I'll take it upon myself to make the obligatory mention of Elgin, ND so that the rest of you can get on to more subtantive comments.
I'll just beat the rush and say that this is something that white people like.
I've been amusing myself lately by going to Roost and looking for single-family homes in SF that have at least 1.5 baths for $600k or less.
4: Damn the list of places with the most inventory for Silicon Valley is depressing.
When Rah and I were house shopping I was obsessed with real estate porn. We would go to dinner and plow through piles of local real estate circulars. I still love that stuff.
I have saved searches on edinarealty.com that I browse several times a week.
You could probably buy several city blocks of Elgin for a million. You might be able to buy both sides of a block of street here for under a million. 10 houses at less than $100,000 each.
The $30M entry is porn. The $350k entry is depressing.
This looks like the most boring series ever. I couldn't even make it through one paragraph.
I think being bored into a coma by things like this is good, but I wish it didn't also happen when I'm trying to read things to figure out what to do with my savings.
Your problem is trying to read the stories. Just look at the pictures.
But I can see pictures of houses anywhere. In fact, I see dozens of houses every day just going to work.
This is the moneyed thread; it is so painful.
Ned, I think we have enough information about you to say that you're a big weirdo.
Do you regularly see the inside of $30M houses, with two lane bowling alleys and turkish baths?
On the other hand, if you don't read at least the captions, you miss things like this:
"The living room has a wooden fireplace."
That's got to lower the value.
12: How do you feel about nekkid wimmens?
How do you feel about nekkid wimmens?
He saw one once, why should he bother finding another one?
Do you regularly see the inside of $30M houses, with two lane bowling alleys and turkish baths?
In movies, sure.
Ned, I think we have enough information about you to say that you're a big weirdo.
Me and the rest of the "youngest among us" as you already mentioned in the post.
But specifically, the one way I seem to differ from my fiancee the most is in consumerism or desire for ownership or something like that.
She keeps talking about how she wants to live somewhere that has space around it. I just think "And we have to be responsible for the maintenance of all that space?"
There's a big hole in my bathroom ceiling, but I don't worry about it because the rental company is going to fix it after they fix the leak in the ceiling that caused it. If I woke up one day in a place I owned, and noticed that it was now worth several thousand dollars less because of water damage, and that to add insult to injury I was solely responsible for seeing that that damage didn't get even worse, it would ruin my mood for weeks.
I find real estate boring too, Ned. There are about seven real estate joints on my walk from home to the subway, and, at all hours of the day, the sidewalk in front of them is full of strollers and bored kids trying to find something to do while Daddy and/or Mommy presses their noses to the glass reading all the deets on new properties coming available. Sometimes they try to get their kids involved, and you hear nine-year-olds blabbing about how "granite countertops are so over" or whatever. In the end, I suppose it's just like any parental obsession, like with sports or religion or politics or whatever, but I'm with the kids off kicking the fire hydrants, who keep asking, "What are you LOOKING AT? We already HAVE a place to live!"
12: How do you feel about nekkid wimmens?
At least there's some variety in them.
Maybe if some of these houses had undulating floors or were spherical they would be more interesting. But no, they're all boringly designed for actual people to live in.
If there were more under a million dollars it would be more interesting. I can't get that excited looking at stupidly rich people's houses that I'm never going to get to live in. Actually, I htink I'm turning into a bit of a Puritan in my old age, because I tend to look at shit like that and think what a fucking waste of money. If I won £10million, I would give most of it away, not buy a 5 million quid house.
I'm 100% with Ned. But you knew that.
Home ownership is one of the main things I don't like about relationships. As I've mentioned, her remodeling frenzy has slightly impacted my relationship with my still-beloved sister / landlady.
Yeah, the motherfucking "liberal" New York Times. I love the distribution of home prices covered (and of course I understand that is what it takes to get "white people" to read it). And I further accept that the Times does fight the good fight so that Imperial coastal elites can fuck whomever they want in their multi-million dollar homes. But basically all the Times is doing these days is unironically building an archive of material that can be used in the future to reconstruct the history of the collapse of the 1st American Republic.
....... ok, I'm better now, just a touch of Real Estate Envy Derangement Syndrome.
Look people, it's porn. Yes, some people like "amateur" porn with "real" people's bodies, but mainstream taste is for toned and buxom/muscular. The Times is going to serve up the glitzy with a few things that might be accessible, even for the regular folks.
24: Look people, it's porn
Yes, of course it's porn, but corrosive soul-sucking porn that makes you "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business", every ten years or so.
What this type of feature in The Times (and on TV etc.) reminds me of is an Amway recrutiment tape someone gave me once. In it they described a process they called "envisioning", where in addition to reading about things you can't afford, you were supposed to literally go shopping for them in your free time: drive the Mercedes, go to open houses in [insert wealthy suburb here]. All towards the end of helping you to more concretely envision yourself (yes you, Al Franken) enjoying that lifestyle as a goad to getting out there and moving the product out of the distribution center.
I would also say that this has been about 50% of the function of 90% of sitcoms over the last 50 years. One of the few redeeming aspects of America's Funniest Home Videos is that a gave a glimpse of what people's actual houses looked like. (YouTube has now taken over that function.)
All right, this thread has ground to a halt. Glad to have convinced you all to my point of view.
I think that home-ownership is one of the majot differences between the US and Europe, and the advantage goes to Europe. My bet is that homeowners in Europe tend to be shittier than the average European.
Ogged, dude, you are an old man. It's old people porn. I'm sure that there's someone out there who get aroused looking at pictures of golf courses too, and that dude's old too. Do you know what the rest of us do when we're in the mood for porn? We look at porn.
I don't know how homeownership functions as a political issue. Why is it so encouraged? Just because the financial services industry wants to increase the total amount of loans in the world?
So many people don't realize that the reason for a lot of suffering when cities decline is that people who own houses there can't move away without moving into a much smaller and lower-status place, because they can't sell their house for anything close to what they paid for it.
Somebody (on Econospeak, I think) linked to paper that provided evidence that homeownership led to higher unemployment -- since it was hard to sell a house, people who owned a house were less willing to move. Unemployment rates in Europe have increased with homeownership.
24 - oh sorry, is porn good now? I'm too old-fashioned I guess.
Every time we think about spending serious money on a house, we decide against it, on the grounds that we could have a fuck of a lot more fun spending it. Look at porn vs have sex - easy choice.
28: Do you know what the rest of us do when we're in the mood for porn? We look at porn.
Heh.
A friend and I were talking last night about how pleasurable it is to watch porn in which the people are obviously really happy, so much so that we'd rather watch a non-pornographic video of people being genuinely happy than a pornographic one in which they're going through the motions.
I think the reason real-estate porn doesn't work on me is that I can't project myself into a happy fantasy through ownership. Can I imagine that the people who live in that giant house are actually really happy because of their homeownership? No, I cannot.
Maybe if some of these houses had undulating floors or were spherical they would be more interesting.
Ned wants to move to the Hundertwasser House!
A friend and I were talking last night about how pleasurable it is to watch porn in which the people are obviously really happy, so much so that we'd rather watch a non-pornographic video of people being genuinely happy than a pornographic one in which they're going through the motions.
I've found that a site called kodiefiles.nl is best for that sort of thing. Don't know what kind of malware it might be associated with, but not worse than any other porn site.
Professional porn is just stupid.
I obsessively look at apartments in my neighborhood on craigslist, but it's not porn, it's to make myself feel better about how much rent I'm paying.
Can I imagine that the people who live in that giant house are actually really happy because of their homeownership?
Can you imagine them being happy in that giant house because of the things they do, have done or plan to do in that giant house, that they could not have done in another house? I hate people who can afford more square footage as much as the next thwarted bourgeois, but people who own houses are not incapable of dreaming.
33 - mmm, I want to move to the Hundertwasser house!
A big unfogged co-op! In Vienna, unfortunately.
Can you imagine them being happy in that giant house because of the things they do, have done or plan to do in that giant house, that they could not have done in another house?
Not really. I don't think that that's what giant houses are about. A guy with ten boats doesn't have ten times as much fun as a guy with one boat. Beyond some point it's the same for houses.
Especially if one or both spouses is a workaholic so that they can buy a giant house, in which case they might as well live in Motel Six since they have no time to enjoy anything.
36: Actually, maybe it's just my limited experience with wealthy homeowners (two of my uncles, my ex-boyfriend and his friends, etc.), but all they ever talk about is doing further renovations or moving, or else they're complaining about their maids or upkeep. They end up not using the super-cool features of their house, or they get used to them so much that it merely makes them unhappy to be in anyone else's home because of the poorer facilities. That is, I haven't found wealthy homeowners to have richer, happier lives than renters or poorer people.
Whereas people who have lots of satisfying sex, on the other hand, I can imagine being happy because of it. They're not always trying to sell out one partner for another or complaining about his armpit smell or something. Okay, some of them do, but most of them seem to be made happier by it.
38: Oh it is awesome! But perhaps we ought to move into the Kunst Haus Wien! Uneven floors! Even floors are for machines, not people!
Oh yeah, and Tree Tenants! "They pay an invaluable rent!"
I will never get past the sticker shock. My parents' four bedroom house, in a nice area with great schools, would go now for around $150,000, maybe.
Whereas people who have lots of satisfying sex, on the other hand, I can imagine being happy because of it.
It seems to me that often the ones who are always talking about their sex life are also never satisfied and are also concerned with "further renovations", as it were.
"We put a lot of effort into it and managed to finally have multiple orgasms, but we were thinking about maybe modifying that to include some sort of a prostate motif."
People like Betty Dodson annoy me. If you're paying attention to Betty Dodson you are already open-minded enough to have a healthy sex life and don't need instructions.
39: Again with the sumptuary laws, John. Get your old tired ethics off my enormous lawn!
40: High ceilings and claw-footed bathtubs do nothing to detract from the fun of sex.
44: I said "satisfying sex," obviously disincluding those who talk about their sex life all the time. But I have friends who are blessed with very horny and creative partners, and it seems to make for a pretty happy life for them, even when things aren't going well otherwise.
What Stormcrow said in 23. Fucking Times. It's like garden design books, most of which show you what you can do if you have an acre to play with.
Anyway, I paid $38K for my house, so blow me, NYT.
High ceilings and claw-footed bathtubs do nothing to detract from the fun of sex.
This, I'll grant, is very true.
I paid $38K for my house
That makes me a lot more angry than people paying $2m. I need to find Jesus.
I don't know how homeownership functions as a political issue. Why is it so encouraged? Just because the financial services industry wants to increase the total amount of loans in the world?
Two basic reasons:
1. Security in old age. Once your house is paid off, the theory goes, you never have to worry about paying an escalating rent and potentially becoming homeless when you can no longer work. (Escalating property taxes are another matter, of course.) Also, the discipline of paying your mortgage will force you into saving through the equity in your house. This is the one investment where it is considered prudent for ordinary people to buy on the margin.
2. Promoting social stability / political conservatism. The theory goes that homeowners will be more personally invested in their communities, will be more concerned with keeping the grass mowed and maintaining the quality of local services, etc. The Thatcher government initiated a program that sold vast numbers of council houses to their tenants on the theory that this would turn them from Labour voters into Tories. There is at least some evidence that it worked. From my own perspective I can say that owning my own place noticeably diminished my overall level of tolerance for social deviance, so it's plausible to me. Also, Holbo's theory of Dark Satanic Millianism: if you have a mortgage hanging over your head, you are unlikely to rock the boat.
I need to find Jesus.
Doesn't everybody? I should add that it was a long time ago, when the neighborhood was shooty and stabby and cracky. It's worth probably ten times that now.
There's also economic stimulus through the construction industry, but your two basic reasons are good.
Jesus -- Show Ogged the pic of the house you grew up in. We are going to expropriate your stuff, JM.
Cool, 23 through 25 covered everything I'd want to say. 24 is drop-kicked.
53: Here it is. I should ask my mom how much they paid for it in 1970.
25 is a great comment. I prefer "Cops" for a glimpse of the inside of real houses. Always makes me feel good about my level of mess.
We now know why Jesus is the way he is. He grew up in a Hallmark card.
Is that the house from Diamond in the Window?!
Do you know what the rest of us do when we're in the mood for porn? We look at porn.
An earnest and unironic "what is your favorite porn" thread would be interesting. But unlikely to happen.
OT, but I thought people would enjoy this comment from a site I surfed the other day. I didn't know people still spoke like this:
Otto Kuusinen said so much with so few words: "The theoretical and practical efforts of the revisionists are in the final analysis always subordinated to their attempt to liquidate the (Marxist-Leninist) Party or transform it into a reformist organization."
An earnest and unironic "what is your favorite porn" thread would be interesting. But unlikely to happen.
34 started it off
50.2 has the correlation/causation problem. It's at least as likely that people who end up buying are more the sort of people who will be invested in a community, whether or not they happen to be owners. (This makes me cranky at various neighborhood meetings, when I can tell that I'm being dismissed as "only a renter")
58: I'd never heard of Diamond in the Window, but it does sound like that kind of place. It used to be an inn (and is again), so it had a reception desk with a stairway winding around behind it. God, that was a great place to be a kid. Plus, it's on about an acre of land in the middle of town.
Neighborhood associations tend to become homeowners' property value protection groups, often of the nimby type. I wouldn't be surprised if that rule is almost universal.
It's worth probably ten times that now.
Yeah, well, there's is literally not one single-family home for sale for under $400k in the town I live in. Oregon or bust, you know you want me!
An earnest and unironic "what is your favorite porn" thread
Just about the worst idea ever, unless your plan is to kill the blog forever.
I must be so weird: I don't watch porn. There it is, I don't. It's not any principled thing; on occasion something's been around, and okay, but aside from that, it's just been homemade things. I just don't have a problem with this not watching of porn.
67: An all-anonymous thread of that nature could work. But there's still the possibility that someone will say something so shocking that lots of people will demand that he reveal who he is, as has happened once before.
aside from that, it's just been homemade things
What kind of homemade things?
25, 67: but mainstream taste is for toned and buxom/muscular
Mainstream porn is what the whole happening world would think was cool if the Nazis had won the war.
Don't make bespoke porn for ogged, Parsimon. (Unless, you know, it's a beautiful, consensual thing.)
Homemade videos? Back in the day when there were VCRs and friends in the film program at the local university, so you could borrow the camera. Doesn't everybody have things like this around?
Just about the worst idea ever, unless your plan is to kill the blog forever.
Very true, but what a way to go!
OK, off to see Jumper now.
Doesn't everybody have things like this around?
No, you big freak. You made porn?
Anyway, the point is that I don't watch porn at all, which I gather from things I read here is rather unusual. So I dunno.
Why parsimon, I had no idea.
OK, off to see Jumper now.
NO! COME BACK! DON'T WASTE YOUR LIFE THAT WAY!
No, you big freak.
Feigned ignorance of Pamela Anderson and Paris Hilton isn't entirely convincing coming from you, ogged.
NO! COME BACK! DON'T WASTE YOUR LIFE THAT WAY!
The book Jumper is very loosely based on was actually quite good. I certainly hope Steven Gould got a fat check for the option.
Do I need to be clear that this was for personal consumption only? Jeez, people.
I just don't have a problem with this not watching of porn.
No one has a problem with not watching porn, morally. You mean you feel judged, morally, for not watching porn? That seems preposterous to me.
76: Dare I comment that we have stumbled across another male/female difference?
(On average, of course, not as an absolute statement)
I'm gonna see Jumper, and I'm gonna enjoy it . That's one of my fantasy superpowers, damnit!
80: It sounds like a subset of porn to me. But not impersonal, and not commercial.
I don't like where this thread is gong. Pros and cons of homeownership is more interesting. too many people just assume it's something everyone aspires to.
Is property tax sometimes a hardship for retirees? If so, did they benefit from homeownership?
82: Oh, blow it out your ass, PGD. Some women really like porn. (m. leblanc talks about this quite often.) Lots of women have tastes in porn or erotic materials. I'm really really picky in what I actually find attractive (see happiness-expression problem above), and I think a lot of women are more likely to notice when the women in porn (which is usually made for male consumption) don't seem to genuinely be having a good time, but this is due more to the marketing of porn to men than women's "natural" distaste for visual stimulation.
blow it out your ass, PGD
I think we decided not to have a thread about the kind of porn we like AWB.
That is, I don't think you can generalize about "what women like" vs. "what men like" when virtually all pornography is made with a masculine audience in mind. If you asked me, generally, whether porn turned me on, I would say no, because most porn is really really fucking sad and unappealing. Does there exist visual porn that is a turn-on? Sure.
You mean you feel judged, morally, for not watching porn? That seems preposterous to me.
No, I don't feel judged morally. It just seems that most people here take it as a matter of course, such that a thread about it would actually have some content (I'm sure that's true), but I might as well have stumbled onto a blog about some arcane thing, I don't know what.
Anyway, I'm off.
a lot of women are more likely to notice when the women in porn ... don't seem to genuinely be having a good time
No, actually a lot of guys get off on that. Seriously, let's talk about houses.
76
Not really, I have never been much interested in watching porn.
89: Seriously, let's talk about houses.
I like the houses that talk to the camera.
No, I don't feel judged morally. It just seems that most people here take it as a matter of course, such that a thread about it would actually have some content (I'm sure that's true), but I might as well have stumbled onto a blog about some arcane thing, I don't know what.
Not "most people here".
Just like with a cooking thread, the people who would comment on it are the people who cook all the time. It seems from the cooking threads that everyone on Unfogged except me spends hours every day thinking about how to cook more deliciously. But no, most people just don't comment on that topic, and their absence is not noticeable.
I like houses! I like a house with beautiful wood floors.
I like the houses that let the camaraman, you know, move in.
I would like a house that is not too big, with beautiful wood floors and a well designed kitchen and excellent, solid construction. I would like it to be on the route of a pleasant UPS guy, on a street with big trees. A guest bathroom would be keen. Built in bookshelves, yes please. Wood-framed windows that are nonetheless wonderfully undrafty.
I have never owned a house, and it is indeed nice not to have to worry about selling before moving.
I like non-blonde Playboy porn. Nothing sophisticated or raunchy, and no movies. This is even worse than not liking porn at all.
Ogged has lost the porn-thread argument.
Millard Fillmore has lost the anonymity argument.
97: I would like it to be on the route of a pleasant UPS guy.
Yeah, that's a category.
In the experience of many people now alive, home ownership has been a pretty good investment. So not only do you get the stability and the savings, you also get the appreciation. Even with the slowdown, my house is worth a good 80% more than I paid for it in the summer of 2001. Figure my payment is about 150% what it would have cost me to rent something comparable -- and maybe you'd call the having to replace the dryer a wash with not having a pesky landlord.
I'm not saying it's the best return ever, but on balance, it's been pretty good for a long time for a lot of people.
I don't aspire to magazine quality, but the current thinking is that our next house will be one that we build, so it's kind of interesting to think about what features you'd want to have.
Houses are awesome. Owning them is nice because you can do whatever you want to them. Paint it weird colors! Run network cables everywhere! Install solar panels on the roof! Put in a 100A circuit for your TIG welder!
I want 1800 square feet of victorian with wood floors, a backyard, a huge garage underneath it, and room to park my van on the street. Ideally it would be in a two-block radius of Liberty and Dolores in San Francisco. Sadly, I am not the only person who feels this way, so prices for said houses are a bit high.
104: Don't forget enough counterspace for the stand mixer.
White People aren't averse to litotes.
Houses are awesome for people who WANT to spend their time on them. I've always wondered how much of the appreciation of houses comes from sweat equity and investment. To me the idea of losing a whole weekend either to necessary maintenance or to remodeling is utterly repellent.
Seriously, let's talk about houses.
Housing porn is so tired and vanilla. Housing market meltdown porn is where the hot action is.
It occurs to me that aspiration is so powerful a force in human desire that if no high-end pornographer yet exists who makes a point of filming the usual contortions in luxurious, sumptuous castles, boats and cabanas, we should start that business.
A couple times when I've been flown out to universities for the on-campus interview, people have driven me around to show me houses. I guess that's a good thing to do with job candidates who are actually grownups, but I've always found it boring. I'm more interested in where I'm going to be drinking and dancing and listening to music.
I guess some of those houses were pretty interesting, like the one in Maine with the wood-looking interior walls, but yeah, I'm 27 and I'm a little too young for this kind of porn.
105: Whee! White people love litotes, but love praeteritio so much that they won't even get into it!
109: They do love to do that, the drive around. CA and I were so young and naive when he first went on the market that when it happened we were like OMG! The job is so yours!
110: Not to mention tme-fucking-sis.
... oops, forgot, no porn.
My first house was beautiful and big on lots of land. I stayed in a bad marriage for a little bit longer bc of the house and the house location.
I do not regret getting rid of that house.
Smaller house, less land, much better significant other. Much, much better life.
So much love do white people have for anacolouthon is my favorite!
oudemia knows more big words than I do.
White people hate hate hate pleonasm.
I gotta say that sitting on my ass and drinking coffee while watching my landlord shovel snow two or three times this morning was pretty satisfying.
We live in a duplex, and sadly, our landlords do not get around to shoveling the snow before they drive over it two or three or seven times, packing it down really hard, wait a few days, and let Snark shovel it. We could complain about this, but we get along with them so well otherwise that it doesn't seem worth it.
I was spoiled by my first house; it was small but very well kempt. The prior owner had lived there for 30+ years and was a maintenance fanatic. He he had done things like change all of the faucet washers every 2 years. I did not live there very long so I was able to coast the whole time on his efforts.
A tidy home, a chiasmus neat—White People living life ecstatic.
We live in a duplex, and sadly, our landlords do not get around to shoveling the snow before they drive over it two or three or seven times, packing it down really hard, wait a few days, and let Snark shovel it.
Try living in a third-floor studio. Not only are no leaves, snow, grass et al. my responsibility, but the very concept that they might conceivably be my responsibility sounds laughable.
What a dick you are, Flippanter!
(kidding!)
Is there a non-sexual meaning to "I would like it to be on the route of a pleasant UPS guy"? Because it's not occurring to me.
I didn't particularly enjoy growing up among people who had a thorough and sophisticated understanding of real estate, and genuinely enjoyed the process of going to open houses. However, enough did rub off on me that I'm better-informed about housing issues than most of my friends.
In related news, what does it mean if the recorder of deeds website shows that someone satisfied two mortgages on a property, one with a generic bank name and one held by ABC Bail Bonds? Does that mean what I think it does? (i.e., that the person who used to live there had put a second mortgage on their house in order to put up bail for someone?)
Is there a non-sexual meaning to "I would like it to be on the route of a pleasant UPS guy"? Because it's not occurring to me.
First start by assuming that "it" doesn't mean "my vagina".
When my fella was very young, his family lived with a bunch of painters and musicians in this place. It's a steakhouse now; it was a rooming house then.
I need a kitchen, a bathroom, a 100 sq ft study for the computer and 3000 sq ft of book/music/media storage.
I really can't even imagine, Penny. All my best to you and your family.
My deepest condolences, Penny.
105: Whee! White people love litotes, but love praeteritio so much that they won't even get into it!
I love praeteritio so much that I won't even mention that I get into it ten times a night, out of concern for its image.
I can't believe I just posted 143.
That's awful. My thoughts are with you.
So sorry to hear that Penny - thinking of you.
Sorry Penny, it's a bugger.
my condolences, too, penny; I'm so sorry to hear it.
I gotta say that sitting on my ass and drinking coffee while watching my landlord shovel snow two or three times this morning was pretty satisfying.
I'm sure s/he feels the same way about watching the rent checks come in. Sounds like a win-win transaction.
My wife and I are pretty addicted to Real Estate porn, too. We even have to hide it from the kids because it makes them anxious about having to move.
We're yearners in general, but we actually live in less house than we could afford because we like to have some disposable income. I don't really know how some of my friends and colleagues do it - I suspect them all of having trust funds, and I've found out it's true for at least a few of them.
We actually live in less house than we could afford because we like to have some disposable income.
How unutterably strange. Have you been to a therapist? Does your family know about this?
156: There really can be some interesting social pressure on this front. I have been practically accused of child abuse because my n kids have to make do with n-1 bedrooms. (Do I give myself away as a suburbanite? ... you betcha.)
I'm wondering whether the police should be called.
When I graduated from HS, 7 kids were sharing n-4 bedrooms. We had a bunkhouse for #4 through #7.
Penny, you & yours will be first in my thoughts today; condolences from both Rah and myself.
157: It's funny. My parents do have the typical large suburban home, but I've always felt that it was a little justified to the extent that there were more kids than bedrooms.
I wish my parents had done that. When I was eight, we moved into a big house with a big yard, and my parents immediately put in a pool. My dad was excited about having been hired for a lot more than we were used to, and buying a house just above those new means was their way of celebrating. We were really excited about moving in there. But my dad lost his job a year later, and the recession hit, and after three years of unemployment, we had no savings and were living on credit in this big, lovely house with a pool. We didn't go on vacations, aside from seeing family and visiting colleges, for ten years.
Because we had credit, we weren't truly destitute in any way, but it would have been nice to have had some money for college, or to travel a bit. Both my brother and I started working at 13 to contribute, and my family's still recovering financially. My mom spends every sunny summer day in that pool, because, by God, they're going to get all the use out of it they can.
158: I distinctly remember thinking that four boys to a room would be more fun than one or two. I think that that was the general opinion. My two sisters shared a room until the older graduated.
There's no sex in Lake Wobegon, Sifu. I thought you knew. A little bestiality, maybe.
but we actually live in less house than we could afford because we like to have some disposable income.
Second half of my childhood - parents both well paid professionals, and we were living in a small modest two bedroom (900 sq ft). It cost less than ten percent of their after tax income. We also relied on one used car. At the time my dad explained - middle class means you can afford the basics, upper middle class that plus a few luxuries. Theirs happened to be travel, food, and helping poor relatives rather than housing and transport.
161: Our family narrative sounds similar, in that the family economy tanked, there were never vacations or money for college, except for the pool. Still, I think I was more relieved than my parents were when they paid off their mortgage two years ago.
Ben: In this strange suspended state, 142>144 are everything I love about Unfogged and made me laugh, and I needed that. Thanks for your condolences and thoughts, everyone, they mean a great deal to me. I would never have thought words from people I've never seen would be so comforting.
I would never have thought words from people I've never seen would be so comforting.
Unfogged is funny that way, isn't it? I too am sorry for your loss.
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Today I have had no cigarettes (Chantix was a bust but nicotine lozenges rule) and there's a guy across the restaurant who keeps loudly using the word "faggot" in what he clearly thinks is a hip, edgy, scenestery way. He doesn't make me want a cigarette, he simply makes me want to snap. Him. In. Two.
Please send Super Glue.
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Have a little talk with him. Report back.
He stopped just as I started to ask the waitress to talk to him (I like the fries in this place too much to get thrown out, thanks, and I'm a wuss anyway). Now I'm simply amused: he just described a Jack Black movie as "funny, but not dick joke funny."
Penny, I'm sorry for your loss. One is never ready for these things.
My own father is coming to the end of his long illness. It's a difficult time as we have more or less decided not to be more interventionist with his medical care. Unfogged has been a great distraction from the painful times these last two years.
The Irish Times has been doing a feature for years called something like "Take 5 @ 500,000" or other price point where they compare an ordinary Dublin semi-d with the whopping chateaux etc. you could buy elsewhere in the world for the same money. The Irish economy has been driven by property and construction for the last number of years so the recent downturn has left it all very shaky. I am somewhat consoled for still being a renter which is highly unusual for someone middle class my age.
