Fridays are weird

I’ve been stressed out of my mind, mostly about this move. About going through all our crap and deciding what goes with us and what goes…elsewhere.

My stress levels have not been helped by house developments—not only do we not have somewhere to move to, but both projected sales of our current house to friends has fallen through. So we have to put it on the market. Everyone assures me our house will sell quickly.

Fuck you. Just write me a cheque. Preferably for over the sales amount.

The second projected sale-by-owner fell through two days ago. On Wednesday our friend E. stopped by to look at our house again. She loves our house…but over the weekend she saw this other house in Beachwood Canyon, and well…she couldn’t decide. She just couldn’t decide.

About 45 seconds after she left, I called a realtor I knew was interested in listing our house, because E.’s indecision—and her reasons for buying the other house—were pretty big signals to me, even if they weren’t to her. E. sent me e-mail the next day, saying she’d made a bid on the other house. That’s fine; friends is friends but houses are business. Still: disappointing.

Today the realtor stopped by so we could fill out the paperwork. Apparently there is endless paperwork when it comes to listing a house. And I’m going to have to keep this place tidy. “Oh no,” said the realtor. “The space in your house is very obvious. It sells itself.”

Nonetheless…clothes have to start going in the hamper.

After the realtor left I did the only thing that was reasonable: I fell asleep on the couch in my office. (Hey, I couldn’t get to sleep last night and then Simon woke me up at 5. Whaddya want?) I woke up and moved into the guest bedroom, thinking that was a more dignified place to sleep. No such luck: the phone rang.

Turned out to be E. calling; she left a message. I thought for a second that maybe she was calling to change her mind, and I decided I’d get back to her later tonight.

I didn’t have a chance. She came to the front door.

“My boss saw the other house,” she said, “and he thinks it’s only fair to see your house too since we were in the neighborhood.”

Her boss is Shaun Cassidy, whom E. always describes as “former teen-idol Shaun Cassidy.” Seeing him in person suddenly catapulted me back to the room of grade-school-chum Kim Tibbals, who had a Shaun Cassidy poster.

Most days, former teen idols do not show up at our door. As I said to Darin later, “To me he’ll always be the guy who gave us ‘American Gothic’.”

“You should have said that,” Darin said.

“No, I don’t think so,” I said.

I think Shaun has bought and sold a lot of houses. He asked a lot of questions, which I answered to the best of my knowledge. Then he and E. left and Darin and I went to a movie, which I will write about tomorrow.

I have the feeling the weirdness quotient is just going to keep building for a while.