Faith – Bobbie Conti

My house is on the market.

No, this isn’t an homage or reference to a “Company Men” instance, in fact, life is good at the Big Travel Company. But the fact of the matter is my house and its square footage (interior, not so much exterior) isn’t enough for Myself, Boy, Man Person, and His Cat. Honestly, it’s the Cat that needs the square footage.

Having taken most of the unused furnishings and the entirety of my 2k+ volume library and boxed them up, tetris-style, into my garage, I can no longer park in it. Having replaced the carpet and repainted much of the interior, the house is officially on the market. This is a demoralizing, un-fun event, on several levels.

First, there is the fact that one needs to work with a realtor. In a buyer’s market, selling a house is a pain in the butt, and it’s a double pain in the butt if you’re a hyperanalytic metrics fiend. I can tell you right now the selling stats of every realtor who’s been through this house, the days on the market of each competitor to this house, and the pros/cons to my place vs. my comp set. I can also tell you it astounded me, too, that the competitor house listing at 35k more than mine that had their hot tub in the front yard (mine was in back) and had 100square foot less and about 1/3 the acreage just went pending. I have no idea why. Your realtor is there to guide you through this, mine is guiding me, but that doesn’t mean that her years of experience and my years of analysis don’t clash occasionally.

Second, there is the fact that your house is no longer your home — it is NO ONE’S home. It’s staged. Ever live in a staged house? It’s seriously un-fun. First off, staged houses do not admit that people wash their hands, so 2/3 of the bathrooms and the kitchen have the soap dispensers hidden. Also, because people do not wash their hands, the towels in those areas can totally be wrapped in raffia — no point in drying hands that haven’t been washed. Somehow it is still okay to have toilet paper in the bathrooms, apparently we all acknowledge that people poo. They just magically have sanitary hands afterwards.

In a staged house, your TV will be at an angle that home-theater experts will declare is “exactly wrong”, you will have dishes in areas that you never had dishes (over the fireplace??), you will have angled “uplights” and fake ficus, place settings on the never-used breakfast bar and feature cards touting the wonderfulness of your RV parking (hey, mine has coax and full hookups!). Your glass coffee table and dining table (they aren’t really mine, in a way) will be cleaned daily (as will your stovetop) JUST IN CASE folks show up to view your house.

About that: item 3,492 that sucks about having your house on the market? Realtors who leave messages insisting they will show your house between 11 and 1, and then don’t. Or show up early or late. Or call with 5 minutes’ notice.

You would think the yummy prospect of homebuying (with a staggering pre-approval) would take the sting out of this: it doesn’t, quite. It’s not that we haven’t found some amazing places (we have — and considering that our search radius is 1.5 miles, that’s impressive). It’s not that we haven’t created a pecking order (we have a solid #1). It’s that there are so many that come *close* but are either oddly laid out or have too much space or have too little space or have EVERY ROOM angled. Paint and cabinets are relatively easily ameliorated, bones of a house are not. I tell you what though: anyone who wants a beige and brick 2-car garage house that looks like every other one on its block is TOTALLY in luck.

This also brings up a different sort of language you speak with your Significant Other. You start to refer to housing prospects by such monikers as “619 Dog Pee” (it was going for 619, the garage smelled of Dog Pee) or “Rambler Weird Kitchen” (nuff said) or “Eat Pray Love” (you don’t want to know). And then you need to explain the relative merits of things that excite you: “Oh, okay. So finding a house with a greenhouse is like you finding one with a complete home cinema already wired and all tech stays”. “Marble slab countertops = good, marble tile = bad. I would explain why but it’s like you explaining why one projector is so much better than the other. Just trust me.”

I totally get that these are great problems to have. And ultimately there are things I will not be flexible on — location, for example. There are things he will not be flexible on — space, for example. If it means we are left in this house for another year while we wait for someone to transfer or bail, that’s fine.

I have cranberry juice in my crystal decanter, and artfully done throws on each bed; so I cannot live like this for a year or even several months.

I am, perhaps regrettably to others, without the ability to take some things on faith. That is to say, I have faith in science. I have faith in the abilities of my brain. I have faith in the abilities of my son’s brain. I have faith that the sun will rise (and I equally have faith that I will not see it, for I live in Washington and here there is a permanent cloud layer from October to April). “Faith” is defined in Merriam-Webster several ways, including: 1. allegiance or fidelity to a person or duty, 2. belief in God or religious doctrines/a firm belief in something in which there is no proof, and 3. something believed with an especially strong conviction.

So this post, then, is about that #2: firm belief in something in which there is no proof/belief in God/religious doctrines. Like most “simple” words (note: there are more definitions for small, “simple” words like “set” than there are for long, obnoxious ones like “onomatopoeia”. Check it out for yourself) this requires checking into what “proof” means, and that is defined in the MW as “the cogency of evidence that compels acceptance by the mind of a truth or a fact b : the process or an instance of establishing the validity of a statement especially by derivation from other statements in accordance with principles of reasoning”. Well that certainly clears things up.

What I am writing here is that I am devoid of the ability to believe in something that does not have a solid foundation of evidence or has not gone through a process to establish its validity. I believe the sun will rise tomorrow because it’s been doing it on this planet for some 5 billion years and I believe the science and the methods used to determine that. This does not mean that if Aliens blow up the Sun tonight I will have been wrong — that’s what’s called introducing new data and would require a new scientific review. Unfortunately, a small side effect of Aliens blowing up the Sun is we’d all kinda be dead.

I digress (always).

What I’m getting to is Why Then Does Bobbie Celebrate Christmas? (Bobbie, it should be noted, celebrates the following holidays in some form or fashion: New Years’, Mardi Gras, St. Patrick’s Day, 4th of July, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Bobbie will gladly participate in your celebration of Hanukkah, Solstice, etc. Bobbie thankfully takes the day off presented at Presidents Day, Memorial Day, and Labor Day, and really and truly does reserve a moment of those days to thank those nameless (and named) who have served and sacrificed. Bobbie does not acknowledge the existence of Valentines Day).

So if I have no faith, why celebrate a holiday *built on faith*. The very idea of it is a prophecy culminated in the birth of a child to newlywed yet somehow chaste parents, and that child grew to be Jesus Christ, and he was nailed to a cross for living in what amounted to a non-free-speech state, and he purportedly rose 3 days later and thereby proved his status as the son of God (and also God and also the Holy Ghost). Schizophrenia jokes aside, this is not what I celebrate when I celebrate Christmas. I could start by pointing out the new spring lambs referenced in the Bible probably had no business being around December 25th at the time of birth and it’s far more likely he was born in Spring, but that would have messed up with that whole Catholic-Church-Taking-Other-Peoples-Holidays-For-Easier-Assimilation thing. I could also point out that the Romans kept meticulous tax records (our IRS has nothing on them from what I understand) and yet there is no Jesus or Yeshua etc. in the areas he was supposed to be at that time. Perhaps he was also got for tax evasion? At any rate, no I do not celebrate that Christmas. You are absolutely, totally, and completely welcome to. I personally like the way Churches get all dolled up for the occasion and actually liked going when I did.

I celebrate the one with Santa Claus. And Reindeer. And getting a large tree (fake or real, your choice) got up in the gaudiness apropos to a 1970’s disco dancer. I celebrate the making *and burning, occasionally* of cookies, of lax gym use, of exchanged fruitcakes and dubious stocking stuffers. I celebrate the silliness of a jogger in her Santa hat and sleigh bells on her shoes (hi, Christine!), of family photos posted in seriously cute sweaters, of Norskie brunches (hi, Mindi!) and a plethora of baked goods coming in to the office and into homes (hi, Jim!). I celebrate the lights people decorate their houses with, of two weeks off of school, and the casual observations of frenetic shoppers. I celebrate the adventures of new families (and growing families) as they navigate the season, baking and prepping for days of delicacies and fun (hi, Ali!). I celebrate your best friend calling to inquire if she can in fact get the missle-firing droid robot with extra death-kill stuff for your son, because she spoils him every year (hi, Candie!). I celebrate folks who have the sanity to leave and celebrate it somewhere else (hi, Cindi!) and folks who are willing to celebrate even though they swore, they absolutely swore, they would never do it again (hi Jeff!). I celebrate a time where you can ask your coworkers, family and friends to donate money or toys or food to complete strangers, and even if they have already done it, this season, they will do it again (hi, Expedia Stairing is Caring team, and your $3000+ raised for kids!!).

Most of all, though, I celebrate a time of year where it is *expected*, almost demanded, that you are a better person. This is the time of year that you at least have to pretend to be nice, to care about your fellow man, to do the Right Thing. You may do it all year round — or you may do it this once, as a sort of Red and Green Yom Kippur. But you do it, because it is What Is Done. For about two weeks every year, people, for the most part, are Who They Should Be. They may be crowded in elevators but they’re smiling, they may be racing through Target but they’re making way for others, they may be frustrated in the baking aisle but offering recipe tips.

I celebrate that. And maybe *that* is what others celebrate, and maybe not. What do you celebrate?

Tag: Faith

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