Seattle, a little tipsy, at my wife’s house, surrounded by rain in Greenlake. Walked eleven miles yesterday, trekked over the University Bridge whispering hang in there, slow down, hang on, hold on. I haven’t slept this soundly or felt this safe in years. Haven’t heard a single gunshot since I got here. Tomorrow, we head to the desert to sleep in a field alongside 20,000 other humans.

Had a dream last night that Dave Sitek (who once asked me, as I (wo)manned their merch table at that dive bar in Vancouver, the night of the ringing keychains, when the whole set was dedicated to me, and I had free drinks poured five deep, he asked me if I had a crush on Karen O and added, if you don’t already, you really should; his genius has terrified and intimidated me for nigh upon a decade) wrote me a letter — real live, looseleaf paper & pen — to ask me to go ghost hunting with him in a barn in Missouri. We did, and I woke up feeling haunted and excited, started drinking. This is what life should be like: escape, with the people I love best.

we didn’t want to drink the blood , but there was nothing else around

- DAS

Number of people I actively miss, at absolutely all times, with whom I could easily remain in contact if I were a more deserving person, a decent and responsive and responsible human being: 12, at last count. Hello, you guys. I have all of your voicemails and letters and texts saved, I do. I look at them every day. I just want to get better before we talk, and I’m not better yet. I’m trying. Hang in there, okay?

Now. Aside from the unending hell(s?) that is (are?) our downstairs neighbors, everything has been going eerily well. I make sure to preface or follow every hopeful/forward-looking statement with “if I don’t die first” or “if I live that long.” (I should add “if I don’t fall in love with another impossibly charming/manipulative sociopath,” as that is, strictly statistically speaking, a more likely fate than an untimely (?) demise.) Miss Misery would not be so bold as to presume she will be around to enjoy a full or even mildly contented life!

Vic Chesnutt has been on my mind a lot lately; he left when I was five days gone in the hospital, and nobody told me, either because they knew how sad it would make me or because I was, you know, in the hospital; I’m still not sure. I’m glad I got to see him before he went, that cold night at Empty Bottle, even though I didn’t hug him or weep on his shoulder or anything like I wanted to. In five days, my grandpa will have been gone for two years. The next day is Will’s birthday, wherever he is. If we haven’t talked since the start of 2008, I assure you: it’s been a really fucking awful two years! (Even if we haven’t talked since the start of 2008, I hope you are still aware that minus my grandpa’s cancer or my uncle’s unchecked cirrhosis, all the other terrible things unraveled and exploded just the way they should have.)

On that note, an aside to my fellow cripplingly depressed, 20-something prospective home buyers: if you have a longstanding tic that involves, say, rapidly drawing your index finger across your throat (alternately: just your jugular vein, either or both sides) in a slashing motion while sharply inhaling through your teeth, make sure your realtor knows you’re not crazy before you let your freak flag fly. Our realtor seems totally and unreservedly excellent, and I felt I’d proven my worth by having the same job for nearly a decade, but B. still insisted on making me wear long sleeves when we had our home inspection. That simple cover-up — is he afraid she’s a devout Catholic? are inverted crosses still a major faux pas for people who aren’t? — makes me hesitant to relax; i.e. hesitant to relax my unflagging awareness that visible tics are one of the things that separates Everyday Working Crazy from Oops, We Forced You to Have ECT Crazy. It’s already hard enough convincing people I was attacked by a shark or in a tragic Ski-Doo accident. (Stunning realization the other day: sociopaths look for people who SI, don’t they? It’s like a handicap in the Victimization Stakes.)

For those of you keeping track at home, I have managed to pay off a whopping $300 of my $2,800 in medical bills. Thompson, if you just wanna write a check–

Spending my early Sunday afternoon relaxing, roasting sweet potatoes, watching yet another incredibly gory, marginalizing, demeaning horror movie about being in a mental hospital, petting my dog as he sleeps in the sun, nervously pacing.

Remarkable event: I am buying a house. We, rather. We are buying a house? I suppose we are. Being in a long-term relationship has not diminished my abject fear/loathing of being bound, in any way, to any other human being (save Laura, with whom I share a good bit of real estate, covered in indelible ink, plus nine or so years of unequivocal best friendship I have never deserved; all we could say was why the fuck did it take us so long?). I will be the first twig on our ever-dwindling family shrub to own a home, which I hope supersedes the fact that I was supposed to be the first to go to college instead, an honorific I chose to embody by failing to graduate high school.
It went like this: a house I often pass by went up for sale, I looked it up, I fell in love with the listing, I knew I wasn’t buying a fucking house anytime soon, I kept the listing bookmarked and looked at it from time to time, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I started referring to it as “Barbie Dream House” to invested onlookers like my hyperactive Boston Terrier and curmudgeonly Maine Coon. Some things happened that I’d care to gloss over because whenever I think about them, I get so angry that I temporarily go blind, but the net result is that we have to move out of our apartment much sooner than later. We said fuck this shit and got pre-approved for a mortgage, asked friends for realtor recommendations, went to see a house that looked great on the outside but terrible on the inside by ourselves, met our realtor, loved her, went to see Barbie Dream House with our realtor, SERIOUSLY FELL IN LOVE, decided to make an offer, made an offer, found out our offer was accepted a few hours later, snagged a loan from my burgeoning 401(k) for the down payment. Everything after “decided to make an offer” happened YESTERDAY. I can’t imagine a house that I like more than Barbie Dream House; the whole psychological concept of “home” is like the concept of “safety” — very hazy, almost inconceivable; I have very little experience with either idea as it applies in real life, but I think they might be the same thing. The entire looking-to-accepted-offer process has taken all of eight days. Barbie Dream House has been on the market for over a year and a half, and it might just turn out to be mine. Also, I guess Graham Crabb is resurrecting Pop Will Eat Itself as a solo project and he’s playing in New York and Los Angeles in October? (Officially, I am skeptical. This surprises me!) Will the wonders never cease?

Another: something I wrote was referred to as Not Interesting or Compelling, which is the latest single from the brigade who previously brought you hits like Boring-slash-Pretentious and Why Do You Talk About Bands All the Time? People in Bands are Regular People, Just Like You and Me. It was a solid piece, informative, not funny, not cynical or sarcastic, even-handed, tepid and quietly observatory by nature; it had nothing to do with local bands or beer or sports. It wasn’t the right place for that piece to begin with, but I genuinely liked it and I’m sad it won’t ever see the light of day.

MSP, on the other hand, was pure magic: reclaiming a metro area of over half a million alongside someone who has always made me feel impossibly safe. Tomorrow, we drop off the earnest money for our accepted offer (seller pays closing costs, yeah!). Then a home inspection. Then an FHA appraisal. Then a meeting with the FHA loan officer. Then Seattle for almost eight whole days: the wife, Roman K, desert driving, Sasquatch, maybe Nada Surf, Bamboo Garden, springtime in a place that actually almost always has a spring.

Could I have a good life? I feel like I’m softening from a hard-won no, never to a tentative probably not, but maybe.

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