My sister is a mogul, and I am hip-deep in house-lust, going squirrel. I’ve been going to town halls and being very nice and if possible bringing a really cute kid with buck teeth and glasses along and gushing about how happy I’ll be to move to their town. Whiteys love to have their stuff ogled. For that I get lawyers’ names and names on deeds and outstanding liens and the auction date and the amount of the judgment against the owner(s) and blabla. My sis coaches me, says “a nice person is just a regular person (or worse) who has figured out that being nice works.”

But it isn't going well. The house will go up for auction on April 30th. They will require the judgment amount plus fees blabla, which wouldn’t be sooo bad except you need it all in cash, which is obviously impossible. Here’s how this works: the mortgager buys it back from itself for what they are owed, then the house sits there empty. The reason why they do that is because one part of the bank can buy it from the other part of the bank that holds the debt, and that way it never shows up on the bank’s books as a loss. I say to the bank’s lawyer – “That’s crazy. Is it legal?” Yes, that’s why everyone is so upset and congress is blathering on about it blablablabla. But wouldn’t they rather sell it than buy it? They really don’t care, she says, as galling as that is. Eventually, when the mortgager gets around to it, they’ll put it on the market, and then I could buy it. But they have so many hundreds of thousands of properties in this situation that nobody knows when that’d happen. I call their lawyer, his lawyer, his bank, my bank - I've even tracked down the owner himself and left messages on his machine, "I've dodged bill-collectors before too, I understand, but I want your house" - all I get is no no no (which I hate hate hate).

The United States is a deeply fucked up place, so much so that really you can’t do ANYTHING here without promptly running into something that’s shitty and retarded. The best thing you can do (for your mental health) is not-function here. FPH always makes fun of me for being a freak, but here the choices are: freak, pissed-freak, upstanding-freak, upstanding-asshole, asshole – on a sliding scale towards the Right. Pissed-freak w upstanding tendencies, I’m going to sit on my nest-egg and stalk an empty house. (?) That is about as much fun as watching porn rather than fucking, frankly.

Welp, it's a house, not a person. There are other fireplaces in the sea. Meanwhile, today is Friday, the sun is out and nearly hot, and in just a few hours I'll have a reason to be wearing this pretty dress.

zooey Deschanel & M ward - Bring it on Home to Me
Colin Meloy - bring it on home to me