quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

a lot of these people seem to have gone into the house-acquisition process without doing any research whatsoever on the house in question/

emo homeowner can eat my fuc

"this isn't exactly the kind of party i imagined"
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/01/07/garden/07men-2/popup.jpg

"how come no one wants to drive to the suburbs and swim in my pool"
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/01/07/garden/07men-2/popup.jpg

xp Or maybe he's a jerk and his friends are all glad that he moved way the hell across town. I bet they'd come over if he fixed the pool.

And I mean, come on. If you can't afford $500 to repair your pool filter, you are not rich enough to buy a house with a damn pool. Use the pool at the Y or swim in municipal fountains like the rest of us.

honestly, i think there's something about finding the correct living space that people don't take into account. like i think a lot of people consider size and location and don't consider the psychological pleasantness of the house or apartment in question, and they end up in a place that makes them miserable and they're not sure why. the last couple of times i've moved, i've been really aware of that. little things like the particular street something is on or the size of windows or whether it's carpeted or is hardwood make a big difference. i bet these folks went for size over quality.

i bet these folks went for size over quality.

^^The truth bomb of mainstream American life?

i imagine that everyone has little regrets about the place they buy, but most of us have the decency to keep this to ourselves rather than letting someone from the nyt interview us about it/photograph our shame

Definitely. I think they unthinkingly bought into the idea that Success = moving into a big house in the 'burbs by a certain age. For some people, 'burb life is all that and all you can eat salad and breadsticks at the Olive Garden. For other people, it is like being sent into exile and cut off from everything you love. But all it takes to avoid that trap is to employ the tiniest bit of critical thinking and self-reflection, and if someone makes enough money to purchase the houses described in this article, that person should be at least capable of that. Thus I remain obstinately unsympathetic.

yes

I am far more sympathetic to people who purchase condos/houses that turn out to have lots of problems that didn't turn up in an inspection, or people who thought they were getting a good deal on a condo only to have the developers skip town and leave them with toilets that flush directly into the dirt crawlspace. It's this "How did I know I would be unhappy in a giant empty house for away from all of my friends????" lament that makes me bananas.

if you want to live a happy, active life, i kinda think that you have to go for a nice neighborhood near a bustling area w/a lot of culture, or you have to live in a really nice small town (which in my case would ideally also be within close proximity to a major urban center, and yet not a suburb.)

The most classically NYTimes thing about that article for me was the way it asserted a "trend" that was refuted by the statistics in the same article, like almost literally "Although statistics show no difference between men and women in this regard, and although there is no increase in anti-homeonwership sentiment among either gender, a growing number of men are disillusioned with homeownership."

to me it's like complaining about having too many choices of awesome things to do with your life and you're pissed because you chose the wrong one. stfu and deal with your choice.

i know some folks who just apparently spent 1.2 million on a home that has a nice view, but is impossible to get to and is kinda charmless and too small for the price. i think they like it because it's "quiet", but it feels like a real dead-end to me.

living in a hood that your friends dont want to get to is a great way to lose friends ime

i bet it's also just one of those things where people think life will be better once they've crossed this major accomplishment off their checklist and then they find it doesn't make them happy after all. great, you have a house, now how are you going to solve your existential angst? (i think i am unlikely to buy into this particular dead end but think of "getting married"/"having a family" that way, which is its own road to pain, i'm sure.)

too much time for navel gazing, these people

They should spend that time with Time Life home repair books.

i agree more enthusiastically with the recent comments in this thread than with any ilx thread in a long time.

btw i dig my new rental house that's in a "walkable" and amenity-rich neighborhood and near a huge transit center.

For some people, 'burb life is all that and all you can eat salad and breadsticks at the Olive Garden.

Grrr false binary. I live in a close-in suburb but am still in walking distance of cool bars, restaurants, clubs, galleries etc.

nyt feature as cry for help/open-ended indirect dinner party invitation

Who the fuck did this guy think would fix a broken sink? Elves? I am not sympathetic in the least.

Jenny, have I mentioned that my roommate had to unclog a toilet some weeks back, and when I came back two hours later and it still wasn't done, she was surprised it hadn't somehow fixed itself in that time?

I was not sympathetic either but I ended up having to do it anyway, because she had never used a plunger and was clearly NEVER going to get it done. At least I made her go out and buy a plunger at 10pm in the cold.

There are these pay-as-you-go supers known as "plumbers".

For homeowner dude, not you. Obviously you can plunge yourself.

(We don't have a super, we have a landlady who is great but doesn't live in the building.)

Grrr false binary.

Don't be angry. I was not trying to be nuanced in my analysis. Just saying that some people like living in the suburbs, and don't suffer the same existential angst as Mr. Broken Pool, and that is totally okay. I am honestly not judgin' anybody for preferring suburban life, and I am familiar with Evanston, IL, so I know the 'burbs is not all Olive Gardens and McMansions. Peace.

Also, Laurel, I am totally your roommate. This is one of the top five reasons why home ownership is most definitely Not For Me. (Our toilet paper holder fell off the wall two years ago and it's still broken, because that doesn't seem worth a call to maintenance, and well, it just never seems important enough to make a special trip to the Toilet Paper Holder Store.)

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/01/07/garden/07menspan-1/articleLarge.jpg

"I was happier being a roadie for the Church, back when I owned nothing."

[begins to hum "already yesterday"]

Mr. Berks, a playwright

Am I the only person who immediately pictured Philip Seymour Hoffman in Synecdoche New York when I read about that guy?

I mean playwright, fixing the sink, etc.

Jenny, have I mentioned that my roommate had to unclog a toilet some weeks back, and when I came back two hours later and it still wasn't done, she was surprised it hadn't somehow fixed itself in that time?

introduce your roommate to the healing powers of baking soda... works on most clogs.

and this totally works:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5150PX0OY9L._SL500_AA280_.jpg

dude probably has a GARAGE in which to put TOOLS and GREASE to make things go.

His garage door opener broke and he doesn't know where to buy replacement batteries in the suburbs.

does he have THE INTERNETS though? i didn't know how to jump start a car earlier this year (at my house thank goodness) and wound up reading from my laptop as i did it.

he probably writes plays on a typewriter

His house is so vast, he has no power cords long enough to reach any of the outlets.

Without his beloved nearby corner store, this man cannot buy tissues with which to dry his tears of loneliness.

oooh man i had a roommate who wouldn't buy milk at the corner store when we ran out, and would instead wait for his weekly or biweekly trip to the supermarket, because he thought it "might be more expensive" at the corner store. this meant i had to buy milk at the corner store on my way home from work ALL THE TIME, so i asked in shock if he'd ever actually compared the prices, and the answer was no. !!!!! (sometimes i like it when friends who become roommates go back to being just friends, it's better not to know things like that.)

lol that is like my mom raising her eyebrows when i tell her that i buy most produce every other day or so, instead of just stocking up for the week, as if it gets more expensive that way???

corner store milk probably is more expensive :|

i've stopped buying larger quantities of milk and just buy it by the pint -- usually the pints of soy creamer from trader joe's do me fine. that way i use it up before it goes bad, and it's cheaper than spending money on something i won't get to use.

corner store milk is slightly more expensive, but i would buy milk and bread there anyway because slogging a mile and a half to the grocery store after work in midwinter for those two things wasn't worth it. the thing that gets me is that he never went into the corner store to find out, despite it literally being on the way home from the subway station.

now i live two blocks from a store and have roommates who replace groceries when we run out though <3 i also buy produce every few days instead of stocking up, i think you wind up wasting less that way.

figure the money i save by not driving ever more than off-sets whatever losses i take by going to the co-op in my hood or the $$$ grocery across the street

lol that is like my mom raising her eyebrows when i tell her that i buy most produce every other day or so, instead of just stocking up for the week, as if it gets more expensive that way???

― into the young coconuts (gbx), Friday, January 8, 2010 4:35 PM (1 hour ago) Bookma

^^^ parents don't remember what it was like to live in a city & have to walk your groceries 10 minutes or so home w/o the aid of shopping cart or car or w/e. aside from some type of basic greens, i usually don't buy veg until the day i'm gonna use 'em. same with meat. it helps that there's a market across from work & within walking distance of my apt, though. if the supermarket was out of the way or inaccessible it would be a slightly different story.

exactly. living across the street from a(n admittedly $$$) grocery totally changes your habits. esp since my mom lives like 20 min away from any grocery store, in the country, and only shops once a week. i'm like "oh shit i need a pepper" and then go buy a pepper