Mooreover / Blog

I think that there must be times when it’s okay to curl up and succumb to the cold kiss of an avalanche. To revel in a cocoon of silence brought by the momentum of noise.

I’m up late, watching a dumb movie only because I can. Between a wife with sensitivities and two kids with impressionable minds, I am left to staying up late for selfish cinematic endeavors. The movie is neither good nor bad, and I watch not out of a sense of obligation or desire, but as a matter of necessity.

My mother is in town, and I think that it was an interesting day for her. She was able to see that I had hoped to take the day off, and how quickly my day spiraled into a complete day of work. I accomplished enough today that tomorrow should be a respite, but I have to write an offer. Which I do not begrudge.

I have a day off today. I rescheduled some meetings so that I could have at least one day to color with my kids, watch David use his toy drill as a pretend gun, and be the subject of my daughter’s embrace.

David just kissed Selah on the ankle.

I’m listening to Greg Allman’s new cd and drinking a glass of Cabernet. Either one of them by themselves can inspire artistry, but combined they’re like a hot cousin to a priest (I just made that up and have no idea if it works). I read through the last ten posts, and with almost 18 months of perspective between me and them, I have to say that they were pretty good. It made me a little sentimental too, realizing that this could be my anthology to my kids (one post that I read was written to my daughter), so I decided it was time to post again. I make no promises, so that I might tell you no lies.

I am at an interesting time in my life. I am the bread-winner, a real estate agent and investor, an entrepreneur and a father to two, and not at all what I expected to be. I don’t know that I intended to be anything, but I always thought that I would write. Growing up in eastern Montana, writing might have been my best friend. Now I have actual best friends, and my relationship with writing seems to be in an uncomfortable place of nonacceptance.

This blog was a great venue for me, but I was forced to pull away. With 18 months of silence, perhaps I can return to it without an audience. My and writing, we’re trying to make up. Give it time.

My mind is a bejeweled bag overladen with receipts, gum wrappers and the weight of its adornments.

It’s dangerous writing in a coffee shop, surrounded by game-playing teens and housewives – it tends to pigeon-hole my metaphors. My mind is over-run – I’m full of “myself” – and I thought that writing something down might purge some of the pressure. But I can’t seem to freely write like I used to, so I have to ride a tributary of observation until I can steer my vessel on the tumultuous rapids of my thoughts. The woman next to me has a heavily adorned bag – pink leather with fat silver rivets, a stark contrast to the utilitarian Ogio messenger bag that shepherds her computer. She drinks drip – hot enough to warrant a sleeve. I think she must be grading science papers.

I’m drinking a glass of 14 Hands Cabernet. I had a professor in college that used to tell us that she graded our papers in her bathtub with a bottle of red wine. Eventually the dried red drops on my Mythology paper would be her testimony. She was a “character” – a status I think is worthy of achieving. If you aren’t a “character” what are you? People are described by what they do (engineer, teacher, bus driver) – with the exception of “characters.” Characters have a personality that overpowers their limitations in a smothering embrace. Characters have to be a little jovial though – otherwise they become curmudgeons.

It’s hard to write when a glass of wine is your sand timer – the rate of descent is too uneven to develop a steady pace.

Starting to feel better. I became overwhelmed with the knowledge of the absence of God today. I could have said that I became overwhelmed with the knowledge of the presence of evil, but that makes it sound like an excerpt from “Twilight.” In the span of a couple of weeks I have run into a couple of people that weren’t evil, but the absence of God in their life was so complete that it felt as though my heart had had a run-in with a melon-baller. They were jovial in their ignorance, but their indifference to good created a storm in my soul. Quiet reverence is no match for a jovial indifference to God. A more active role is going to be necessary…

Two months between posts gives me a quiet confidence – like I’m shouting in an empty room.

There is a condition in sales that is a little like post-partum depression. Birthing a paycheck in real estate can take months, and in the case of some clients, sometimes years. Once the home is found or an offer is agreed upon, there is still 30-60 days of waiting, culminated in a paycheck that is spent as quickly as it cashed. Working so hard for such a quick labor brings on its own case of baby blues, and I seem to get a case with every closing. Closings have been frequent, so I guess I feel like I’ve just had quintuplets. When you have that many kids at once, people revel in the fact that everyone is healthy. Knowing that everyone is healthy doesn’t mean that everyone is happy. Happiness is best maintained at a measured pace, so I’m embracing the day and finding a rhythm.

I haven’t looked to see how long it’s been since my last post – perhaps because time will prove too fleeting if I use this as my watch.

This has been the best weekend I’ve had in a long time. In large part because I chose to put my cell phone aside and my computer down, fortunate  to have enough business that I could afford a couple of days for me and mine. As I’ve been telling my business partners, I’m a passionate person, so my fire burns long and hot. Once quenched though, it can take a long time to stoke. It’s nearly June, and this weekend aside, the amount of full days that I’ve taken off can be counted on one hand. After an especially busy week (last week) I lost my credit card and my wedding ring (separate incidents), which led me to believe that I either had a tumor that was affecting my short-term memory or I needed to take some time off. Taking time off meant completely blowing off some regular weekly meetings that I knew would only lead to more work.

That was a week ago today. I did have to work a little, but for the most part I put work aside. Kami and the kids returned from their trip to Montana on Thursday, so I’ve spent as much time as I could with them, mostly letting Selah enjoy her time outdoors on our newly mowed yard. Now I’m getting ready to show some condos to some out of state buyers, and I can say that my fire is lit again. I’ve excited to show them – excited to get to know good people. I’ll be of better service to them because of it, so I’m going to have to be better about taking the time to sharpen my axe.

What can more boring than talking about not writing? Let’s leave it at that.

Being unable to sleep has made me highly productive this morning. I got a workout in this morning and returned home before anyone else had woken, which meant that I was able to shower and dress and get to the coffee house for a little reflection before the onslaught of work begins.

There are two men – one on each side of me – reading the paper. I don’t think that I’ve seen two people reading a paper in years. I know that my parents still read the paper, and while their rural location doesn’t lend to finding information quickly online, I believe that even if they had a good internet connection it wouldn’t replace the tactile relationship that they have with the local paper and a hot breakfast. Kami and I ordered the paper for six weeks when we first moved to the Seattle area, but we were so overwhelmed with the sheer quantity of paper that we canceled our subscription before we were forced to line the hallways.

There are two large market papers in Seattle – the Seattle Times and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (or the Seattle PI). Oddly enough, they’re owned by the same company. They tried to sell the Seattle PI a few months ago, but with no success. So they’re going to be forced to move to an online-only format, which means that bloggers are becoming the paper, and papers are becoming blogs.

While I regret that employees of the PI will be without work, I can’t help but think that it’s little wonder that the PI wasn’t profitable. My relationship with the local papers is not a fond one – in a recent newsletter to my clients I pointed out their duplicitous nature – selling papers with a dramatic headline that the body of the article seemed to refute. As with most anything, I think that when a company becomes more concerned with the sales of their product rather than the quality of their product, their business will suffer. I have two examples on opposite sides of the issue that readily come to mind: GM and Apple. I remember about six years ago the CEO of General Motors apologizing to his customers for 20 years of shoddy craftsmanship – which was a trend not easily reversed, if their present day concerns are any evidence. Apple Computers has had slow growth in comparison to their competitors, but I know that they’ve always been concerned with quality design and quality products, and over the last eight years they’ve reaped the benefit.

The last example has become very practical to me lately. Although I wanted a MacBook Pro notebook computer, financial prudence compelled me to order a Dell computer at 1/2 the price. In short order though, it became readily apparent that Dell’s mission was less consumer-centric than Apple’s, and I’ve since cancelled my Dell order so that I can order a computer that I want. I need to practice what I preach after all: you get what you pay for, and while I could have gotten a discounted product with discounted customer service from a discount retailer, I’m voting with my dollars for a company and a product of quality.

By the way – the order that I cancelled with Dell – they shipped it anyway. They didn’t mean to, and they shouldn’t have, but they did. Which means that I have to go through the hassle of processing its return and waiting two weeks for them to reverse the charges to my credit card. The Dell computer should arrive today – I’ve never looked forward to returning something so much in all my life.