How The Bank Almost Ruined Our Plans

If you have been paying attention, you will know that we have spent a considerable amount of time over the past few months looking for, and trying to buy, a house. Minx and Hermit have been dealing with the mortgage stuff - mainly Minx, as she's the one who's name is on the loan. She has had to fill out approximately 300 million forms* and has done so quickly, efficiently and with minimum amount of fuss for the bank. One might, therefore, reasonably expect the bank to put in a similar amount of effort. If her co-operation wasn't enough, then maybe the fact that it is a business transaction that they would make a considerable amount of money from would be.

Apparently not. They called Minx sometime last week, maybe 3 days before we were due to finally close on the house, and told her that she needed to have a 45 minute counselling session in order to satisfy the requirements and therefore get the money. She called the relevant people and they didn't have a slot available til sometime the following week. Ok, so maybe we couldn't close on Friday. Well, that's upsetting and throws all our plans off, but we can still buy the house at least. By some miracle, she manages to get a session the following day because someone has dropped out. Apparently, the bank should get the required paperwork in time, so Friday can still happen! Hooray!

Oh. No, wait, it says here that you're in a contract for a rental property until November? Yes, yes we are. And you have been aware of this for MONTHS. Ok, well this means that you now can't buy ANYTHING until October.
...
Yes, this actually happened. Because Minx and Hermit's contract on their current flat doesn't end until November, the underwriter told them they couldn't buy anything, as they'd effectively be paying for 2 houses. Never mind that they've know for months, and that their flat is likely to be re-rented long before then. Hermit makes a call to the apartment complex and they agree to let them out of the contract (for a fee, of course). By this time it's after 5pm on Thursday and we still have no idea if the underwriters will accept this...and won't know until Friday morning. So we spend a very tense night packing all the cleaning stuff just in case we can get into the house and clean it like we'd been planning for several weeks.

Somehow, by some kind of miracle, it all works. The bank accepts everything, Minx and Hermit close on the house, and I drive up that night with the Child and Dog. We all breath one HUGE sigh of relief, and some of our stress starts to disappite.


*Maybe even more. I didn't pay that much attention, but there were A LOT. Like, more forms than God needed to fill out to get planning permission for the continent of America.

Bi Pride

One of the things that surprised me most about DC Pride was the extreme lack of anything to do with bisexuality. By 'extreme lack' I mean there was NOTHING. No group in the parade, not stall at the festival, even the vendors had exclusively gay or lesbian merchandise. Not even one shirt saying 'I love guys and girls'. Nothing. You could be forgiven for thinking that bisexuality doesn't even exist, or at least isn't included in the queer community. It was pretty frustrating. I consider myself queer, and definitely a member of the LGBT community, yet I wasn't represented at all in a whole weekend that is supposed to be about being proud of our diversity and sexuality. I've never felt quite so invisible as a sexuality, not even when surrounded by straight people. It was...strange.

This strangeness turned to aggravation, frustration and mild anger late on Sunday afternoon. Hermit and I had been to the festival with Child. It was pretty obvious - there was a rainbow flag on the stroller and Hermit had one pinned to his back. We were waiting for the train and I gave him a kiss, as I am wont to do. Then this girl (I assume she was gay) said in a pretty loud whisper to another girl (probably also gay) "Why are there all these straight people at Pride?". Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't aware you could now tell someone's sexuality just by looking at them! How stupid of me. Yes, of course I'm straight. I'm kissing a man, there's no other sexuality I could possibly lay claim to! I didn't say anything on the grounds that getting into a yelling match with an insecure 18 year old lesbian wasn't a good way to end the day, but I wasn't happy. I'd spent a great weekend celebrating my sexuality and my loves, and this adolescent has a problem with me being at her event because I kiss men? Awesome. Go Pride!

Frankly, even if I WAS straight, I'd be pissed off at that. LGBT people are in the minority. We need the support of the heteronormative majority to get any rights, legitimacy or to just not be lynched. I was highly encouraged by the amount of people marching for PFLAG during the parade. To see that many 'straight' people still loving their family though they're gay is AMAZING! It shows so much progress and hope for people who have been disowned for the simple fact that they love the wrong gender. We shouldn't bee discouraging straight people from coming to Pride, we should be inviting them with open arms! It's a celebration! Everyone should be celebrating, regardless of who they sleep with.

Stupid 18 year old lesbian.

Despite her comment, the vast majority of people we say smiled at us, wished up happy Pride, or just plain didn't insult us for the entire weekend. I do still wish that bisexuals had been represented, even a little bit. If I were staying in DC I'd put some effort into that happening next year...

Family Pride

We went to DC Pride this weekend! It was fantastic fun, especially the parade on Saturday, We left the house kind of early and walked down with Child in the stroller. She fell asleep on the walk, which was nice as she stayed sleeping when we got to the parade route and picked out somewhere to sit, so Hermit, Minx and I got some time to be grown-ups together. The parade itself was loooong! It took a couple of hours and some of the organisations there confused me a bit (HSBC? You're a gay company now?). I do understand that they were showing their support but was a bit cynical about the whole thing until Minx kindly explained to me that at least some of the companies there probably had very strict anti-discrimination policy, which is a huge thing in a country in parts of which it is still legal to fire someone for being gay. So you go, HSBC! Protect your gay employees and come to Pride! Of course, there were the obligatory drag queens and semi-naked men and women...mostly men. Though there was a decidedly attractive woman on a motorbike right at the beginning who had nothing covering her breasts but her girlfriend's hands, who was sitting on the back of the bike. I enjoyed that. There was also a float themed on the British Olympics! Yay Britain! It was for the DC Aqua Club so there were lots of men wearing speedos with the Union Jack on them. I didn't quite see the connection, but one of the barely-clad men kindly explained that it was really just a theme that had something to do with swimming. Oh, and the had the Queen there too! She'd put on a bit of weight and looked distinctly more masculine than I remember, but her wave was very regal so it must have been her.

One of the things that I enjoyed more than anything else about the parade was Minx. I always enjoy her of course, but she was so affectionate. She's not one for conflict (meaning she'll do almost anything to avoid it), to the extent that she will not do something she really wants to, just in case a random passer-by is offended or bothered by it. This sometimes extends to being physically affectionate with me in public - it's not that she isn't, it's that she's more subtle about it. It decreases even more when we're all out a a family. She was distinctly uncomfortable about even going to the parade, but she pushed herself through it and even held my hand for most of the walk their :D Even in front of non-gay strangers! She was so brave about it, and it meant a lot to me. And at the end of the parade, when the Child was looking elsewhere, she pulled me in and gave me a wonderful kiss. Which I don't think she has ever done, in public, when we're very obviously part of a familial group. It gave me a lovely warm fuzzy feeling :) I am very proud of my darling lady :)

OH! And Hermit flirted with a guy :D it was awesome and he was brave and not at all creepy (something he worries about). So I am proud of him too!

My Adventures With Computers

I am dangerous with computers. I have just enough knowledge to make me feel some level of competence, enough to fake more knowledge than I actually have, whilst being entirely clueless in most things concerning them. The small amounts of information I have picked up from two ex-boyfriends, my brother and various techie friends means that I dislike paying for someone to do something (like, fix my computer) because I'm sure I could do it for free if I had the time to research the problem.

I spilled water on my laptop recently. Not Valerie, my £250 notebook, but my 16", £700+ machine which I have used for 4 years for university stuff and gaming. I feel stupid, to say the least. It kind of turned on a couple of times after I left it to dry, but 9 times out of 10 it didn't get past the loading screen. Given that I hadn't backed up ANYTHING on it, this is concerning for me. I did have back-ups on Valerie, but I recently switched her to Ubuntu and hadn't got around to going through the back-up process again. So, feeling like an idiot, I trekked into Best Buy with my laptop to ask if they could fix it. Also somewhat stupidly, I did not ask the cost of backing up my data and getting an estimate before the woman was almost done with the paperwork. $100 to back up the data, $35 in shipping to get it to their technical centre so someone could take a look at it. $100!! For something that my brother could easily do for free, or that PC World in the UK would probably do for about $40. I said "Um, no thanks" and walked home again. Feeling like an idiot. Why did I walk home? Because I'm pretty sure I can at least do the backing up myself. As long as they hard drive is ok...

So I spent an hour in the afternoon searching for the right screwdriver and very carefully removing the hard drive. Success! I ordered a hard drive enclosure (which should arrive today) so I can try and use it as an external hard drive and get all my files off it, before putting the hard drive back and finding someone to give me an estimate for actually fixing it. Luckily I'm not stupid enough to poke around the insides and try to work out what's wrong myself. Hopefully it can be fixed...

And of course, this happens the week before the next Guild Wars 2 beta weekend. No gaming for me :(

Letters That I Might Send?

I think about my first boyfriend (and second, but this is a post about the first) pretty regularly. I have no idea if this is normal or not and, frankly, I don't really care. There's no regret that the relationship ended, merely regret at how I handled the break-up. As you may have gathered from my post back in February, I remember him with much fondness and really do wonder how he's doing. I hope he's well, and happy. I wonder who he is now. I'm certainly a different person. We started our relationship when we were still in high school - I was 15...and convinced I wanted to go into fashion, or art or something and that I wanted a huuuge family and to live in Scotland as soon as I could. I don't think I'd recognise myself now! I'm an academic, with no interest in children of my own and living in the US of all places. Oh, and Minx and Hermit would probably come as a surprise. I'd think he has changed equally in five years since we parted.

I was talking to Minx last night and saying that I still miss him. He was my best friend in the world :) and she said that I should tell him. This was pretty surprising to me because I'd always assumed that I'd never talk to him again, even though I wanted to. Her comment has opened up that possibility and I don't know how I feel about it. I mean, I want to, I really do. But it's a very selfish thing to do and I have no idea how he'd feel about it. Would it upset him? Is it something he'd really rather I'd not do, and should I just leave him to get on with his life? Do I want to do it because I feel guilty about how things ended and want to make myself feel better, or for curiosity's sake and because I loved him once. I really don't know. It's definitely something to think about. It does help that my Mum saw him at the cinema a couple of months ago and she said he seemed really pleased to see her, and they chatted for a while...so clearly he doesn't hate my family at least :)

Memorial Weekend

We spent Memorial Weekend out in Maryland at Minx' parents' holiday house, which is totally beautiful. It's quiet, in the middle of nowhere and backs out onto the Chesapeake River, which is fantastic. We got to leave early on Friday as my boss really kindly let me finish 2 hours earlier than normal, went the back routes to Anapolis to avoid traffic and did some shopping...which I totally didn't plan on, but found 2 fantastic dresses that were purchased anyway. We made it to the house at around 10pm and managed to avoid most of the traffic, which everyone appreciated! Saturday was spent at a Tea Party festival which, as a Brit, was really interesting! It's basically a celebration of the Americans standing up to King George III and is clearly something people here are very proud of - but something that goes almost totally unmentioned in British history classes. I had only the very foggiest of notions that we once ruled the US until I was about 15...and my knowledge still isn't that great, 10 years later! I know that we have more history to cover in school than the US does, but I do think that more time should be given to more recent history than to the Tudors, for example. The Tudors are AWESOME, don't get me wrong, but knowledge of the relationship between the UK and US is far more important for modern life. There's a reason why our cultures are so different yet similar, and learning about out mutual history seems to be to be a great idea.

So the Tea Party was fun :D There was a parade with 2 pipe bands (yay!) and a group of people dressed as English redcoats too, with a Union Jack! That made me very happy to see. There were stalls to look at, a Punch and Judy show (which doesn't scare me as much as it did when I was 10...but is still not something I like), birds of prey and some very yummy food. I had funnel cake. I've never had funnel cake before! It's basically doughnut batter cooked in hot oil, but instead of being doughnut shaped it's basically a bit pile of squiggles. It's given to you with powdered sugar sprinkled over the top and it delicious, but very heavy and sweet. We had one between the four of us, and that was more than enough, yet there were people there with one each! I think if I ate that much sugar and grease at once I'd feel very ill. We spent Sunday relaxing around the house and enjoying the wonderful weather, and the Child and I made origami fortune tellers :D Apparently they're called 'cootie catchers' in the US, but I couldn't tell you why. I used to make them when I was in primary school. I didn't explain to the Child what they're used for, but she had fun. We coloured them in and she calls them 'chicken beaks' and uses them to steal people's noses. Monday was more relaxing, and then we drove back to DC. It was a great weekend :)

God and I

God and I have a somewhat challenging relationship upon occasion. Challenging from my end at least, and I'm pretty sure I've made Her at least give a small sigh of frustration. Or maybe not. It's hard to tell. I'm not the greatest at keeping in touch, and this (unfortunately) extends to God as well. I've always been crap at regular prayer and, subsequently, am not particularly good at it. I catch myself wondering how stupid I sound, or what I'm going to make for dinner, or whether I have time to do some gaming before bed. Not particularly helpful for one's spiritual health.

It's become worse recently. Partly because I haven't been to church regularly for a while, partly (I think) due to stress and partly because I feel like I have so much to DO. I always start the day with the best of intentions. I'll be productive and get stuff done and of course I'll remember to pray. Of course! Then the day actually happens. Some stuff gets done, never as much as I intend, and invariably prayer falls by the wayside. I'm not entirely sure how to address this. One way would be to learn how to pray in a way that suits me, but again this requires time and actually remembering to do it. The more I forget or put it off, the harder it becomes. In fact, I should probably be giving it a go right now instead of blogging about it. Kind of special, huh?

In fact, what I WILL do now (or at least until I start work, which should have been 30 minutes ago but everyone's out...) is make a list of what needs to be accomplished. Prayer will be at the top. I feel better with a list to guide me and it actually helps a lot in focusing my day. So, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to write my list. Oh, and if you have any suggestions for effective prayer, let me know! All help is greatly appreciated...