Michael Bevel: British Adventuress

Right up front I will tell you that "Whoopie Goldberg" doesn't have a beard. I put "Whoopie Goldberg" in quotes because I'm not actually writing about the Whoopie Goldberg, star of stage and screen, but instead it's this woman I work with currently who looks like Whoopie Goldberg. Later in this story, when I'm getting yelled at by this woman, imagine it's Whoopie Goldberg yelling at me to get the full visual effect.

In Pottery Barn Bathrooms, you will find only five pictures of toilets. Four of those toilets will be occluded, usually by an olympic-sized bath tub, a Tibetan temple, or upholstered furniture.

Nothing says relaxing elegance more than a damp couch covered in poo particles mildewing in a bathroom. Unless it's a jar with a sprig of lavendar in it.

It started with a panic attack as I realized that none of my pants fit in any way close to flattering. I hadn't worn dress-up pants since the last job interview, and it's nice to be good at something, and hey, what do you know, my "something" is retaining weight! Hooray! But I digress.

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Real Estate Elizabeth and her helper, Pocket-sized Mynor, have presented our list of Requireds and Requesteds to the listing agent.

On the list of "Must Be Done":

1) Replace/repair the broken sump pump in the Crawl Space of Unspeakable Evil
2) Replace/repair the water heater
3) Replace/repair the oven

On the list of "We Won't Call You Douches If You Do These, Too":

1) Our chimney might kill us via carbon monoxide poisoning unless something home-improvementy happens with sealant and the flue
2) Our furnace needs to be replaced -- it's about twice as old as it should be
3) Our A/C unit, too, is too old
4) The fence gate will allow our house to be infiltrated
5) The Crawlspace of Unspeakable Evil has pipes that need insulating
6) The stairs need a handrail
7) Also, they creak something awful
8) The "attic" needs its insulation replaced
9) The Crawlspace of Unspeakable Evil has standing water -- and it hasn't really rained in weeks
10) Something about a vapor barrier

The listing agent has three days to respond. Legally, per our contract, they have to do those three things up top. But my understanding of what "legal" means is challenged every time I talk to Pocket-sized Mynor. I would think that "required" means, you know, "required." As in "has to be done." However, apparently that's not what "required" means, and there's wiggle room and, during one conversation, the word "lawsuit" was added to the mix.

The "requested" items -- that longer list of 10 items -- those the seller doesn't have to do at all; we're simply asking them not to be assholes about the home they're trying to unload on us. Also, each item on the "requested" list becomes a bargaining tool to help get the "required" items done.

Some items on the "requested" list will sort of be taken care of if the items on the "required" list are attended to. The sump pump will actually take care of item 9 on the second list. And Zach and I aren't really interested in a handrail on the stairs; they don't need it. And that fence business? Just needs me to weild a hammer at it.

While ultimately this entry isn't interesting to anyone who isn't me -- or Zach -- I want to record the frustrations for two reasons: (1) a better appreciation of Doug, should Doug become our home; (2) a barometer for future house hunting should things with Doug fall through.

In closing, two things unrelated at all to houses:

(1) I am reading The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies. I've tried reading this, off and on, over the past 12 years. It's a chore and a challenge, the beginning is very boring, and I haven't really found a character that I like. People whose taste I admire and respect have said that they've greatly enjoyed it. Seventy pages in, I'm beginning to rethink a lot of friendships.

(2) Great Big Sea's "Come & I Will Sing You" is one of my favorite counting songs.

Other people's dreams are rarely interesting. The sooner everyone grasps that, the better. And yet, I have to tell you a little about last night's dream to get to the point:

Stuff happens, stuff happens, stuff happens, there's a man in my living room who shouldn't be there, and then the dream goes slo-mo as I realize he's going to do something desperately awful to me because I've caught him in my house, and then I wake up.

The man in my living room has been in a lot of my dreams. The younger me of 15 years ago would have read something prophetic into that -- I was being warned of danger or something. And, in the recurring character of Creepy Guy, I would have assumed that it represented something literal: that Creepy Guy would one day be in my house, causing me harm.

The me that's about to turn 35 just assumes that my brain is too tired to create the menagerie of monsters I had once upon a time, and I'm stuck with Creepy Guy as the Big Bad of my nightmares.

The nightmare could have been prompted by a variety of things. I had eaten most of a bag of Rainer cherries last night right before going to bed (not mentioned: the order of McDonald's french-fries I ate, too); I went to a grueling job interview yesterday*; and, of course, the house thing is a constant, nagging source of anxiety. All of that swirled together, no doubt, into a witch's brew of 2 a.m. sit-upright-in-bed-ness.

So, the nightmare happens, I wake up from it, and then I can't get back to sleep. All I can think about, lying in bed, is all the weird closets and crawlspaces in the house (that may or may not be ours; we're still waiting -- though there's been some good news on the horizon). And the Haunted Shed. And hey, why did the other owners move out anyway? Is that pink carpet in the living pink on purpose? Or was that purpose gallons of blood?

In the daylight -- like now -- I'm as rational as Richard Dawkins. I don't believe in ghosts, or monsters, or the God of Moses, et.al. At night, though, the irrational part of my brain -- the older, reptilian part -- can go into overdrive, especially when it's jolted into action by a nightmare with Creepy Guy. And then, I believe everything, from the murderer under my bed who'll lick my hand if I let it fall from under the covers, to aliens in my pantry, to demons waiting to possess the soul I don't believe in come 6:30 a.m.

We're not just buying a house, I fear. We're buying a workshop into my psyche.

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* For a variety of reasons. I'm happy where I'm at currently; however, there's this whole house purchase, and the job I was interviewing for carries the prospect of domestic partner benefits and a considerable pay jump. However, the interview? The most intense and grueling interview of my life. It was a triumvirate deal, with the Big Boss asking most of the questions. A sample question: "Are you a job hopper? From your resume, it looks like you job hop." My answer: "Well, if you're from the 1950s and looking at my resume, then yes: you could say I job hop. However, in today's job market, you're going to see a lot of resumes like mine. Most people don't stay with one job until they turn 65."

So, yeah. Our house? (Whose name, by the way, isn't Oliver, like I thought, because Zach rebelled. Instead, our house is named Doug.) Our house is a little sick. It's not at the Make-a-Wish level where it wants to float with dolphins at SeaWorld and write poetry -- but it needs some love and attention.

And money. Because Doug's a whore.

I'm utilizing an lj-cut here, because what follows is a lot of pictures, and a lot of cursing. But I'm hoping, it will eventually be a tale of love and courage and home ownership.

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There's a woman who married the Berlin Wall and it's like that now, with Zach and me, only with fewer umlauts.

We put a bid, that was accepted, on a house in the Twinbrook neighborhood of Rockville. Provided that the inspection doesn't find, you know, corpses or something (because I'm not sure what "dry rot" is, necessarily), and provided that nothing unfortunate happens financing-wise (remind me to tell you the story about how I didn't file my taxes in 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002... -- but the happy ending is: it doesn't matter!*), we close or settle or whatever it is where we sign our names eleventy million times on a frillion pieces of papers and then the nice Chinese man who owned our house before we did hands us the keys, on August 31.

What makes our house better than your house? We have a bank of windows inside the house. Separating the living room (with a fireplace we'll never use because my mom told me when I was a child that if I played with fire I'd wet the bed and then one day I did play with fire and I did wet the bed and I've Learned My Lesson) from the family room (which is ridiculous and looks like we could teach yoga or ballroom dancing in it).

You guys: WINDOWS. Inside!

Also, there are other stories to tell, like how the selling agent or listing agent or whoever it was who haggled with our real estate agent totally tried to pull a fast one on us by listing the property with a cherry tree in the back yard, only to find that the back yard actually doesn't have a cherry tree because she totally used a fake tree in a hole in the back yard -- but it's okay because apparently we tricked her into getting her client to pay our home warranty for a year.

Soon, I will post pictures of our beautiful house that I've named Oliver even though Zach thinks his name should be Denny since we'll be living on Denfield Road but he's wrong. Not about the Denfield Road part, but about "Denny."

Oh, and trees! We have really good trees, like one in our front yard that's covered in ivy, and then there are the trees in the back yard and what might actually be a portal to Hell or at least the sewer system; we're not sure. All we know is someone put a concrete slab for no reason in our back yard and we've decided that rather than open a portal for demons, we'll probably put a planter of strawberries on it or something.

So, that's our house. And it's ours. And it's a lot of dollars, even after the Gordon Gecko-like haggling performed by our agent and her travel-sized manservant (whom Zach and I were convinced was gay, but he mentioned his wife several times which, of course, means bupkes) -- but it's just money, right?

We love our home. And our home loves us.
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* I have no good reason for not filing taxes. I think I get easily overwhelmed and then there's the math and a table and it's so easy not to file, right? Except, as it turns out, I had to file three years back taxes in order for a bank to take me seriously for a home loan. And then, when I filed my back taxes, it was discovered that, as it turns out, the government actually owed me money. Which they should be sending to me post haste. Because, as it turns out, the bank is going to want those dollars very, very soon.

(In lieu of an actual post to break my 17-year silence, you get an email to my friend Steve, who had asked me to recommend some Dickens to him. This interruption in my post-less-ness should not be considered the dawning of a Brand New Year of Posting. I mean, yeah, I'd like it to be. However, I'd hate to promise more posting, more of the time, and then, you know, not.

I'm alive, well, and reading. How are you?)

I've been giving some thought to your Dickens request. (Calling it a "Dickens Request" may give it a sense of primacy that you never intended.) On one hand it would be nice if I recommended some Dickens, and you read them, and you liked them, and then I'd have someone to talk about Dickens with because, as it turns out, except for one drunk guy at the bar in Foong Lin (the Chinese restaurant in Bethesda near Zach's old apartment that we've eaten at a couple of times together), no one is reading Dickens -- and, actually, even that drunk guy at the bar probably doesn't read Dickens; he simply saw me with a copy of Nicholas Nickleby and made some comment about how no one reads Dickens any more and when I asked him what his favorite Dickens was he said, blearily, A Tale of Two Cities, which is fine enough for Dickens, sure, but it's also similar to hearing The Mona Lisa as the answer to the question, "What kind of art do you like?"

On the other hand, though, both you and Jamie are what's called a Tough Crowd. What has saved our relationship thus far is how much commonality we've brought to the relationship. I've had less luck introducing either of you to new things. (The sting of the mild rebuke of The Woman in White haunts me.) So, I recommend some Dickens, you read a bit of each, or a bit of one, because, really, if you don't like one why bother with the others, right? You read a bit, decide it's crap, and then there's this wide sea of Dickens we have between us.

Maybe some caveats that you already know. Dickens isn't Tolstoy or Eliot. Dickens has moments where he might rival either of those two; however, George and Lev both outshine Dickens probably more often than the vice or the versa. Dickens, read in context, will give you a better idea of what life was like at that time -- grudgery, day-to-day life -- and there are some funny moments and some frightening moments and some stirring moments. I won't lie to you: there are some, "Jesus fuck aren't we done with this yet?!?" moments, too. So my second caveat would be: it's not necessary to sit down and read the novels in a few sittings like a novel. They were serialized. There's a rhythm Dickens planned for in the installments that can give the impression of swells at sea. Sometimes swells at sea are exciting and captivating (I'm guessing; I'm terrified of the ocean). Other times they can be mildly nauseating. When I recommend the four novels I am going to recommend at the end of this email, and you pick one to read, and you make your way to the library, and you check it out -- assume you'll renew. Give yourself two months or so to read the novel. The nice thing about Dickens is that, because they're in installments, you aren't in danger of missing a key plot point. He's going to remind you of what you need to remember.

So. Here are four Dickens novels I'd recommend, in my own personal favorite order. You'll notice that A Tale of Two Cities isn't on this list.

Bleak House -- It's Dickens at the height of cranky. He's skewering the Victorian legal system and women's charity societies that spend too much time solving problems in Africa and not enough time solving problems at home ("home" being either their own houses or London), as well as the plight of the poor in general, which is Dickens particular favorite soap-box to climb on. Esther Summerson is going to annoy the fuck out of you. She's thisclose to Little Nell qualities: too perfect, too loving, too kind. This won't spoil the novel for you, but you should know, because she starts annoying almost from the beginning, that she gets the smallpox. And it feels good to the reader -- or, at least, this reader -- when she does get the smallpox. Anyway, Bleak House is the best representative Dickens I can think of: densely plotted, marvelously charactered (except for Esther), bitingly funny.

Our Mutual Friend -- This is Dickens's last completed novel. His last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, remains unfinished. It's better than Bleak House only in the sense that Esther Summerson isn't in it. It's a mystery novel and a love story -- but mostly, it's probably Dickens's best collection of characters. My personal favorite is the gentleman who hires another man to read to him from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. The gentleman, a "new" gentleman, risen in rank because of an inheritance, is treated kindly by Dickens, and allows Dickens, less wearily than Hardy, to talk about the true fluidity of class as it slams against the upper-classes' misguided adherence to the status quo. (Galsworthy's The Forsythe Saga, though, remains the best look at this new class of upper class.)

Dombey & Son -- DO NOT READ THE INTRODUCTION -- either whatever publisher's introduction is in your copy, or Dickens's own. It will spoil the novel for you. In some ways, it's closest in temperament to Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, and AK's examination of family and selfishness and cruelty. It doesn't get the same love as other Dickens novels (Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, et. al. -- the publicity machines for these novels are amazing, mostly because they just aren't very good novels), but it's one of my favorites.

Barnaby Rudge -- I'm listing it, and listing it fourth, even though I haven't finished it yet. I'm about 60 pages in, and it's very exciting and engaging and modern feeling. I've been trying to read my way, in order, through Dickens. Towards that, I've read The Pickwick Papers (good, but very episodic -- which is what Dickens was going for, so he wins. It's also pretty hysterical in places, and for long stretches, up until Mr. Pickwick ends up in prison, and then the novel takes this pretty awful bleak turn. Dickens hadn't worked out, yet, how to balance the narrative. TPP is interesting less for the story and more for the seeds of what will come when you finally get to Bleak House, A Tale of Two Cities, and Our Mutual Friend), Oliver Twist (better than I thought it would be, given that fucking travesty of a musical with the awful song about hot jelly and mustard or some such nonsense, but it's because the secondary and evil characters are all so brutal and interesting), and Nicholas Nickleby (interesting, because you start to see that Dickens is working out how to be Dickens here. Nicholas is not a good hero, because he's too good and also too D'Artagnan-like in his eagerness to solve all wrongs against him with forced shows of bravado and pugilistic unnecessaries. However, some of the funniest scenes in all of Dickens can be found when Nicholas ends up with the Crummles's theatre troupe, including "The Infant Phenomenon" -- who is supposed to be 9 or 10, but who is actually 15 or 16). I bottomed out, though, when I tried to read The Old Curiosity Shop. It's unreadable. Skipping that, Barnaby Rudge was up next, and I have been all the better for it.

It's only fitting that a simple email suggesting Dickens titles should approach this almost Dickensian length. Again: Dickens is easy to dislike, I think, and to overindulge in -- so care should be taken. And if, after all this, you continue in your "meh"-ing of Dickens, it isn't my fault.

The Rev. Ted Haggart scandal is like the universe is giving me a present, just because. "Here's your unicorn, Michael," the universe says. "Oh, and you want it winged?" it says. "And cotton candy-scented?" it says. "And slimming?" it says.

I was born in 1972, and didn't come out until I was 20 years old.

School was tough -- but I think that was going to be the case regardless of how things turned out on the gay/straight continuum. I grew up in a small town, I could read without moving my lips, and my mom and I shared the same, poofy, swept-back hair style.

I mention school because that was really the only time I experienced anything like homophobia, really. And the thing is, I don't know that it was truly homophobia; "fag" was just a powerful word, used on gay and straight alike. It was mysterious to us, as 15-year-olds, and it felt like a punch when said aloud.

I was very lucky, is what I'm trying to get across. I didn't have to live a closeted life for longer than necessary. By the time I figured out that I was gay, American society was sort of coming to grips with it, too. And since I've never been much of an extrovert, it was easy to be me, be gay, and not experience some of the stuff other, more visible gay folks were going through.

I don't want to give the impression that everyone had it easy. Or even has it easy now. But for this homo, I've for the most part sailed through life unscathed by anti-gay sentiment directed at me. Because there hasn't been any.

Which is why what happened in the Trader Joes took me by surprise.

It's late. It's after work. I'm tired, but I need macaroni. I share the #46 bus ride from the White Flint Metro station with what appears to be the satellite program for children with ADHD. The bus driver didn't hear my bell-pull for the stop I wanted, due to all the noise, and then acted put out when I yelled that I'd like him to stop, please, if he didn't mind, you know, because it's his job, thankyouverymuch.

I'm nearly hit by an overanxious Lexus making a left. While trying to cross against the light, I cause no end of trouble and get honked at (rightfully) by someone still proudly displaying a John Kerry sticker. Finally, I fight through the crowds of old Jews and well-meaning liberals buying frozen mini-quiches and nasty-assed cereal, find my macaroni, find the grapefruit soda I like, pretend not to notice as my left hand also drops a couple tubs of butter cookies into my basket, and make my way to one of the checkout lines.

The Russian woman ahead of me is trying to have both a conversation on her phone and conduct business with the checker. She's unable to do either efficiently, and decides to blame me by giving me the stink-eye when I clear my throat -- honestly, not to be assy, but because I'd had one of the free samples of nasty bread back by the frozen food section and I'm still suffering the effects.

She leaves, forgetting her groceries, comes back, gives me the stink-eye again, and the young checker -- an African American youth (and I'm not just saying that because I'm racist; it'll become important in a minute) -- begins ringing up my groceries. While he's doing that, I'm working the credit card thing, and thinking highly of myself because I'm being effecient, unlike some other people I can think of who wait until the last minute to begin their credit card transaction even though the machine says you can swipe your card at any time.

Finally, he's bagging my groceries, the African American youth, and he's making a lot of faces while doing it. Tired, frustrated, irritated faces -- and I feel a kinship with the African American youth because I've been singing that song for the last 2 hours, and I like that he doesn't feel like he has to wear a mask of pleasantness with me. We're Brothers in Enervation. And I'm not just using "brother" because he's black.

"You, too, huh?" I say. I want him to know that I recognize his tiredness.

"Man, you don't even know," he says. "I've gotta work with all these gay people, you know what I'm saying?"

And I don't. Literally. This brief window of intolerance is foreign to me. "Did he--?" my mind asks. "I mean, there's no--" But he did say it. He said it, he said it to me, and he thinks we're peers of a different kind, Brothers in (Rightful) Intolerance, now. For whatever reason, he felt that I was a willing ear to this, and that I'd agree.

"Ugh," I say; "I know what you mean. I feel the same way about black people."

He stops bagging my groceries. I'm putting my credit card back into my wallet. He looks at me and says, "I'm sorry? What did you just say?"

And I said to him, "I'm gay. And what you said was inexcusible and offensive. I think it'd be best for the both of us if this was as far as our conversation went."

I'm not racist. Or I try not to be. Because it's so insidious, I still find myself periodically resorting to racist ideas because I haven't taken the time to think a situation through; and stereotyping is so much easier. But I wasn't trying to be racist with the African American boy at the Trader Joes. I wanted him to hear what he said in a way that he'd get.

He tried back-pedaling. "Aw, no, man. I didn't mean... It's just, you know, sometimes--"

"We're done here," I said. And I picked up my groceries and I left.

POSTSCRIPT: I get home, flushed with adreneline and excitement, because there's unfortunately a hierarchy to bigotry and a white person making racist comments to a black person trumps anyone saying something homophobic aloud. But he didn't, and I felt like I made this stunning blow about tolerance, and I can't wait to tell Zach, because I'm proud of what I did.

Zach's proud, too. He hugs me, and calls me brave, and tells me that he's proud.

He then says, "But you know, I've seen some of those gay guys there at the Trader Joes and goddamn. He's got a point."