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I’ve been coasting on the strength of literary genius (thanks Atwood and Galeano) and shutterbugging all week but recent rumblings from faithful readers has prodded me right back into posting action. The lack of content around here is the direct result of having been sucked into the real estate vortex. After we completed the Homebuyer’s Workshop in December, we rested on our laurels for a couple of months while discussing the very best time to buy a house. Two months later, we finally came to the realisation that there is no best time to jump into the real estate market, there will always be a few unknowns and a couple of variables and lots of doubts.

So we enlisted a real estate agent and went through the Buyer Consultation where we laid out everything from finances to neighbourhoods we want to live in to house features we want and/or need. Throughout this process we told ourselves that we are only casually looking, getting a feel for the market before actually taking the plunge, but little did we know that once you’ve met your agent, and once the listings start flowing in, you are effectively sucked into the eye of the storm, there’s no getting out. The Toronto market is such that lengthy contemplation and deliberation is an unaffordable luxury. To give you an idea of what I’m talking about: last Friday we were supposed to see five houses. We really liked the first one, we thought two were OK but didn’t love the neighbourhoods so we didn’t bother going inside, and the last two ended up being mere drive-bys. So we sent our agent back to her office to crunch the numbers on the first house about 30 minutes after we saw it, while we went back to the neighbourhood to confirm what we already knew: that we wanted to put in an offer on the place. Back in our car, tooling around the neighbourhood, it was 40 minutes after we had seen the subject property and our agent is on the phone telling us that said property is conditionally sold. Already? It was just listed this morning? Well, we should have seen it earlier in the day, we should have done a 10 minute walk-through, we should have registered our offer hours ago. Work? Plans? Sleep? Cancel them. Once you’ve entered the housing market, you will be consumed by it.

We got a little further with the second house we liked, we actually presented an offer on it last night but we were outbid by an as yet undetermined sum. The whole process is wretched, I am exhausted from excitement and anticipation and restless sleep, and we still don’t have a house. Of course I know exactly what the problem is: I’m getting emotionally involved when really I should be thinking of each offer as a transaction, which is how Mike is handling the whole thing, how does he do it? We’re seeing more listings this weekend and I’m reservedly hopeful and not yet entirely emotionally detached, but I’m getting there.

In somewhat related news, I heard this when I called work this morning: “switchboard good morning, campus is closed“. Always a nice thing to hear, even though a snow day in April is in fact an abomination.

Margaret Atwood is one of Canada’s literary heavyweights, and for good reason. This is an excerpt of a letter she wrote to America, published in the Globe and Mail on March 28th.

“This might be the reason for my hesitation: embarrassment, brought on by a becoming modesty. But it is more likely to be embarrassment of another sort. When my grandmother — from a New England background — was confronted with an unsavoury topic, she would change the subject and gaze out the window. And that is my own inclination: Mind your own business.

But I’ll take the plunge, because your business is no longer merely your business. To paraphrase Marley’s Ghost, who figured it out too late, mankind is your business. And vice versa: When the Jolly Green Giant goes on the rampage, many lesser plants and animals get trampled underfoot. As for us, you’re our biggest trading partner: We know perfectly well that if you go down the plug-hole, we’re going with you. We have every reason to wish you well.

I won’t go into the reasons why I think your recent Iraqi adventures have been — taking the long view — an ill-advised tactical error. By the time you read this, Baghdad may or may not look like the craters of the Moon, and many more sheep entrails will have been examined. Let’s talk, then, not about what you’re doing to other people, but about what you’re doing to yourselves.

You’re gutting the Constitution. Already your home can be entered without your knowledge or permission, you can be snatched away and incarcerated without cause, your mail can be spied on, your private records searched. Why isn’t this a recipe for widespread business theft, political intimidation, and fraud? I know you’ve been told all this is for your own safety and protection, but think about it for a minute. Anyway, when did you get so scared? You didn’t used to be easily frightened.

…If you proceed much further down the slippery slope, people around the world will stop admiring the good things about you. They’ll decide that your city upon the hill is a slum and your democracy is a sham, and therefore you have no business trying to impose your sullied vision on them. They’ll think you’ve abandoned the rule of law. They’ll think you’ve fouled your own nest.

The British used to have a myth about King Arthur. He wasn’t dead, but sleeping in a cave, it was said; in the country’s hour of greatest peril, he would return. You, too, have great spirits of the past you may call upon: men and women of courage, of conscience, of prescience. Summon them now, to stand with you, to inspire you, to defend the best in you. You need them.”