2012 - allow me some retrospeculation, if you will

[illusionofjoy]

True and I were at a friend's house for their annual New Year's gathering. We'd dressed the girls up in matching outfits for our own amusement both at that time and several years into the future when they are both teenagers and certain to be humiliated by such parental antics. Amélie, now seven months old, spent most of the night drooling on her outfit. Madeline, now a two year old, spent the night basking in the adoration of the other guests while finding ways to point out to the hosts where they'd forgotten to child-proof their house. Either way, the elder of the two children gleefully stayed awake past midnight and saw 2013 arrive with the grown-ups.

It was in the summer of 2011 that I lost my job of seven years. The spring of 2012 brought new employment, albeit as a temporary worker. It is my hope that 2013 will bring me full time employment - or winning numbers in a Powerball drawing. In any case, the autumn of 2012 brought True a weekend job, making us a two-income household. We're doing okay, but I refuse to accept that we couldn't or shouldn't be doing better. In the ebb and flow of life, we've moved back into a cycle of transition. In fact, I've become somewhat used to this. If memory serves, 2010 was a year of (protracted and painful) transition and 2011 was somewhat more settled, despite my becoming unemployed. Now it's time to change again - to evolve and improve.

2012 was a chaotic year. Amélie's birth did not go as planned. To say I'm not still upset about how everything went down would be lying. I have a lingering suspicion that True's induction was horribly botched by her obstetrics team and that her suffering and near death - not to mention the near death of Amélie - were entirely avoidable.

Obviously the biggest bump in the road for 2012 was that time spent in the hospital paying tribute to high anxiety what should have been a joyous event. A smaller bump occurred in October when I received a traffic citation for allegedly passing a school bus while its red lights were flashing. The incident occurred in the neighbourhood of Beechview, where - for me at least - nothing good ever seems to happen. In Pennsylvania, passing a school bus with flashing red lights carries a penalty of five points on one's license and an automatic suspension of driving privileges for sixty days if one pleads or is found guilty of the charge. The issuing officer must have been colour-blind, as the bus I passed had its yellow lights flashing; there is no law on the books which prohibits one from passing a school bus while its yellow lights are flashing. Still, two months later when I plead my case in traffic court, the presiding judge reduced my charge to just that - passing a bus with yellow lights flashing. As the judgment meant that I'd be receiving a large refund of the collateral I'd paid on my ticket along with no points on my license, I accepted the decision and decided to move on with my life rather than arguing the finer points of what was and wasn't contained within Pennsylvania's traffic code.

For the record: the driver of that bus should have received a traffic citation. In Pennsylvania it is illegal for a school bus to have the yellow lights flashing unless they are going to be switched to red within five seconds. The driver of this school bus had those yellow lights going for well over five minutes.

True and I have been discussing buying a house for a while now. Initially we'd considered it as a five year plan, however circumstances leave us with a desire to expedite the process if at all possible. We are now hoping that 2013 will be the year that we switch from renting to owning.

First and foremost in the decision is the math: I crunched the numbers and there is no way to deny that it is far less expensive to own than rent in Pittsburgh. Even with a mortgage, taxes, water and sewer bills and paying homeowner's insurance, the monthly total paid towards owning is still less than renting. A close second is privacy: I am tired of sharing a roof/floor/wall/etcetera with strangers. True and I made every attempt to be civil and even friendly with the upstairs neighbours in our current dwelling. Not only were we rebuffed, but the female of the second floor has taken to creating a hostile atmosphere, apparently no longer satisfied with being verbally abusive to just her own family. I refuse to raise my daughters in such an environment and, on a more personal level, I refuse to live in a place where I can't unwind and be creative.

It is time to move. Honestly, I wish I'd had it in my head to buy a house years ago, however I was convinced that such a thing was impossible - especially with my student loan troubles. As the student loans are a thing of the past, I'm hoping that we can actually go forward with this. Logically, there's really no reason I'd be denied a mortgage at this point (especially through some of the programs the city has to help lower income people purchase houses), however I still have nagging doubts. I always do...but I suppose only fools never have doubts.

So, what about the music? Illusion of Joy, persistence is thy name. I have been recording and performing under that moniker for over a decade now. If all goes as planned, the next album I release will have been recorded in a proper music room in a proper house, rather than a spare bedroom shoe-horned into acting as a music room. At this point, any recording I attempt to do here would be ruined by the - ahem - woman upstairs with her incessant stomping and vacuuming...coincidentally timed to whenever I start playing, improbable as that may seem.

Regardless, the song writing hasn't stopped and I hope to get the live shows going again not long after the family is settled into a new house. Until then, live performances have been suspended in favour of house-hunting. Sadly, spending money on a new computer has been suspended in favour of having a down payment for a house, but those would be the priorities.

So, for those of you with attention deficit disorder: 2012 - Amélie was born, Madeline turned two, I got a job, True got a job, the upstairs neighbours suck, I got a traffic ticket. 2013 - Amélie turns one, Madeline turns three and hopefully the Warren family will be living in new digs.