Bukowski documentary

I need to see this (warning, flash site):
http://www.magpictures.com/distribution/bukowski/

Its playing at Kendall and opens apparently on Friday. I hope it lasts a bit, we'll be away all weekend.

This is funny too, because I was pondering picking up a Bukowski book that I haven't read yet to bring on our camping trip (I'm thinking I'll be done with Ishmael by then and I may not even finish it - its just not grabbing me).

Last Night

I get to the office park early, but don't have anything to do in the building so I'm sitting in my car. Reading Ishmael starts to put me to sleep - the concepts from this story are interesting but getting through it has been tough. Four men made by corporate cookie cutters just walked into the building. Two wore dark blue suits and the others wore gray; all had briefcase-sized dollies to bring their presentation materials inside.

The grass here is too green - too perfect. Even the geese walking around appear sterile. I was here a year and a half ago for an interview with Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, who also occupies this building. I wonder sometimes how things would have been different if I had taken that job. They were ready to offer it to me but I politely declined given that I had been hired by Hallmark.

Today provided a few reminders of my struggle with the corporate environment. A new dress code, after work meetings, powerpoint slides and formality . . . I can function in this world well, but sometimes it gets to me. Sometimes, you have to stop and think, "am I really doing something important here, or am I just a contributing factor to the rat race?".

I don't know. What I do know is that I'll have some corporate catering and listen to people schmooze while I try and look occupied with some printed e-mails (I hate schmoozing). I'll wait excitedly for the time that I can leave and head a bit further west down route 9 to see the hubby and our furry kids.

Its a good week to be ending with a camping trip.

[I wrote this last night sitting in the parking lot before my meeting. It actually wasn't that bad - the presenters were way more interesting than last week. I'll have one more tonight, and the final meeting on Thursday]

Extra Stuff - House related

One thing's for sure, going with a mortgage broker rather than the local bank has caused more work for us. There are more things to fax, sign, etc than the last time. Granted, our broker is a great guy and got us a kick-ass loan program - WAY better than one we'd find from any bank or credit union on our own. Still, its been a lot more phone calls, faxing and digging for documents.

On a related note, selling a house and buying one at the same time is WAY more complicated than just buying alone. We had a buttload of $ in our savings, but took it out of the account to put a deposit down on the new house. Now I need to provide the bank copies of 2 months worth of bank statements and the canceled deposit checks to verify that we did have the money in our account. This should be interesting, since we use 2 different checking accounts and transferred money between them (and our 2 different savings accounts) back and forth. They like to see some $ in the savings account and right now we have very little due to that fat deposit check. The first time around - the money just sat there until closing save for a MUCH smaller deposit, and we turned the rest over in the form of a bank check. We also had money in the account left over after closing. We'll have $ left over after selling our house and putting down in Waltham . . . but that's not money in our hands right now, its money to come from our sale. Similarly, we had to fax over our current mortgage statement and the P&S for the sale of the Framingham house to prove that we'll have profit from it to put down in Waltham.

Geesh! Three weeks and its over.

Church closings

http://www.boston.com/news/specials/parishes/closings/

My grandmother's church is safe, phew! They are closing St. Joseph's i.e. the French church. This is going to be a huge blow to the large Haitian community in Waltham . . . I'm not sure where they'll go for masses in French. What I'd consider my "home" church (where I went to school for 5 years, made my confirmation, and was married) is safe. I figured that St. Patrick's in Watertown would make it through (the other Catholic one in Watertown, Sacred Heart, will be closed).

On another note, the church I was baptized at and made my first communion at, St. James the Great on Rt 9 in Wellesley will be closing. That was our parish until we moved (I was 9) and we were pretty active, going to mass each week, joining the congregation for breakfast in the lower church after mass, participating in fund raisers, and attending many a holiday craft fair. Its these craft fairs that make me so sentimental for church fairs come holiday-time, and make me want to go to them. Damn. I guess its a good thing they were still open 5+ years ago when we got married . . . I had to get my baptismal record from them to get married (and even *with* the church open, it took forever to get it). My brother and sister were baptized there too - I wonder where the records will go after closing?

I'm sure they have been having problems for a while - they leased out a large part of their parking lot to a nearby car dealer for storage. I spent a lot of time of my youth riding my bike in that parking lot.