New Home at Last

Seven months, give or take a few days. That’s how long the search for a new home here in Santa Fe lasted, from first look till closing day. It started with the casita in a great location but with doorways too low for me to walk through (along with no central heat and a few other problems); through the overpriced dumps and other City Different housing…charms, chronicled here; to the finding of the place that, if not my Dream Home, finally felt like home. Of course, this being me, and this being the new housing market after the collapse of 2008, things didn’t go smoothly. Oh no. The deal was this close to falling through.

The living room–love those built ins!

It started with a call from my lender at the beginning of May saying there was a little glitch, also previously chronicled here at AYISF. The condensed version: Fannie Mae wanted a form from the IRS confirming all the info on my 2012 tax return. It was not forthcoming. The closing was scheduled for 5/23. It would take, the bank said, a week to get all the paperwork together after they got the IRS form. The bank uses a company to get the IRS transcript, as it’s called, but I couldn’t stand sitting idle as we approached the closing date. I had to do something. So, after learning that anyone can get a transcript from their local IRS office, I started making regular trips to the one in Santa Fe. When it was open, that is. Either the sequester or some local staffing problems had forced the office to curtail its hours—closing for a whole week at one stretch. But I managed to get in for one visit. And another. And each time, my return had not been processed (though the check I sent in had been long cashed). And time, I felt, was running out.

From the outside, with rooftop deck above the front door.

The original closing date came and went. My seller was getting antsy. But what could I do? We were at the mercy of the big bad bureaucracy. Then, as we slid into June, my realtor called; more crappy news. If we did not close by Friday, the 7^th, my seller was likely going to pull out of the deal, because the deal he had for a new house in Albuquerque was going to fall through. He was already living there, though the transaction hadn’t closed, and his seller was going to terminate his sale (I later learned that my seller had already arranged to move all his stuff back to Santa Fe on the 9^th, and he was going to take his place—my home, which I had been sure was mine for two months—off the market).

My realtor’s call left me depressed. This deal is in the shitter, I thought. I’ll have to start house hunting all over, and lose the money I’d already spent on the inspection, etc., and mortgage rates have gone up…all bad. So with that in my brain, the next day I made one more trip to the IRS office. I was third in line when it opened. The first guy went through quickly, which is good, since they only have one person dealing with the public, and past experience had shown me that one case could take a long time to resolve. Then, before #2 stepped forward, the IRS agent informed us that the computer system was down. No! This is a too-cruel joke! Thankfully, a reboot got things working again, and soon I was sitting at the agent’s desk, punching in my SSN and praying…

“Ah, there it is,” she said. My transcript was in the system! There was still a chance! Of course, the bank had said it would take a week to get the closing together, but maybe there was a way…I rushed to the bank with the transcript, and the lovely woman handling my account said we could close by Friday. And we did. And I bought a house.

Holy shit, that was all too close for comfort.

But now, I am typing this in my new home. It’s my first night sleeping here (though the official move is still about 10 days away), and I had my first meal tonight, then christened the new place by breaking my first glass (observation: brick floors really make a glass shatter). Tomorrow, painters come, then the arrival of new appliances, and then flooring guys to rip up the old disgusting wall-to-wall carpeting and install laminate. Yes, the money spigot is open all the way. What the hell. Might as well feel comfortable in this place where I will spend almost all of my waking and sleeping moments.

A new/used purchase: my new dining room set.

So, here I sit, almost ready for that inaugural sleep, boxes waiting to be unloaded all around me, glass shards at my feet. The neighborhood’s barking dogs have finally quieted, and the rumble of cars on Rodeo and Cerrillos Roads has faded a bit. No breeze tonight; could be a warm one. But looking around, the buyer’s remorse that gripped me for a while after the closing is gone. I will be comfortable here, I think.

“It’s nice to see you finally settled,” a friend wrote this weekend. Settled is a relative concept, I told him. I thought I was settled when I moved to Chicago. Now I realize that I may never be settled. In many ways. All I know is, four moves in four years are too much. It harkens back to the frequent moves of my 20s and early 30s. And that was ok then, but now—nah. So maybe I will be settled here. But I know that you just don’t know. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy my new stereo—my housewarming gift to myself—eventually shut off the money spigot, and enjoy being a homeowner.

Until I have to tackle that list of repairs from the home inspection.

Bad Days…

I originally planned a post that would explore both good and bad recent days, but as much time has passed since the bad days started, I figured I would split them up into two separate posts. So if you’re not in the mood for doom and gloom, just head for the sunnier side of the street.

Of course, good and bad days are really all we have, right? (Well, maybe there are some neutral ones, but I tend to take a more Manichean world view.)  I mean, god knows I’m not the only person to go through the highs and lows (just one of those blogger types who feels the need to extol the one and lament the other). Certain days, crappy things happen, or we think crappy thoughts, and that colors our perception of the day. Or week. Or month. Other days, we experience a personal connection or finish a work project with a sense of satisfaction or maybe even get a play produced. And we (I) feel happy. It’s just that those days seem so much rarer of late…

Will this townhouse ever be mine?

So the recent bad days started when the loan officer at my bank called to tell me there was a little…hiccup…with my mortgage and the closing date would maybe be delayed. It seems Fannie Mae wants an official IRS document showing I submitted my 2012 tax return; yes, 2012, the one I submitted after I bid on my house, never thinking that I would need that return processed before I could close. I mean, I had copies of all my 2012 1099s showing my income and the copy of the check the IRS cashed the instant they could rip open the envelope and get the payment to a bank. But not good enough for ol’ Fannie, nope. So, my closing was supposed to be this past Thursday. I now have no clue when it will be, because who knows when the IRS will generate the form I need. So I can make no plans. I am in limbo.

As a good former Catholic, I hate limbo.

The bad days stretched on when some emotional tumult threw me for a loop. I won’t go into particulars, but it involved a colossal past misunderstanding/miscommunication, social media, and some hurtful words. I felt the blow for a few days and still have not completely recovered, as I’m sure the other party has not. The episode and the emotional angst even chased me to New York last week, when an unexpected phone call from another party made me wonder if things had gotten even worse. They hadn’t. But they still could…

My hiking buddy in the arroyo.

The end of one of those trying days…

Seeking a tonic to soothe myself as that emotional turmoil began, I went for a hike near Arroyo Hondo. A friend lives nearby, and we had hiked there before. But this time, with no one to lead me, I lost the trail I was following. I headed in what I knew was the right direction, but I had no idea what terrain I would find as I advanced. I was lugging my backpack with my camera gear, I had no water, and the sun was beginning to set. Bushwhacking my way along, a sense of panic began to set in, especially as I considered the irony of being lost in a wilderness within shouting distance and mostly clear view of several homes. Finally, my makeshift path took me into the backyard of one of those homes. I casually walked around to the front –“Oh, just here for a little visit!”—then reached the dirt road that took me back to my car. The episode, in retrospect, was pretty darn funny—first getting “lost” and then my overblown reaction to it.

Then there was the email from an editor about the revision to a book I turned in a few weeks ago, a book that should have been a piece of cake but has instead morphed into a bit of a nightmare. It will end, this unpleasantness, but it reminded me that sometimes just because I like a book doesn’t mean my client will.

And let’s not forget the “thanks-but-no-thanks” email I got from a local charity, which I hoped to work with on a theatrical fundraiser I want to produce this fall, to mark the 25^th anniversary of my being cancer-free, along with a few other selfish motives. I told them I wasn’t looking for money or physical assistance, but they aren’t interested. And so I asked, can I at least tell people the money I raise is going to you, even if you have no official involvement? And will you take the money, assuming there is any? No response yet, so now I’m looking for another local group to be the beneficiary of the event (if this discouragement doesn’t keep me from soldiering on).

Those were the highlights of the bad days, which came on top of the usual loneliness and my internal agita over my lack of playwriting success (fueled by the larger realization that I just might suck at my chosen craft, you know?). Oh, then there are the back pains, the ones I wake up with each morning and which sometimes get better as the day goes on, and sometimes don’t. And which I’m becoming increasingly sure–even as I remind myself that I’ve had similar pains for years–are the signs of metastatic cancer.

That will be the post for a really bad day.