For those of you keeping track at home, I did go  back to the Coming Out support group this past  Friday.  I don’t know why I dreaded going so  much, except that it’s  that way with most  things.  Going some  place new for the first  time is always intimidating for me and  this was no different.

I was the only person  who attended the group  this week and it was nice and disappointing all at the same time.  I would like to make new friends and this group seems like it ought to be a good place to do that but if no one is  going to go to it than that’s not going to happen.  It was nice thought because I was able to have a one on one conversation with the facilitator without having to worry about what I had to say being disturbing to anyone else.  (Religion plays a part in my experience and while I’m not forbidden from  discussing it at this group it’s important to be careful not to get too “preachy” in the conversations.)

The facilitator has a similar but different background and has an understanding of the “religious persecution” that I have to deal with in my process and he admitted that he still has twinges of doubt from time to time.  I asked him if he thinks, as is the case with me, that it’s an instinctive  reaction.  You’re raised to believe a certain thing with all your authority  figures telling you that it’s true and when you’re older and learn to have a  different perspective; it takes some time for your new perspective, your new opinion to become the default answer.  For me, when I bristle at something or start to feel judgmental about something with regard to the gay community, I often realize that I’m just reacting with the programming of my youth and that if I stop and think about the thing, and think about my reaction, I usually realize that I don’t really believe or feel the way I first  reacted to the thing.

This lead to a discussion of instinct with regard to sexuality.  He told me,  “Within the first five seconds of seeing a person, I assess their appearance.  I look at their eyes, their hair, and their smile.  I look at their body, their ass,  their walk.  I determine whether I think they’re gay, and whether or not I’d  have sex with them.  I do all this within the first few seconds and what I  realized a long time ago is that the people I’m attracted to are men and that  for me, women are just meh!  Instinctively, I know I’m gay.  How about you?”

My answer might have been surprising.  “Instinctively?  I don’t do anything.”  You see, my mother vilified sex from my earliest memories.  If there was a sex scene on TV, she changed the channel.  Whether it was her intention or  not, she always made me feel like sex was evil and dirty and not to be thought  about or talked about or partaken in.  As far as I knew the only  reason for sex was to make a baby and that should be done via Immaculate  Conception.  I couldn’t allow myself to consider that I was attracted to  anyone and therefore to consider that I was attracted to guys was out of the question.  Obviously, this is changing now and I notice attractive guys all the  time.  And, heh, there are plenty of them.

My instinctive reactions, though, still are not…  I’m not really sure what I’m  trying to say here…

I was at Rubio’s the other day for lunch with K.  For those who aren’t familiar, Rubio’s is a Mexican “fast food” place a step or six above Taco Bell.  They’re famous for their Fish Tacos (eww) but they have great nachos as well.  Rubio’s practice is to take your order, ask you for your name and hand you a buzzer  and your cup.  While you fill your drink and get your salsa and find a table,  they prepare your food.  When your food is ready they call out your name  and buzz your buzzer.

The person who was distributing the food was not the same person who took my order and when my food was ready he called my name.  I handed him my buzzer, retrieved my food and walked away without thinking much of it.  Later when we were finished and about to leave the restaurant, the same guy came by the table and took K’s tray to throw it away.  I sat back from the  table in the universal “I’m done you may take my plate too” gesture and the  guy looked me in the eye’s and said, “May I take your tray too, Kevin?”

My instinctive, but silent, reaction was, “He’s gay and he’s flirting with me.  He must be, why else would he have made note of my name?  Why else  would he just take K’s tray without a word and then ask me if he could take  my tray and use my name?  That’s interesting and kinda nice.  He’s nice  looking too. BUT he works at Rubio’s!”  (What can I say; I’m a bit of a snob.)

Walking back to the car, I commented to K that I found the exchange interesting and she agreed with me.  The exact conversation escapes me now but it was essentially a confirmation that she felt he was flirting with me and that he was a nice looking guy.

It was a nice moment and I was flattered.

I mentioned it in therapy today and all the niceness of the moment disappeared.  Suddenly, I felt like I was being childish and immature and  something about the retelling of the story made the whole thing seem less…

Just…

Less.

Balance is something I have struggled a lot with in my life.  As I’m writing  this, I’m realizing this is even truer than I first thought.  I am not physically balanced.  I am not really mentally balanced.  I’m certainly not emotionally balanced.

I used to joke when I was younger – when I was of an age where one would still think such a joke is funny – that I could never pass a field sobriety test,  stone sober, because I can’t walk a straight line to save my life.  I’ve learned lately, particularly through my sessions with my personal trainer, that I don’t have very good physical balance – he has me do exercises that require  balance and half the time I nearly fall over.  (He assures me this will change.)  Hell, even my physique isn’t balanced:  Most of my life I’ve had pretty muscular legs and pretty flabby everything else.  My legs could’ve used more  definition and in the last decade or so, my muscular legs have gotten an extra layer of flab around my hips, but they’re strong and I have more power in my legs than any other part of my body.  I’m not complaining, I’m merely stating fact.  I know this about myself, and part of my motivation for joining the gym  and hiring a trainer is to change this.  It will change with time and that’s fine.

Sometimes it’s difficult to define the difference between the mental and the emotional.

I’ve made no secret, on this blog, about my struggle with clinical depression.  To be honest, I feel like I’m much better than I’ve ever been before,  something I’m exceedingly grateful for.  But I’ve certainly had my share of unstable moments: sitting on the floor in my closet crying because I was so  mad at my room mate for no good reason that if I spoke to her I would say  something awful.  I’ve yelled at my boss for being too pushy (when he was  being too pushy, but still…).  I’ve made threats “in jest” toward a co-worker because she was poking fun at me at a very inopportune moment.  I’ve sat in my chair at work and stared at the wall, because I couldn’t focus on what I  was supposed to be doing and all I really wanted was to cry and sleep.

I’ve written blog posts in which I lambasted my mother’s “one ice cream cone isn’t going to kill me” attitude and then gone home and drunk an entire bottle of wine, alone, in the dark, because “I’m not going out so there’s no harm, and besides there’s only a little bit left in this bottle, what kind of sense does it make to put it back in the fridge?  One night with one bottle of wine isn’t going to kill me.”  Except it was more nights than it wasn’t.  I’ve watched myself behave in self-destructive manners (and don’t let me fool you – or me  – into thinking I don’t do it now) all the while thinking, just this one ­­______ (package of crescent rolls, batch of cookies, vat of ice cream, pot of macaroni  and cheese) isn’t going to hurt me any, all the while knowing that it’s just one  in a long line of the same, and therefore, yes, it is going to hurt me.  I’ve sat in my chair, looked at the clock and thought, “I really should go to the gym, but  I guess I’m not going to.  I’ll go tomorrow,” as if it’s something I only have to  do once to make it effective.

In recent history (and by recent I mean, the last six to eight weeks) I’ve learned some things about some of these behaviors.  I’ve made a conscious  decision to change my priorities about some of these behaviors and I’m  weeding out the obvious causes of my imbalance.  And as a result I’ve found something new…

It’s difficult to maintain balance.  There seems not to be enough time for it all.  There are things I want to do and there are things I have to do.  Trying to find the right mix of behaviors that keeps me on an even keel emotionally,  that keeps the guilt and the shame at bay and gives me a sense of  accomplishment or satisfaction and that also fulfills all my responsibilities is tough.

I have to work.  If I don’t work, I don’t get a paycheck and then everything else falls apart.  The problem is work sucks; I’ve talked about that ad nauseam and won’t rehash it now, but work sucks and I hate spending my time there.  It’s eight hours a day that I can barely call my own and that’s being generous, because by the time you add together grooming, commuting, working and  lunch hour it’s more like twelve hours, twelve hours that I can’t spend doing things that I want to do.

OK, let’s be fair, we all know that I’m writing this (and just about every other) blog post I write, at work during those twelve hours that theoretically should be spent doing something for someone else.  But thank God for that, because  if I didn’t feel like I could do my writing at work, the experience I’m currently dealing with would be that much more frustrating.

You see, in addition to writing, both this blog and my book (yes I’m still working on it), I have a lot of other things that I want to be doing and that’s what my evenings are for…

Let’s take a look.  There are the things I must do, whether I like it or not:

* Housework: my kitchen doesn’t clean itself, let alone the bathroom or the floors.

* Cooking:  If I expect anything to come of this new found desire to  maintain a healthier lifestyle, I have to prepare most of my meals at  home and bring them to work with me.  (By the way, this just compounds the housework issue.)

* Ironing:  I was spending a significant amount of money on having my work clothes – shirts and pants – laundered so that I wouldn’t have to  do any ironing.  It became ridiculous so I stopped.  Now I wash my work clothes along with everything else, every other Saturday at Michelle’s apartment.  And now, I have to spend a lot of time ironing, so that I have clothes to wear to work.

* Grooming:  Lately, I’ve been taking fewer showers in the morning because I’m finding it harder and harder to get up early enough to incorporate everything.  As a result I have to take a shower when I  get home in the evenings.  This is not so terrible as I frequently go to  the gym before going home and would need a shower anyway, but on the nights I do not go to the gym, I still have to take a shower when I get home.

And then there are the things I want to do:

* Gym:  First and foremost, I need to spend time in the gym.  I’ve only managed, in these first two months, to get to the gym an average of three nights a week.  I’m not complaining.  This is so much more than I was doing before and I am seeing a difference from it, but by the time I change clothes, get to the gym, put in my hour and head home,I often don’t get home until after 8:00.  Still this is the most important thing I’ve got to do and I’m not going to let it fall by the  way side.  There’s a lot I could say about balance and the gym and not letting it become too important, but that seems like a post for another day.

* Write:  Yes, I know I said I do this at work but I’d like to do even more of it than I do.

* Read:  I love to read, always have.  I have a growing pile of books that I’ve not read and need to.  I keep saying I’ll get more into the books but I can’t seem to get around to it.  I’ve got a drawer full of  magazines in my bathroom, because bathroom visits tend to be nearly just the right length to read an article or two without  becoming fully engrossed in a book.  (The problem is, the bathroom  visits are often when I catch up on Twitter and the magazine drawer is pretty full now –  and by the way, it’s a deep drawer.)

* Lil’B:  I spend every Sunday afternoon with my Little Brother, and I love doing it.  But it pretty much wipes out my whole Sunday as I  have just enough time to do a minimal amount of housework before I leave to get him and when I come home, I have to make sure I have  clothes ironed for the week (or at least a few days) and food prepared  for the next day.

* Friends:  Who am I kidding?  I don’t have any of those.  Yes, I go to  Michelle’s house every other Saturday to do laundry and we hang  out, but generally that’s the only time we spend together.  Beyond that, I don’t have any friends, or a social life, and as much as I hate to think it (let alone say it) I don’t know how I would find time for  friends if I had them…

* Television:  I know this is (or at least should be) a low priority, and I  have made it a lower priority than it ever used to be.  I don’t watch more than a couple hours a night, because by the time I’ve taken care of all the must-dos, I don’t have time for more than that.  Honestly, it feels good and I am proud of myself for having made Television the  lowest priority, but my DVR is backing up with stuff and so far, I  haven’t been able to alleviate myself of enough attachments to the  shows I watch.  (Some of the shows are ending and that helps but  there are still things I want to watch.)  (And before anybody makes  the suggestion, of course I multi-task the ironing and television, but that’s of minimal assistance.)

* Sleep:  Somewhere in the midst of all the rest of this, I need more sleep.  I don’t get enough sleep.  Ever. I think I need more sleep than  is realistically possible and I’m so tired so much of the time I don’t  know what to do.  But even if I could go right to sleep when I get  home, I can’t possibly, because then my life would be about nothing  but work and that’s unacceptable to me.

 

I have made a lot of progress to weed out the destructive behaviors and put higher priority on things that matter more.  I’m definitely a happier person  now, and honestly, this post was not intended to be a complaint in any way.   I’ve just been struck recently, with the irony of things.

I used to sit at home alone, in the dark, watching TV (often drinking) and I would feel sorry for myself because I had no life and never went anywhere or did anything.  I wanted more excitement in my life.  I wanted to experience life instead of having it pass me by.  I wanted lots of things to happen, but I never really did anything to prompt the changes.

Finally, I’ve started taking action and trying to live a more balanced life and I’m experiencing a whole new trend of frustration about it.  Where does one find the time for true balance?  How do you manage to fit everything in and achieve a sense of happiness, satisfaction?

I’m so tired right now, I can barely keep my eyes open.  I was going call in sick to work today, so I could sleep in, and take care of some of the nagging household stuff that needs to be done before going to my session with my personal trainer tonight.  I didn’t, largely because by the time I woke up enough to do it, it was kind of late, and it would’ve seemed like I was calling in “sick” because I was going to  be late for work.  So I went to work after all, and I was really only about ten minutes later than usual and that’s because I forgot my badge and had to get a  visitor badge from the security desk.

Wednesday, after work, I went to the gym to walk/run on the treadmill.  I made it about 30 minutes, but the pain in my shins was just getting worse and worse and I  couldn’t keep running.  I had planned to stop and do the cool down at 30  minutes, but then I got distracted by something on TV (Anderson Cooper) and I  ended up walking about fifteen more minutes, which is probably not an entirely bad thing, except that my shins still hurt today and it’s been five days.  I’m concerned that I’m doing more harm than good on that front and I’m trying to figure out the  solution.

It was during one of my walking spurts that I saw (and heard) out of the corner of  my eye, the person on the treadmill to my left, slap the stop button and start to  disembark from her treadmill.  I have a pet peeve about people just hitting the stop button and walking away.  It takes the treadmill two minutes to return to stand-by  mode and since there’s often a line of people waiting to use them it takes less  than two minutes for the next person to come along.  I can’t tell you how many  times I’ve watched people stand there and fight with the treadmill because they  can’t figure out how to make it start, simply because it’s still showing the last  persons work-out summary (and if I can breath enough to tell them, I do, but I  usually can’t.)  When my treadmill neighbor hit the button, I glanced that direction, looking at the display of her treadmill and not at her.  Suddenly, I heard “Hi Kevin!”  I looked up and, sure enough, it was Lil’B’s mother!  I had been on the treadmill right next to her for 30 minutes and hadn’t even noticed, I was that much in my own little world.

I haven’t been back to the gym since Wednesday and I’m frustrated.  I have my session with the trainer tonight and I will go, and I’ll talk to him about the shin splints and see what he tells me.

On Friday, I went, for the first time, to the Coming Out support group.  I got there ten minutes or so late, not because I was trying to be late but because my brother  popped up on my MSN Messenger and I got caught up with him.  I walked into the room and there were three people there, including the facilitator.  As it turned out  the third person was observing for some reason that wasn’t explained and so there was only one “participant” until I arrived.  As I suspected, I was the oldest person  there, besides the facilitator, but it wasn’t so bad.  I will go back.  The thing with stuff like this, is that it’s the going the first time that’s so difficult.  Now that I’ve  been it’ll be no big deal. I’m sorry.  I know after all the build up and anxiety that I expressed, this is rather anti-climactic, but it is what it is.

Saturday, was laundry day and I went to Michelle’s house for the day.  I was expressly forbidden (by Michelle) from buying a car which would delay the laundry washing process…  So we went shopping instead.  I bought mostly household necessities: toiletries, vitamins, Diet Pepsi, but I also bought an artificial Christmas tree and a few new decorations.   I already owned a tree that was only  four feet tall.  I bought it when I lived in a studio apartment in San Francisco, and the only place I had to put up a tree was my bay window.  The four footer was  perfect.  Now I have no place to put a four foot tree and I’ve been wanting to get a  full sized one.  I had a lot of laundry and didn’t get home until after 1:00 Sunday morning.

We watched a lot of TV shows and movies, including Sex and the City (the movie, not the TV show).  We had discussed the movie over lunch and it became apparent that I didn’t remember it particularly well.  Interestingly, Michelle  remembers the movie really well, but doesn’t remember anything else of  significance of the night we saw it in the theater.  I, on the other hand, was very preoccupied while we were watching it that first time because I had made up my mind that this was the day I was going to tell Michelle I am gay.  A year and a half later, I suppose in a way, I should be glad that it’s not any more significant to her  than this and it doesn’t stand out for her.

Sunday, I got up around 9:00 and had to do a bit of house cleaning.  Lil’B and I were just going to hang out at my house and I wanted to make the place a bit more presentable.  I emptied the contents of two full hampers of clean and folded  laundry onto my bed to put away later.  I also wanted to assemble my Christmas tree, though, I never did have time to decorate it.  At this moment there is a 6’6”  artificial Christmas tree, with nothing on it but a star shaped tree topper, standing  in my living room.

I picked Lil’B up at our usual time of 2:00 and we went to pick up a pizza (Take ‘n  Bake).  We took it back to my house and I started the oven up while presenting  our options to the boy.  Play a board game, watch a movie or both.  He chose  movie followed by board game (as I assumed he would.)  I told him to pick something from my library of more than 400 DVDs.  I have holiday movies, kids’  movies, action/adventure movies, super hero movies.  Out of 400 DVDs this kid  picked Superman.  Not Superman Returns…  Superman. Love this kid!  After the movie we played two games of Junior Monopoly before I took him home.  After I dropped him off I went back to Target to pick up a few things I forgot on Saturday.  Back home I heated up some of the pizza and ate dinner while fishing on  Facebook (Gotta log in everyday or I don’t go on the night fishing trip) and then I  set up the iron and ironing board.  It was already 10:00 so I only ironed one shirt  and one pair of pants so I’d have something to wear today.  And then it was time to go to bed…

Bathroom and nightly grooming rituals before bed and into the room I went.  Oh look, mountain of laundry to put away.  Once again, I didn’t get to bed until nearly  1:00.

I’m so tired right now, I can barely keep my eyes open.

So unless you’ve been living under a rock, or you’re one of the rare few,  non-American people who pays any attention to (or have accidentally stumbled  across) my blog (and even then you probably know) that this past week-end was a long holiday week-end, starting with Thanksgiving on Thursday and ending with the worst case of the Monday’s you can fathom all year.

I was going to write a post about how I spent my Friday with my friend Heather who I’ve known and been very close to since before I moved to California and who I love dearly with all my heart and if only she were a boy (and shared my feelings), I’d move heaven and earth to be with her, but she isn’t  and she doesn’t, so it matters not.  I was going to include the fact that on Friday along with Heather I  “got to” spend the day with her eleven year old son and her 30-something fiancé  and his seventeen year old son.  I was going to write a post about how things  didn’t go particularly well (by my estimation) and how upsetting it was to me and  all the conflicting (conflicted?) emotions I’m feeling about it.  It was going to be really good, too, and you were going to cry.

But instead, I did.  And I couldn’t write the post, because the truth is, I’m not really entirely sure what it should say, or what I want to share and I’m reverting to my  traditional standpoint of ignoring it all and pretending everything is fine because I’m  not sure how to handle the reality of the situation and so instead of writing this splendid post that would have been tremendously heart wrenching I’m going to share something stupid and pointless (albeit, mildly amusing) and call it a day.

Earlier today, I was reading my Twitter feed and one of my Twitter friends said, “Car accident on the penis bridge, nice.”

Well, naturally, I was intrigued…  I asked, “The…. Penis… Bridge?”

She responded by telling me, “Um, yes 🙂 A ridiculous, unnecessary bridge built in Winnipeg for some ungodly price, disturbingly reminiscent of a huge penis.”  I asked where one might find pictures of this “Penis…. Bridge”, but she didn’t tell me so I had to go in search of it myself.*

You can imagine the trepidation with which I sit at my work computer and  searched for “penis bridge” so before I actually submitted my query, I amended it  to read “Winnipeg Penis Bridge.”

I came across a few pictures:

Both images credited to a flickr user named Scerakor.

How about a night time image of said Penis… Bridge.

This photo is credited to a user on a website called Deviant Art, named doperuca

And so, with that, I’ll bring this tremendously anti-climactic post to a close by saying, just what you’re probably thinking:

“THAT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE A PENIS AT ALL!”

*Updated:  Turns out my twitter friend did respond when I asked about pictures, but it was a Direct message and I didn’t notice it until well after writing and posting this.  I do believe in credit where credit is due, after all!

It seems like it’s been forever since I have written a blog post, perhaps it seems  that way to you as well?  There’s a lot to talk about and I kind of doubt I’ll get to all of it today, but let’s see.

Things have been going fairly well at the gym.  I had my fourth session with my personal trainer last night.  Considering how I felt after the first session, I’m  tempted to say it’s getting “easier”, but I’m afraid he’ll hear me and make it harder.  The truth is I’ve made some decent progress as far as my stamina for the sessions goes.  I’ve managed to get through every successive session without  feeling like I was going to die.  Very winded, but not dying.  Every week, he  changes the routine up, which is probably a very good thing, keeps things  interesting.  The big thing last night was squats using a kettle bell and while  straddling a mat, and standing on steps.  My inner thighs are burning today, but  that’s the first time I’ve felt it there, so I guess it’s a good thing.

He will weigh me and take measurements, again, next week and I’ll be interested to see the outcome.  It may just be my wishful thinking, but when I look in the  mirror I feel like I see a difference.  Not to say that I’m not still fat and in need of help, but hey, a difference is a difference!  I have lost 17 pounds since I began  keeping track of my weight.  I’m not sure how that compares to starting at the gym.  I suspect it’s more along the lines of 8 or 9 pounds since then, but that’s  OK too, every little bit helps.  And as I constantly remind myself, I’m not there “to lose weight”, or “to look like an underwear model”.  I’m there to get healthier,  stronger and have more endurance.  If weight loss and model looks come with  that, so much the better, but that’s not the objective.  And let’s face it.  I’m going to lose weight in this endeavor…weather you’ll be seeing me in Calvin Klein ads  remains to be seen, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I was you (there’s still the too  old, and bald head to consider.)

I’ve been somewhat impressed with this process, to be honest.  In the past I’ve gotten burned out really fast and had to force myself to go to the gym in the first place.  I didn’t like the gym, I didn’t like sweating and I didn’t want to do the work.  Not to mention it really got in the way of my TV and sitting around on my fat ass  time.  It’s amazing what can happen when you make up your mind to do something.  I go to the gym at least 3 times a week.  I need to go more, and I’m working on improving that, but I’m not going to discount the time I am spending there.  I even sort of enjoy it.  The sweating isn’t so bad since I go straight home  and take a shower.  My only other real complaint is how crowded the gym tends to be, but so far I haven’t had a lot of trouble getting in there and doing what I need to do.  I’ve only had to wait more than a minute or two for a treadmill once.

Speaking of the treadmill, you may recall that I’ve mentioned how I’m not a runner. I believe the requirements I mentioned were along the lines of rollerblades and a  jetpack, with a bear chasing me.  Running was not in the cards for me.  Well, after a couple of weeks of fast walking on a treadmill, sometimes as fast as four miles per hour, and not getting the kind of calorie burn I’d like to get… And looking at the calorie burn of the people running on either side of me, I realized, if I’m going to get this thing done, I’m going to have to pick up the pace.

I knew I had to start out slowly, and to be honest, I was a little scared, but  eventually, I resolved to do it.  After walking at 3.5 miles per hour for five minutes to warm up, I cranked the treadmill up to 5 miles per hour and ran, for five minutes.  It wasn’t so bad.  Toward the end, I was happy to slow it back down to a walk, but the truth is, I could’ve kept going a little longer.  I kept that pattern up for the full  hour, running a total of 30 minutes and walking a total of 30 minutes.  The last time I went to the gym and used the treadmill, I cranked the running up to 5.5 miles per hour.  Interestingly, (at least to me) I have found that running at 5 or 5.5 miles per hour is a little easier than walking at 4.0.  It’s definitely easier on my  feet.

And speaking of my feet, I bought a “friction stick” which I’m beginning to think is  just deodorant, and I rub it on my feet in the vulnerable spots before putting on my socks and running shoes and it seems to have made all the difference in the  world.  I haven’t gotten any blisters in a couple of weeks.

As you know, I abandoned you for a couple weeks to write; to really write.  Not that this blog isn’t valid and valuable writing, to me, but I participated in the 2010 National Novel Writing Month contest.  If you’re not already up to speed, the “contest” is to write at least 50,000 words between November 1 and November 30.  I validated my entry yesterday at 5:00 PM and at that time I had written 53,718  words, not including the first two chapters I wrote months ago.  And that was  writing only on week days.  Imagine what I could’ve accomplished if I had written  on the week ends as well!  I’m really proud of the work I’ve done, but still have so  far to go.  I’m going to keep up with it, but there’s no “deadline” now, so I can and will get back to blogging as well.  I know some of you were wearing a hole in the carpet, pacing and waiting for my next post.

I’m really excited at the prospect though.  I may be deluding myself but I think, once this manuscript is finished and fine tuned, it might actually be a viable  product for publication.  Maybe.  It is in my nature to doubt myself and my abilities and as I’m in the process of doing the writing, I’m inclined to feel like it’s utter  drivel, but when I read back over what I wrote the day before, I realize, “Hey!  This isn’t half bad!”

Ten days ago, somewhat unexpectedly, I bought a new car.  Actually was a new car.  My first one.  I’d been thinking about it for awhile so it wasn’t truly an impulse buy.  I just didn’t think I was going to do it so quickly… or suddenly.  I finally owed less on my SUV than it was worth (not much less, but less) and there was actually a vehicle on the market that I thought I might like.

The Saturday before last, I went to Michelle’s house to do laundry as usual and she informed me that she needed to go to the Honda dealership to get the oil  changed on her 2007 Honda Civic and we could eat while we were out.  I went with her and it turned out that the on-board computer on her car was recommending a couple other maintenance items while she was at it.  It was going to take about  ninety minutes, so we walked to a near by restaurant and had breakfast.  We walked around a Dollar Tree store and then went back to the dealership.  The car wasn’t quite ready but almost.

While Michelle was dealing with that, I walked to the side lot to look at the Honda  Insight.  I had done research on-line already and knew that this car had most of  the features I wanted a car to have, it’s a hybrid which means better gas mileage, and it was very reasonably priced.  They also had signs hanging all around the  building talking about Holiday Sales Event.  I almost gave up, when no one talked  to me and we were actually about to walk back to Michelle’s car and leave when  someone asked us if we’d been helped.

I wasn’t sure I was going to pursue the purchase, assuming that my credit wasn’t  good enough to get me a payment I was happy with.  The initial paperwork that they drew up, entirely on our conversation and without pulling my credit showed 9.9% interest (1% lower than I was paying on my SUV) and a payment that was  too high for my liking.  I was about to walk away, when the sales guy asked me if I wanted to do a credit app so they could give me more definite figures.  I did, and as it turned out, my credit score was about 30 points higher than I thought and they offered me 7.49% interest.

Once I test drove the car it was pretty much a done deal.  My payments are a little bit higher than they were on my SUV but I will be saving a substantial amount of money on gas.  Ladies and Gentlemen, this is my new car!

OK.  There’s more to talk about, but some of it is just plane not sorted out yet so I guess I’ll call it quits right here for now.  You will be hearing from me again soon, I promise. 🙂