Some of us are careful — paranoid — about what we say on the internet, because, you know, you never can tell who’s reading it. But some of the same people aren’t careful of how loudly they talk in “real life” or to whom they speak.

I think digital paranoid is taking the place of realworld discretion.

Someone should do a study about it. You know, all scientific and legit.

Also, these days, I feel proud to be a Marylander.

In the days of dwindling blogs and when so many that are still updated are largely negative (mine!) or commercial, it’s nice to read something inspiring and positive everyday.

Seriously.

(Random photo. Charlotte and I play with a lot of blocks.)

And I got bleach on the shirt from the concert after which Charlotte was conceived (Tori Amos in Washington in summer 2009).

Shit.

That’s the official conception story, though I think the timing’s a little off.

And this post is getting a little TMI.

(…….wtf?…….)
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[that's a chin beard]

Two weeks ago, Charlotte turned two. We paraded around in the stroller, with music, a trip to the playground, iced-tea, cookies and sunshine. In the same amount of time, we will (barring anything bad happening KNOCKONWOODANDCROSSFINGERS) own a house.

We haven’t really begun to pack yet. Granted, instinct told us that our stint in the middle of Roland Park wouldn’t last long; lots of stuff is still actually in boxes. And I don’t foresee the time-consuming emptying of closets of stuff that took so long last spring/early summer. Nor will I have to sweat while packing, since it wasn’t worth putting in the window units; this time, there’s central air here and there. I know — I feel conflicted about AC, but at least the windows work at our house. And I don’t really have to apologize to anyone for enjoying not melting in the house in July in Central Maryland’s heat.

Still, I find myself apologizing for people’s over-reactions to my actions and words, my education, my preferences — all the time like some kind of sheeptool. That’s a stupid waste of my energy and sanity.

I have been floating above the Earth (and the rest of you) on a minimum of seven large, strong cups of coffee a day (two liters today already!). That could account for some of my time distortion. That and the amount of Benadryl I’ve needed lately.

Today, we celebrate Charlotte’s friend turning four and the first baby in my circle of friends’ experiences in parenting. Four years ago, my father became the senior generation of my family, too, when his father died.

One in, one out. And all that.

I’m simultaneously terrified and excited about our house. Charlotte and I look at pictures, and she knows which room is hers, what we’ll make in the kitchen (cookies!), which is the downstairs 1/2-bath. She’s never been there, and I can’t wait to show it to her.

Maybe it’s that moving and all the work involved this time around is compounded by some minor ceiling painting and improving the color of a few rooms.

Also, our house has fancy new toilets. You know this is good news.

And marble steps to scrub and shine.

All the time.

After the gorgeous weather yesterday, storms moved in after supper, bringing a day (or more) of rain. So we left. I had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, Charlotte — being only two years old — likes for both of her parents to be home at bedtime and when she wakes up; I wanted to see my daughter and cuddle and play. On the other, well, it felt kind of sissyfied to leave — and chilly weather plus rain-on-tent plus warm sleeping bag equals wonderful sleeping. The senior guys were keen to leave if, for nothing else, safety reasons. Some other folks wanted to stay. In the end, we left.

I’d like to think I would have cheerfully gone along with either. Camping in the rain can be trying, but it can be rewarding. And breaking camp in the middle of a thunderstorm was less than fun anyway. But then I was home by 10pm, with my wife and coffee waiting.

There are a lot of fun things out there to experience, but I wonder if my age isn’t making me really appreciate just being at home with people I care about more and more. I think Charlotte will keep us from becoming serious homebodies, though.

She seeks Adventure like a drunken frat boy.

Also, damn, we’re under contract on a house.  No more info yet.  I will not jinx it — crosses fingers, toes and ears[?].  But it’s well-located, rehabbed, small and nightmare for parking.  Being…compact “livers” and car-free, this is nearly ideal.

I hate Roland Park.  There.  I said it.

There are a lot of random and cosmic coincidences revolving around the location of OUR HOUSE, going all the way back to Mrs. P’s first apartment in 1999.  Long story, for later.

Pray I don’t float away in my sleeping bag.

(Is that a sentence?)

None of the “genuine” people I know are inyourface about being inyourface or speakingtheirmind[s].  They are nice to people they like, civil to everyone else, and they know the difference between honesty and letting one’s mouth shit out every single thought and opinion.

There is a difference between having no filter (or sense) and truth.

I’ve found that a lot of people I know who profess to be “so real” really just like to run their mouths.  They are also full of fake smiles and giggles for the same reason.  They can’t shut up, and they want attention.  And they tell themselves that being “real” about what they “think” (using that word loosely) proves that their fake kissyfaces are real.

Me?  I’m consistent.  I am too afraid to speak my mind (or I have the sense not to — take your pick).  And I am nice to people I can’t stand all of the time.

So says the guy with enough grey that everyone feels the need to comment on it, especially early-greying females.

(There, I said it.)

Fine, I’m only 32 with a heavily-grey beard.  I also have a PhD at 32.  Not bad.

But then I hear about this fucking nutjob Santorum and Smiley Man from Massachusetts and the mistaken belief that Catholic hospitals are more entitled to “religious freedom” than individuals, and I wonder what the hell we live here for.

I mean, there’s got to be a place in the world for two people with American PhDs, right?

Cars, money, big houses, the suburbs, cheap gas, legislating religious perspectives — what is my family doing here?  I think sometimes that I know people who are different from the zombie mindset in this nation (funny that zombies are popular, huh?), and then they move to the suburbs or wind up lusting for things they don’t need and can’t afford and turn into everyone else.

We’re having trouble with the decision to buy a house, since we’re suspecting we might be “apartment people” (but are certainly not sure, because, shit, porches are nice, and renting is getting to be very expensive), and I can’t even see what I think anymore.  We don’t want a car.  We don’t want to move to the suburbs.  We don’t want a big house.  We don’t want — or need — a lot of money.

But when things are changing (no more mailboxes in the lobby?) so quickly the way they are, I wonder if we can resist the pull of the tide of everyone else, the move to SUVs (even small ones to make a person feel less guilty about talking smack about them for so long and then going out and buying one because babies need fourwheeldrive), to houses with rooms that are rarely used, the move to fool oneself about what we really want — because being even the small bit of “different”that not having a car or wanting a lawn and driveway amounts to really starts to get difficult when even your comrades are starting to do what everyone else does.

Resisting regular America is comparatively easy, compared with what happens when people with whom you share a lot start looking and acting like everyone else you see at a stoplight at a suburban shopping center.

It gets damned lonely.

And we often conclude that our family might be one of the very few things keeping us in this country.  One, certainly, and probably the biggest.

But if my father suddenly wanted to move to Toronto, would we muster the nerve to move, or still want to?

Or is being at odds with one’s country[wo]men itself a habit or addiction?

It’s hard to think you’re better than other people if you do what they do, no?

So we were checking out two houses this week.  A fortune teller recently told my aunt there’d be two houses in Hampden we liked and that we’d get the one we wanted.  We liked one for a long time (W) and one a lot in particular (R).  We asked my good friend, who’s a contractor, to come along and see if there was anything we missed.

Total bust.

“W” needed a new hot water heater, chimney.  It had oil heat (which is a no-go for Mrs. P).  And one bedroom’s floor was covered in something none of us could identify, let alone explain the purpose of.  For me, it was a bowfront, but not a true bowfront, on a block of homes with this design.  Also, the back concrete raised “deck” needed to be replaced in a few years.

“R” was shoddily done, sans permits.  The sewer pipe was rusty and held up by a 2X4.  There were non-code PVC pipes in the walls.  The porch’s floor was falling in, and the roofs needed immediate work.  No washer and dryer.  And there was water coming into the basement from, likely, the main water pipe in the front yard.  This is not mentioning the lookatthehippiesandcoloredgirl stares we got on the whole block.  (There are things I have never missed about Hampden, and old fuckers watching you from their porch and commenting loudly enough for you to hear is one of them.)

Yikes.

Mr. D was sorry to be the deliverer of bad news, but he also saved our asses.  I was glad as hell that he was there and was honest.

Now, well, shit, we’re wondering why we want to quit apartment living at all, given our seriously constrained geographical area (close to family, work, transit, the stuff we like to walk to).  True, we hate where our apartment is now, and we’re spending too much to live here.

But we have gotten back to thinking about Co-ops.  Specifically, the one we’ve looked at before, where we could live in a nice unit across from the park for about what we pay now.

I’ve always joked that we’d go back and buy the first house we looked at this fall.  Ironically, the unit we’re looking at is the first home we looked at last spring.  And its listing agent is now our buyer’s agent.

For its downs, we like apartment living.  One we own would be pretty nice.  Not to mention not having to worry about things like roofs, water leaks, heaters, etc.  We could save “emergency” money for trips, not car repairs or a new furnace.

Just a stream of thought we’re exploring.

Not to mention the possibly perfect location of this joint.  Damn.

Part of me likes management oversight and being able to blame a lazy landlord for cracked plaster and “that smell.”  Most of me likes having that extra door between the outside world and our little unit that apartment buildings afford.

But, damn, barring rayguns that can lighten the footsteps of my 90-pound upstairs neighbor, the fists of my door-slamming nextdoor neighbors or the stench of that pig that still stinks up the joint on occasion, I’m ready to move out of here.

I’m ready for the long-term neighbors I grew up with.  I’m far from out-going (semi-self-sufficient, I like to think), and I find it difficult to convince myself of an incentive to get to know neighbors I’m only likely to have while our leases run together, usually only a matter of months.  And, I’ve found, many (if not most) apartment dwellers feel — or, at least, act — the same way.

And, coincidentally, the current house choice that we’re taking a second look at tomorrow is across the street from the house I grew up in and in which I was conceived (although my Dad did have a big car back then…).

But, I’m really going to miss clusters of mailboxes, common stairs, the extra security (or at least the feeling of it), walls I don’t feel pressured to paint and being able to blame the flaws in my living space on someone else.