded to the frame. It's got paint knocked out of it all over (making it unstealable), but it is clearly a *very* fine bicycle. It also didn't have a price. Usually, that equals death at Goodwill.

At the urging of some other random anonymous faggot who knows both bicycles and Goodwill, I asked the staff coming out from the backroom (as opposed to the clerks up in front) what it was worth, meaning that I got to take it home *now* instead of having it "go back" into the back room where it would be assigned a price far out of proportion to its possible value for having been "sent back" before I had to COME BACK to get it, assuming someone else had not taken it in my absence. George (who works there) tells me it's worth $24, based on the fact that they're asking that amount for some other Schwinn, and in Goodwill workers eyes, apparently a Schwinn is a Schwinn is a Schwinn, regardless whether its frame was manufactured in Chicago, Japan, or Taiwan, let alone its carbon content and clean welds. I run it up front and tell the cashier "George says it's $24", and take it home, without delay.

I then stop to get a couple of tyres and tubes from Fat Tire Cycles. I buy from them because they gave a commuter bike to KUNM for its last pledge drive's daily drawings, which drove up first-day pledges quite substantially. I'm *very* pleasantly surprised on visiting this business establishment. While they have all sorts of fancy "cruiser" bikes the yuppies go hog-wild over ("it's got a wicker basket, just like they used to in the old days!!!"), this one guy goes *way* out of his way and spends considerable time tracking down tyres and tubes and a bell and such other decidedly low-ticket items to actually get me what I *need*. He knows what he's talking about, too. Will I be riding it on trails or for commuting? Jeezus, I'm not used to these questions unless I'm clearly there to buy something expensive. But he's right, and I had just forgotten about traction in the several years since I've stopped riding. Get slicks, he says. I do. I'm *very* happy.

They also have a veritable shitload of the super-specialized tools for sale that I'm *always* looking for to solve this or that specific problem. I'm *definitely* going back. It goes aound, it comes around.

Got it home. Put the wheels back on. Tried to pump up the tubes and find out that the rear tube is completely shot. Replace the rear tyre and tube but leave the front one on. I go out for a ride.

It lasts twenty minutes, but what a joy those twenty minutes are! I get to move faster than a pedestrian without missing things that motorists just always miss. I make an adjustment to my rear alignment on the road, and know what adjustments I'll make to the brakes when I get home based on how they "feel". I come back home to hear the news. Then as I listen to the news I replace the front tyre and tube, and make brake adjustments. First time in a long time I've used "radio time" to do something other than listen to the radio. Feels good.

I now have a perfectly fine way to get around town for far less than it would cost to fill even my fuel-efficient car's gas tank three times.

My car still serves a purpose. I'm not getting rid of it just yet. But it's no longer the best option to get around unless I've got a ways to go.

Last man standing.

Or: my precarious career as a part-time Palestinian. I don't mean to demean the Palestinians, but I can *literally* hear the bulldozers each day, and have no clue when they're going to start tearing down all these buildings here around me. What with Adam's tree being right out front, I guess my operative metaphor should be the expulsion from Eden. Hooray.

God help us all when the whitey faggot from Texas outlasts all his Navaho native and Mexican immigrant neighbours.

The last family moved out today. Specifically, the old Mexican lady who would glare at me, and her daughters who work in prison concessions and talk very loud, very fast.

Be careful what you wish for: I've always been a very private person none too eager to share walls with next door neighbours. But this isn't like having a house with ten feet between you and your neighbours on either side. This is just plain *creepy*. I am the only person living in an eight-unit complex. Literally overnight, I have *no* neighbours. The same layout that made me feel uniquely safe now makes me feel increasingly isolated and vulnerable on an increasingly hostile street.

The owner of the building visited today and seemed almost human. Until it came time to discuss when all the buildings get torn down with the construction workers who care about nothing but foundations. He seems to think I'll be out in two weeks, although I've got almost six weeks 'til I have to be out. Lotsa luck, dude. I've got my piece of paper with your signature saying when I have to leave and I'm holding you to it.

At the same time, the two cats who escaped come back each night and yowl at me. My attitude with them at this point is "either you come in or you don't; either you're a house cat or you're a wild cat, and I don't feed wild cats". Heh. I've learned a lot from cats. The lesson of the day seems to be "take care of yourself FIRST". I'm slipping into limbic mode.

Looked at apartments today.

Kinda fell in love with a charming little compact house *very* close to where I want to be, but winds up it's a small three-bedroom/one-bath. I don't *need* three bedrooms! I wouldn't know what to do with them, and a roommate situation *wouldn't* work for me. Especially with just one bath.

The guy tells me he's got a two-bedroom further from the University for about what a one-bedroom's going for right there. I drive there and figure it's not too far to ride a bicycle, but the building is HORRIBLE. Right behind a church, he says, assuming that's a major selling point. Of course, the church is Southern Baptist. (Thanks, dude, I'd love to have the quiet neighbours six days a week, but I don't care to imagine what might happen to me during Pride.)

Then there's another really nice building about two blocks away. It's a two bedroom but what the hell -- I call and leave a message. Maybe it's not totally out of my range. They still haven't called me back, though realistically, I can expect to hear from someone several days from now who just *assumes* that his is the *only* place I'm looking at and therefore have his phone number memorized, along with the address of the place I was interested in. My ass.

Realtors, take note! You lose your best long-term prospects if you make us mere renters wade through convoluted voicemail systems within voicemail systems only to find out weeks later (if at all) that the message got left with the wrong person and that we should call -- drumroll, please! -- the number we called in the first place. If you can't be bothered to deal with a prospective renter, what the hell do you think we can expect when the water heater explodes, or the roof leaks? Jack shit, that's what, and that is *not* worth paying for. (We can always find some more experienced slumlord to undercut your exorbitant rents who'll actually bother to pick up his phone.) You may have gotten away with that sort of stuff when the housing market was "hot" but right now we're looking to *save* money. By renting. (We're not just poor, or stupid.) If you can't handle that for a season or two, maybe you should consider a career in something other than land speculation.

I absolutely, positively *won't* deal with that one certain realtor I'll call "M" who so prominently supports Pride and all. Not just 'cause I know first-hand what kind of drunk he is (not so much belligerent as sad, which is worse, as far as landlords are concerned), but also 'cause I can't get through to talk to a human being in his office unless I want to buy a quarter-zillion dollar "loft", while the few people who have information about the rental units have to dig through piles of papers to tell me that you're asking way the hell too much to begin with.

Too bad. For you. You've got some *really* nice apartments scattered here and there that I would *love* to live in, and I'd feel good about renting from someone who supports the local queer community. But there's *way* more to being a *good* landlord/manager than just collecting "desirable" properties and screwing your prospective customers before they even ask what a unit might cost.

As for those two nights that I got you home alive and safe when you were falling-off-your-barstool drunk, yeah, no thanks needed. But nah, I don't think that I really want to rent from you.

There are *plenty* of other gay realtors and brokers in town, even if they spend more on actually dealing with tenants and prospective tenants than you apparently do on advertising. They may not be as "famous" as you, but they're worthy of greater consideration in my book. And I'd *much* rather trade off living in a slightly more marginal neighbourhood than deal with a landlord who just can't be bothered, ever, with people willing to throw money at him for a while before looking to *buy* a house. Or condominium. Or "loft" -- for which, read "grossly overpriced apartment".

I call about an apartment two blocks from here and they want more than twice what I'm paying for roughly the same thing, though it's undenaibly a bit "nicer". They, unlike "M", however, have got the right *attitude* in dealing with prospective renters. To begin with, I get to speak with someone who knows what all is what and can tell me details about the unit in question that I had never thought to ask. She *does* ask me to hold, which briefly annoys me, but then she gets back to me in about a minute, and once she's got me on the line, she *doesn't* rush me through my own interminable questions. When I say the rent's out of my range, she politely asks what I *am* looking for. I tell her. She leads me to not one but two places *much* closer to where I want to live which are *far* more affordable.

I'm going there tomorrow to check the place out. And I don't care if she *is* a breeder. She knows how to do business.

Checked out one really neat little apartment three blocks -- yes, three blocks! -- from KUNM. Not *perfect*, but it met roughly 90% of my needs and desires. It's upstairs, which is not a problem, assuming I get rid of my piano and organ, which I genuinely hope to do. But they don't allow pets. So, uh, thanks, but it's out of the question.

A place two doors down, which is *smaller*, is charging $150 *more* per month than the upstairs apartment. I don't even bother wasting my time on that place. It's big selling feature? Off street parking. Wow. So my worthless car will be marginally safer from that particular brand of car thief who seeks out campaign literature from unpopular candidates 7 years ago. Is off-street parking a good thing? Yes! Is it worth $150 a month? Hell no!

The good news is that school ends soon, and already lots and lots of rental units are coming on the market. It's a weird "wait/hurry up" game. I think I'm learning how to play it. If someone has stuff on the curb marked "FREE" I go back a week later and the place is for rent, nine times in ten.

On the other hand, I have a slowly improving sense of what makes some $525/month places "steals" and other $450/month places "ripoffs".

I am cutting it close.

Last ditch effort.

Applied for one last job online today. This is one that I really want, though, so who knows. It might work out.

My seriously drug-addicted, bipolar stalker friend with the initials KM has called and left messages three times these last two days. (Thank you, Alltel, for allowing "blocked" numbers to leave messages *without* blocked numbers' calls showing up in the "missed calls" list. DUH. Some safety feature, that, which just blocks me from knowing who calls from where.)

It's been over a year since I heard from him last, and of course I haven't returned his calls in forever. The gist of his latest three messages is, well, "when Moses parted the Red Sea, it wasn't a miracle, it simply had to do with the wire he's had in one of his molars for these last 27 years and now that it's gone everything is 'on', and it would behoove me to return his call".

Uhm, OK. Whatever. I sure know how to pick 'em, don't I? ;)

Next to last.

Went home for my birthday. Came back. Two cats had escaped. Heard of a job opening I honestly *want*. Come back home from getting the preliminary information on that and guess what. The Plateros are moving out. Tonight.

That leaves the little old lady two doors down and me. She's moving out next week. I'm going to be the last person living in this place.

End of an era. The Plateros go way back, as did Helen. There's 60 years of history here and I'm the last to live here in the shadows of this shell of a building that was once a trading post, a jewelry factory, a military contract shop, a textile factory.

They just drove out, under a full moon, with their final possessions packed into the Chevrolet Lumina that's owned by the son who works for Chevron.

They're gone.

I have no neighbours.