The "Knots Landing" of Rainbow Row

Last year I bought a house. Having been in Atlanta for a year at the time, I decided it was time to sink some money into a home as an investment. I missed having the tax benefit of the mortgage interest deduction. Plus, my work was paying me $5k towards closing costs as part of the relocation package from Utah to Georgia and the money was scheduled to go away. So I needed to use it or lose it.

I had the cutest little realtor, a sweet lady by the name of Pattie. She was probably around 65, fully gray with a very slight build -- maybe 5' tall and no more than 100 pounds soaking wet. But she knew Atlanta like the back of her hand. We searched high and low for a place to my liking. I initially thought I'd like to stay somewhere close to the city center and get a cool condo in a high rise tower, or a loft or townhouse somewhere. But I quickly realized that there was a glut of inventory of these types of places in the city. It made me think twice because I had such a difficult time selling my townhouse in Utah before the move and when I finally did get a buyer, I barely broke even. Condos and townhouses are the first to go south in a soft market and the last to come around when things pick up. Add on top of that the monthly HOA fees they charge in this neck of the woods ($250 to $350 a month), plus the incredibly high property taxes for the city and county, and I was definitely disheartened.

So the search continued. I told Pattie one day that maybe we should look at houses. Her response: "Oh honey, you'll never find a house inside the perimeter within your budget." haha The "perimeter" is I-285 that runs in a big circle all around the city. Houses "inside the perimeter" or "itp" are generally much more expensive than those "otp" in the burbs. But that's the rub -- who wants to live way the hell out there in the suburbs? Not me.

Well, to make a long story short, the decline in the housing market helped me because in the end we found a cute little house "itp" that was just in my price range and which had been completely remodeled. It was built in 1959, is a single story brick rambler, super small (1120 sq. ft.) but had a huge yard with big mature trees on a beautiful, wooded street. The property taxes were much lower and while it wasn't in the city center, it was only 10 minutes away. I made the offer, negotiated a bit and settled. It's been almost a year since.

Now here's where the story gets interesting -- up to this point its all been back ground (and if you're reading this, you must be thinking "get to the point, damnit!").

It turns out that this place is rainbow row. The "gayborhood". Little Castro. Whatever you want to call it. Right next door there's a gay couple that's been together 12 years. Across the street is another gay couple that bought their house 4 or 5 years ago. Next to them is another gay guy who's boyfriend from NYC just moved in with him. Next to them is a lesbian. Down the street is another single gay guy, and further down is another gay couple. AND, the lady that sold me the place was a lesbian (who did a lot of the remodeling work herself -- go figure!) and there was a lesbian couple that lived in the house before she bought it. Whew! Now, I knew Atlanta had a big gay population -- the third largest in the country, from what I've heard. But who knew my new little house was gonna be surrounded by "family"?

Needless to say, this makes for lots of interesting stories and gossip galore. The "Knots Landing" of Rainbow Row has been born on my blog. Stay tuned for future entries of the craziness that is my life in the gayborhood.

Doormat, Revisited

Okay, so he came for dinner and was very gracious and sweet. But damn, I was pissed off earlier. This friendship is definitely a roller coaster.

My Name Should Be Mat

As in "doormat."

I have this friend who can be the biggest sh*t. Sometimes I wonder why I make an effort to maintain a friendship with him. Someday maybe he'll find my blog, read this and realize that he IS a sh*t -- a big, brown, steamy one. Until then, please allow me to vent.

I invited him and a couple of others over for dinner tonight. He seemed excited about it when I asked him yesterday. Unfortunately the other couple had to cancel, so I wanted to confirm that...we'll call him "George"...was still planning on coming. So today when I saw him online, I pinged him to confirm the time -- 6:30.

Here's the text of our convo:

Me: Hey, did you get my voice mail? Will 6:30 work for you for dinner?

George: Do I have a choice?

Super long pause as the steam begins to rise and I try to choke back an angry, scathing response. Deep breath, count... one....two...three....(am I crazy or somehow psycho that his answer angered me??)

Me: Well, I suppose you can choose not to come.

George: Well, 6:30 it is then.

I guess he doesn't realize that I have spent $50 to purchase food, will be cooking for about 2 hours and all he has to do is show up and consume it. Heaven forbid that I should put constraints on his schedule and serve dinner at 6:30. Sheesh!

This is the same friend that asked if I could pick him up at the airport a couple of weeks ago on his return from spending the holidays with his family. I hesitated when he asked. I had already been to the airport once that day, dropping off another couple of friends for a quick trip to Europe. But having a friend drop you or pick you up from the airport is a nice thing. It's good having someone there for you after a long trip, to see a friendly face, and I can totally understand why he asked me. Although, to be honest, I rarely ask friends to chauffeur me to the airport. Atlanta is a huge metro area and many of us in my circle of friends are scattered about the city. I guess I'm the type of person that doesn't like to put people out or inconvenience them. Well, George isn't.

It's about 45 miles round trip from my house to the airport. But when you add in driving from my home, to the airport, to George's house and back to mine, it's around 70 miles total. That's a lot of driving, not to mention gas which is now hovering at $3.00 a gallon. But I still wanted to help and was looking forward to seeing him, so I made the suggestion that since I'd already been to the airport once that day, perhaps he could take the train to the station near my house. I would pick him up from there and drive him home -- still at least 20 miles round trip. His response: "No thanks. That's WAY out of my way."

Somehow I guess it doesn't register with him that for me to drive 70 miles and take an hour and a half out of my work day is somehow NOT out of my way.

Can you see the halo above my head? I swear, it must be there. Either that, or I'm changing my name to Mat.