2/17/23> Been in full-on casalingo purge mode this past week, readying the house to sell while our Ƨ.O (a.k.a. bedder-½) is in aNYCity, combing through the house to declutter + make presentable. 1st time we've ever done this (never sold or rented a place b4), we've decked out houses plenty, but always to suit our needs/style, never thought about how/whether it accentuates features of the house for saleability. So really that amounts to making things look "neutralized" + B9, removing excess flair, making closets ½-empty, etc. They suggested removing wallpaper, etc. but screw that... supposedly that's a deterrent, but seems like canned real estate 101 advice, has anyone done market research? We think it actually makes it stand out from the thousands of boring places that all look the same. If people don't like wallpaper, if it's so "old fashioned", then why does it seem that so many movies feature wall-papered interiors? even new movies/shows. We'd guess that 80% of movies/shows have wall-papered interiors, but in reality probly less than 10% of houses have wallpaper. We saw through the wallpaper when we bought it, not that we thought it fit our style + we figured we'd just repaint, but we ended up keeping it + making it work for us. The other thing is they want us to restage the dining room in the basement, where our gym is... just b/c ppl are lazy + wouldn't want to walk up the stairs w/ food to a dining room on next level. But we saw the dining room in the dark dingy basement + thought that would make a good gym + the beautiful office/library (w/ the gas-burning fireplace) would make a better dining room, where U spend so much time. Maybe someone else wants a gym + think it's cool? whatever, we're gonna try it this way, at least while we're living here, no way we're gonna pay to "stage" it + put our shit in storage + spend 10,000s of thousands to rip down wallpaper + paint. If it doesn't sell by the time we move out then we can cross that bridge. That said, we're trying to make it look as presentable as possible, but still liveable (as we have to live here for the next 3+ months). And we can also get a headstart on packing, the janky knick-knacks that might look unsightly to the average Joe... which is the other issue, there's a lot of avg Janes + Joes in D.C., not that many creative types looking for funky digs to live, at least not ones with money enough to afford this place. But as they say, all it takes is 1... it's just finding that 1.

Did some more painting/touch ups here + there + washed the skylights (+ now it's raining... what are U gonna do?). Swapped the filter in the hot water heater + then it wasn't working properly after so had to replace one of the filaments (tankless electric). Patched the cement on the stoop. Dusted. Our vaccuum cleaner broke so then had to become a vacuum cleaner repair man, which of course plays a # on our allergies, which plays a # on our Ménière's, which makes it difficult to climb up on ladders to paint, etc. been post-poning doing the windows til we're not so vertiginous... looking up makes us especially dizzy + the outside windows require us to get up on upper rungs of our telescope ladder. We've been eating more moderately (3 times a day + less at dinner) + even drinking ½ as much coffee + no alcohol all week, but still not 100%, more like 75%. 3 days ago was bad, like 40% ... either b/c we had gorgonzola or b/c high pressure front came through (note increase in pressure through Valentine's day, corresponding to when we felt shittiest)

We got to thinking about pressure + our Ménière's/vestibular migraines + got to wondering if perhaps this explains why we used to get high altitude sickness so easily? Like the time we went from Chile (@ sea lvl) to Bolivia (15,000+ ft) on a bus, or climbing that volcano in Mexico... we're always the first person to get sick. They say Ménière's is triggered by low pressure, but with us it seems to be more about pressure changes. And the other extreme (high pressure), diving, that time in Tanzania how we felt queasy + nauseous + "narced" even tho we didn't go that deep (granted, we dove plenty in our youth + didn't really have problems w/ our ears). Or the couple of times flying where we randomly get sick all of a sudden... was that b/c of sudden cabin pressure changes that we're more sensitive to? Tho that time 2 ppl passed out in the aisle right in front of us on a flight (that we suspected must have on account of bunk cabin pressure) we felt fine. Or maybe all this diving + high altitude climbing + those 120+ db Swans concerts are taking it's toll? We've always had motion sickness since we were a kid (not good for the son of a pilot), maybe we've always had this inner ear issue + now it just expresses itself as Ménière's/vestibular migraines. This is all psycho-somatic self-diagnosis + maybe it's all in our head, but call us the human barometer w/ a bogus right inner ear as not sure whate else could cause all this.

At the moment it's raining + we're sitting in the front window lording over the intersection of Swann + 15th, monitoring our Craigslist + Nextdoor (gasp! yes, we caved in a signed up for it 2 sell shit) postings + renewing them w/ lowered prices until we find a taker. Anyone interested in any of this stuff?

Or bedder yet, the house? Part of the reason we signed up for Nextdoor was not just to sell furniture but strategically mention we're selling the house + then take photos of the furniture in select spots of to start spreading the word. We remember from before selling stuff on Nextdoor that there's a lot of nosy real estate porn addicts that just want to sneak a peak inside your hourse, under the pretense of buying whatever stupid arbitrary thing... we remember one woman who hardly even looked at whatever piece they said they were interested in but brought a friend to just gawk + snoop around + gossip. We hate that shit + Nextdoor is the most toxic of all social media, but figured maybe it would help spread the word around the hood that we're selling the house... granted, 99% of these ppl are just nosy gossip-mongers, but U never know... again, all it takes is 1.We already have ppl responding to an add about whatever coffee table that digresses into a thread about selling the house... weird tho, to be haggling over the price of a shitty $15 nightstand + ppl messaging us to send more photos of this or that $10 stepping stool + then ppl asking for pics + price of our home worth 100,000 times that! Wouldn't that be funny if we sold our home thru an ad for a broken $35 parlor chair on Nextdoor? The above red parlor chair we inherited when our mom died a few years ago + the astute reader might recognize that silver chair that we got at a mercantino in Rome (+ the gray carpet from Maisons du Monde):

everything seemed so much smaller in our attico in Palazzo Colonna

Anyway, obviously we're journaling here as something to do while we alternate between Nextdoor + Craiglist to refresh ads + respond to inquiries, sitting here in the rain contemplating these spaces we've inhabited + the meaning of furniture + wordly possessions... yet more thriver memes, these man-made objects that lured us into buying them to what, sit on? to decorate our house? and how they might be passed on to sum 1 else + this house occupied by sum 1 else. A potential buyer doesn't choose the house, the house chooses them, it sells itself. Besides furniture, we decided to sell our harmonium... much as we love it as a sorta altar (we rarely play it, the upper registers aren't even really in tune), it's just obviously not practical to have in NYC.

You want it? Catch is U got to come pick it up... good luck w/ that! Also 1 of our typewriters (we have 3 + our Ƨ.O. asked why do we need so many typewriters?), same macchina da scrivere we used to "write" Ark Codex... the one featured in this video:

The typewriter maybe U wouldn't have to pick up, but the cost to ship it would probably be ½ the cost. Interesting tho what kind of characters come out of the woodworks, that frequent Cragislist + Nextdoor... most of 'em annoying time-wasters just wanting anything for a cheap price. Or saying they are interested in "it" but not to contact them through CL. This guy from the local liquor store called + said he was interested in a bunch of stuff then started yelling "you motherfucker" + we asked "you talking to me" + he said no, just someone to trying to rob his store + then it just digresses into conversation about how much crime + riff-raff there is in D.C. Same w/ Nextdoor, just vigilante types complaining about porch pirates or how the barbie dolls in a local store don't reflect ethnic/LGBTQIA2S+ demographic. Occassionally some real-world ppl come by, a Twitter software engineer that bought our lamp, or the person that bought 1 of our floorlamps + liked it so much they came 15 minutes later for the other. And usually they come from the burbs in SUVs... they'll haggle the price down $10 + then drive 30 minutes in traffic (probably wasting $10 in gas) to come pick it up... ppl are weird.

Also interesting to see what's changed over time, here's Juanita when we 1st got her in 2019 (L) + now 4 years later (R), more than double the size (over 6 ft)(+ the branch that died we turned into art):

It's gonna be a royal pain in the ass to get her to NYC, but how do we put a price on her? It's like selling a pet. We may have gotten her for $50, but there's the pot + all the time we put into nurturing her...

2/18> So yah, this has been our life the last week, hustling... selling shit online is exhausting, 99% of the ppl that inquire are bogus, either they just ask "is it available" + never reply back when u say it is, or the scam where they say they're out of town but will send money order + ppl to pick it up, or no shows (after texting back + forth) or ppl wanting U to hold something for a week while they think about it or just stupid petty questions + ppl haggling for the sake of haggling. For the 100s of ppl we've responded to (or ignored if they don't even warrant a response), we've only sold a few things. So we're just gonna try to do things in meat-space tomorrow + have a real-world stoop sale... here's what we're selling, let's hope everything goes!