House Sloth and the Dream of Being Gainfully Unemployed

I was inspecting the Devil Queen Wednesday; I was looking at a door jamb that needs some trim when I caught myself thinking, “I’ll have to have Kenny take care of that.” Then, I thought, “what the hell, I can do it myself. I should be saving Kenny for the things that I can’t do. I’ve gotten lazy.”

And, I have. The sad part is that I hadn’t even noticed. After spending a long time looking at our budget, bills, and what not, I’m trying to figure out when the era of Kenny will finally come to an end. It’s time for us to wade back into the mess ourselves, and get it finished. Sure, there are some things that are still beyond or skill level that I want him to do, but there is a lot that we can do.

While things have been terribly complicated lately, I’m hoping to start pushing things around in such a way that our lives will become simplified. Getting our renter in and moving into the Devil Queen will reduce our bills by about 10-15%. While there is the great Do-we-want-to-live-in-it-as-we-work debate, I think that the Queen is at a point where we can live there without too much bother. And, we can work on it whenever we want. Have 15 minutes to spare? Pull wallpaper tacks, plan the next project, caulk some trim, etc. And, no more 30 minute round trips to and from the Queen.

I much as I would things to calm down, I’m sure things will be in constant flux (i.e. an enormous fucking mess) until we get this old whore mortgaged. No more crippling interest payments, no more mountainous contractor bills, etc.

At that point, I would like to pursue my dream of being gainfully unemployed. I heard a brief piece called Choosing Life Over Career by Dana Goldman on NPR yesterday that got me thinking about this. She talks about how she quit her job and worked miscellaneous part-time jobs to make a living. She has enough money to pay her rent & medical insurance and spend the rest of her time doing whatever it is she wants. Sure there are trade offs, but, as one of her friends observed, “You’re so much happier now.” And, that is worth something to me.

So, ideally, I’ll find a way to pay off our college and remodeling debts, get a few rent houses, and “work” part-time at something I like. With the notable exception of one job, none of my other jobs have meant anything more than a pay check to me. Life is too short for bull shit like that.

On a different note, I’m worried about Kenny. He was AWOL for payday which I’ve never seen any contractor do. Clearly something was up, but I don’t know what. I certainly hope that everything is okay. The situation was further complicated by the fact our phone is now dead. In preparation for our move this weekend, my wife called the phone company to see what we needed to do to have our phone number and service transferred to the Devil Queen. Instead of just telling her, they went a head and did it. Who knew that efficiency could be so inconvenient? We called once from a payphone and once from my in-laws. No answer and no answering machine. Weird.