Posted on by mwhybark

What is it that makes a house a home?

Viv and I have been consumed, eaten alive, devoured by househunting. On Saturday, before enjoying some sprawling dinner and drinks with Greg and Stacey, we saw no less than fifteen houses in an all-day marathon. Some were good, some were bad, none were it.

I particularly liked a 1947 house in near-ish southwest Seattle near a golf course, to my surprise. It was quite suburban, and even on a cul-de-sac-ish loop street, much like places I grew up and basically loathed for their isolation. It’s amazing what a few years of break-ins and bum feces will do to a man. The house is vetoed, however, as it’s under the approach for one of the primary runways at Sea-Tac, and while the constant thrum of jets is essentially music to my ears, Viv has a different opinion. We counted ten 500-foot overflights in one fifteen minute period this weekend, against the suburban quietude of the hushed neighborhood.

We have looked at any number of homes advertised or described as 1000 square feet that strike me as smaller, all in the 250-300k range. Some have not struck me as particularly habitable, no matter what the size. Most common among these have been homes where a prior steward felt the need for self-expression, and consequently created a sort of architectural maze via successive unrelated remodels, mistaking confusion and entrapment for comfort and security.

We have been particularly struck by four of the houses, and I believe we are passing on two of the four for various reasons. Two are under continued consideration. One requires a massive unremodeling. I would move the house off of its’ full basement foundation onto a new full basement. The new location would be at a 45-degree angle to and several dozen feet away from the old location. Oh, and in addition, we’d need to ungraft and move a staircase from it’s prewar remodeled location to the original location within the house. Among other things.

Viv pointed out that these plans were pretty persuasive evidence that I did not really want to live in the house, not as it stands. She’s right.

I toss and turn and grind my teeth about this now, losing sleep, obsessively clicking the various regional sites that provide mapped views into the various MLS databases. They all suck, too.

The ones with the most base data do not share details, often stinting such crucial considerations as street address. My favorite, Redfin, clearly sometimes posts listings that are totally wrong. Today, for example, we wanted to see a home listed for sale in upper west Seattle. Our agent found the listing – but the Redfin listing was an inaccurate reactivation of an old listing that sold in April. This is troubling, and while I love Redfin’s data transparency, inaccurate data transparency only makes it harder for me to apply heat to the soles of my agent (who appears to be doing a pretty good job, but alternative information sources equal greater leverage).

I have realized that some of my tossing and turning at night is my verbally-oriented mind, yammering away at top speed, analyzing this and discussing that about our househunt. I’ve decided to blog the hunt, to an extent. It will help me to burn off that chattering analyst in my head and at the same time provide a record that I can review to develop and sharpen our goals and strategies. It will be a bit tricky, though, I think. I’m uncomfortable posting pictures of most of these houses, for example, and equally uncomfortable mentioning specifics such as addresses or monetary amounts, so I’m afraid the blog may come out as impenetrable as the Regency memoirs of any given Madame X (as penetrable as she may have been).

Oh well, at least Ken is coming out here soon.

Posted on by mwhybark

Hail

I had an amazing dream last night in which I was on the phone in a friend’s incomplete, under renovation house. I was speaking to Scott Colburn and Joey and Johnny Ramone on the telephone, when enormous hailstones began to fall from the skies outside. I got off the phone and rushed to grab my new camera, which at first was a digital Leica and then became a D70. By the time I’d rounded up a memory card and figured out that the camera’s battery was not fully charged, the hail had shrunk in size to a fine mist, a slurry of water and ice, which blanketed the landscape to a depth of three inches, but which was rapidly melting.

A couple days ago I dreamt I was driving around the perimeter of the site of the Seattle World’s Fair of 1932, which had been unaccountably abandonded for many years. The muscly art-deco buildings were proudly incised with cheerful bombast such as “A SEA OF TOURISTS AWAITS THE FUTURE VISTA” and “LET US GO FORTH AND MINE OUR FELLOW MAN,” but the cheap concrete surface of the stubby towers flaked with age, the white paint peeling in strips.

Broken windows and twisted frames drooped like the eyelids of a dead man. Around the base of the buildings, baking in a noon sun, weeds, rippled asphalt, heaving slabs. Debris festooned the empty lots behind rusted chainlink fences.

Posted on by mwhybark

Hopkin Update

Seven months later, my Hopkin Explained post is still generating interest and links from large collaborative sites. Every other month, on average, someone links to it from a high-traffic link-collector, and I get another day of several thousand site visits to the page. Just today, MetaFilter, a site in which I actively participate, linked to this page – again. A commenter there chucklingly suggested I should link to the thread, and so I have.

Another commenter in the MeFi thread is curious about a link in a comment posted here after the initial publication. In that link, citizenkafka recounts calling Terry’s mom about two weeks before I did, and mentions a) Terry’s mom knew about lostfrog.org and b) that Terry has a new frog. These recollections appear to contradict things in my initial post which Terry’s dad told me. I don’t necessarily see them as contradictions.

I did not speak to Terry’s mom, but to his dad. The family is of an ethnicity that often emphasizes patriarchy and the adults clearly speak English as a second language. I didn’t want to step on toes by grilling Mom or Sis or Granny.

Terry’s dad told me what I recount – he was unaware of the web’s interest, and so was Terry, and that was a good thing as far as he was concerned. I specifically asked if other people had been calling, and he indicated that no-one had.

However, not mentioned in the thread comments is yet another story of someone calling Terry’s family. In this story, a forum participant (possibly affiliated with the very first site to post the image) called and spoke with Terry’s sister. I can’t recall the details of that interaction, but the poster noted that he was encouraged not to locate and give a new frog to Terry.

Finally, Terry’s dad did tell me that he has a new frog. Although I don’t recall this explicitly, I believe I must have asked if the frog was called Hopkins. Terry’s dad emphasized that the frog was different. I was surprised to note that I had not included this detail in the original post, presumably a result of having determined that the new frog was not Hopkin.

I believe that in all probability the other members of the family just never mentioned the calls regarding the appearance of the flyer on the web – remember that Terry was actively posting these flyers for at least six months, and that they included a phone number. Others must have called before the web got hold of it.

So in my mind, the different narratives associated with Terry’s family boil down to internally consistent perspectives, despite the apparent contradictions. It’s possible, of course, that Terry’s dad actually was aware of the internet hubbub but chose to deny it in order to keep our conversation brief. Of course, over time it becomes more likely that the family will become aware of it, as well.

Posted on by mwhybark

Flashbangback

Someone down near the Broadway Playfield, near what has previously been the staging area for participants in the annual Gay Pride Parade, has been setting off m-80s or cherry bombs or something. That, in conjunction with the flock of chittering helicopters plaguing the neighborhood this morning, have created a mild flashback to November 1999’s WTO experience. For us that week included about five days of twenty-four hour helicopter noise punctuated by explosions in the distance as various police units used flash-bang grenades and pepperball grenades to, among other things, harass me with their incessant noise.

Each time one of today’s bangs echoes down the street, Viv and I tense in anticipation of a change in the tone of the crowd noise or – worst thought of all – a great but brief silence broken only by car alarms and shattering window glass tinkling onto the pavement. In 1990, the FBI arrested a group of folks who had driven a van loaded with explosives into the neighborhood with the intent of bombing a popular gay nightclub.

The person lighting m-80s has no idea what an ass they are. I hope they continue in blissful ignorance.

Posted on by mwhybark

Rent

…And so I think we’re bowing out of the rent race. I can’t visualize moving twice in a year. Viv may differ as she is concerned about having to move in a rush and having to find a place to rent in a hurry. I think we’ll probably have more discussions about this in the future.

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Shelter

We beat the track again for a place tonight. We have a prospect, and turned down a prospect, and we’re sleeping on one too. Man, is this exhausting!

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House Beat

Man, we rolled by over ten houses today, and got into three. We filled out an app for one with a sweet location and have appointments for three more on Monday and Tuesday. We’re really moving.

Afterwards we had dinner in Ballard (again) with Don and Trish at Sofrito Rico, a Puerto Rican place at the end of the Market commercial district. Reading blogs tonight I noticed that Greg and Stacey ate there last night for their anniversary. Small world.

I am totally beat.

I was pleased to hear from my dad that he got his father’s day gift on time, even though I sent it late. It was a late-30s or early-40s pewter sommelier’s cup made in part from an old French franc coin. The manufacturer’s label is still attached to the back of the cup.

Posted on by mwhybark

Wybark

While perusing this fascinating analysis of the reported use of airplanes during the notorious Tulsa race riot of 1921, I came across a reference to the black community of “Wybark, Oklahoma,” which Google and Google Maps report to be located somewhere in the precincts of Muskogee. This newsletter reports that the community “was located at Section 6 Township 15N Range 19E in Muskogee county (north of Muskogee).”

I find it interesting that Google Maps apparently include historical data, as the same reference notes that “Wybark, Oklahoma does not appear on the Oklahoma maps of today.”

This AOL Hometown page describes the community thusly in a list of “African ghost towns” in the Oklahoma region: “WYBARK—Established in 1890, though settled a bit earlier, Wybark was 4 miles north of Muskogee. The town operated a post office from 1890 to 1940. It is believed to have absorbed some of the old settlement of North Fork though no remains of that town are noted. The town faded in the 1940s.”

I’m intrigued. The exhaustively researched genealogy that Quentin Whybark worked up in the early nineties clearly implied unexplored and lost Whybark family branches, including Civil War era references to a doctor, if I recall correctly, who may have chosen the Confederacy instead of the Union. All of the Civil War era information centers on the area around Marble Hill, Missouri, where the second-generation American Whybark settled while the area was still under the control of Spain.

I wonder if this lost Oklahoma hamlet relates to that unexplored branch of family history, or if the town’s name could possibly have arisen independently. It seems awfully improbable for the name to have an independent etymology.

Posted on by mwhybark

The New Sea

When I turned to look at the clock, I noted, with some astonishment, that it was 4:00 am. I did not feel sleepy, but considered the situation and with mild anxiety decided I should try to get that additional two hours of sleep. Despite my dread, I soon drifted off. The dream resumed, apparently having moved forward by a scene or two in my absence. Vivian and I were in a darkened theater. I was aware that the skater-rabbit was also in the audience, but not sitting with us. I do not recall what was on the stage or screen, whichever it was.

As the entertainment moved toward a conclusion, I noted that I appeared to be experiencing an annoying drip, striking my head occasionally. At first I ignored it, but as the frequency increased I became aggravated. As I brusquely rubbed the damp away, I became aware that others in the audience were growing restive as well. In fact, an increasing number of the audience were also experiencing intermittent drips.

Puzzled, I looked about just as the drips turned into a constant rain. I recall looking up at the ceiling of the theater in time to be dazzled by the crack and flash of a lighning bolt amid lowering clouds. Puzzled, I was pleased to note that I had not neglected to bring my travel umbrella with me into the theater, and as Viv and I made our way out, we huddled under the umbrella until I snagged an apparently forgotten umbrella of my own.

We made our way out into the hall of that same old building I had hurried though earlier and realized that the rain was apparently confined to the cavernous spaces of the theater. Curious, we made our way out of the building and onto what I took for a wrought iron balcony, clinging to the side of a curving wall of old, but quite tall, buildings. Far below us, a narrow street filled with human traffic of all kinds – pedestrians, cabs, carts, all josting.

Up the sides of this picturesque urban canyon, a system of openwork iron walkways webbed the surface of each building. Together they created a multilevel sidewalk system several stories high, using the technology of late nineteenth-century fire escapes. Everywhere, people hurried about their business.

Viv and I climbed the one or two levels up from our first location to reach the roofline. As we stood and looked, we saw that this warren of interconnected and quite old buildings stretched away into the distance, no building being particularly taller than other. The effect was of looking across a large, flat surface made up of hardback books of varying thicknesses, all laying flat and densely fitted to form a sort of mosaic.

As we looked across this plane of roofs, we noticed a small cascade of water pop out and arc down into the hurrying throngs from a roof to our right. As we turned to observe it, more lines of water arced out. We reversed the direction of our gaze, to look behind us. The surging water from the previous dreamfragment had reached the level of the roofs on our side of the street. It roiled toward us even as the leading edge of the water crumbled the rooflines to our left and right.

As we looked out, we didn’t see the tops of the buildings we’d hurried through. Only the swelling surface of the water fronted by the surge of debris was visible. Below the new sea buildings collapsed in cinematic grace, bricks spiraling away from centuries of mortar in slow motion. Eruptions at the surface marked the final escape of pockets of air, furniture and bodies popping into the daylight before drifting toward our new, temporary Niagara.

The water thundered over the roof in a stampede, charging out into space to curve gracefully down upon the city. Holding each other by the edge of the cataract, we felt the building give.