8/12/2005

Right Through Here is the Master Bedroom...

The house is being shown on Monday! I'm so nervous I probably won't be able to sleep all weekend. I have to work all day tomorrow, but Sunday will be for cleaning, straightening, fixing up... trying to make it look like a minimalist version one of those perfect magazines. Everywhere I look I see flaws, which take on gigantic proportions in my view: cobwebs on the fan (on the cathedral ceiling, so I can't reach it with a broom to get them down), flies swooping around, paint dribbles on the floor from when the incompetent druggies painted the walls, permanently squished pile in the rugs, scuff marks on the walls...

I know that if I didn't live here, if I visited someone in this house, I'd never notice most of these things, and if I did I'd think they were so incredibly minor there was no point wasting an ounce of energy worrying about them. But I've read those books about how if your house is completely perfect you can sell it in one day for thousands above the asking price... and if it isn't, if you don't paint the closets and scrub the pipes under the sink, forget it! Here's what I mean. And here. If anything is less than sparkling, fresh, brand-new, organized, all the buyers will see are the flaws and they'll walk away never to return.

Which is, I must say, exactly what the first two people who looked at the house did. On the other hand, that was only two people, possibly not a sizable enough sample for a real scientific test. At any rate, I'm in a swivet and in a swivet I'm sure to remain until the showing is over. At which point, I'd dearly love to sell the house!

8/08/2005

News


Ibrahim Ferrer Dies at 78
: News


Ibrahim Ferrer, and Peter Jennings. Somehow news of both these deaths has shocked me more than I'd have thought, given that I never saw the Buena Vista Social Club and I don't watch tv. Just unexpected, I guess.

The sweater… I've made no progress on the sweater. I am nevertheless starting to contemplate a next project. I'm thinking about a shrug of some sort for Kathy Jo. I'd like to make something for myself for a change, but I don't want to take on anything too big and overwhelming and I don't think I can pull off wearing a shrug. I'm just not that kind of a fashion victim plate.

Alternatively, I'd like to do something for The Dulaan Project . I am jumping the gun, though, because I will never finish the baby sweater.