Three months ago, we couldn’t sleep because the window unit air conditioner required to keep the temperature below sweltering rattled incessantly and obnoxiously through the night. Now we can’t sleep because late autumn winds hiss, bitterly harsh and cold, through the poorly insulated windows. My unpopular opinion: The only people who enjoy the seasons are people who have nice homes where they can enjoy the seasons in peace and comfort from the actual seasonal elements.
Husband and I turn nasty, our tone and words as frosty and biting as the air itself. Moving is a fraught, impossible decision, subject to the uncertainties of the real estate market, the interest rates, the job market, the impending tech layoffs and likely recession, the skyrocketing prices of everything. Three months ago, I started a new job with a significant salary increase. And yet, I have never felt so powerless over my own destiny.
Even more insulting, the cyclical change to winter is a harsh reminder of how little has changed over the past year. How little has changed over the past few years. How stupid I am to keep acting like things will ever change or get better. The wind laughs at me for being a fool.
Ev’ry season sucks
just as much as the last one.
This will never change.
***
Jewish Young Professional 
Great haiku!! I’m sorry you’re struggling so much! Ugh. I agree that life is much easier when you’ve got working AC and furnaces. Can you strongarm your landlord? You deserve much better than this!! Please consider advocating as much as it takes!! ❤
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Thank you. We could, but I’d almost rather just get out of here, to be honest. The problem is figuring out where to move because all the options, including where we currently live, are so non-ideal.
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Normally I’m not a fan of haiku but I love this. (It even has a seasonal reference!) Sorry about your leaky windows. When you said “window unit” I shuddered with bad memories.
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Ha, thanks! I was proud of sticking a seasonal reference in my whiny, negative haiku.
The noise from the window units just kills me. I think I hate the noise more than I hate the heat.
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Excellent haibun. Sorry for your RE wows. It is a tough market 😞
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Thank you. Yeah, it sucks.
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Excellent JYPku! I know people might say “just move!” But I know it’s not that simple or you would have long ago. Everything has been messed up between the pandemic, and the inflated real estate markets, landlords raising rents to try and recover from pandemic rent freezes and non-payments they could not collect on during lock-downs. Now the crypto crash fiasco. There are lots of things working against you for making a reasonable change.
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It really isn’t simple. Anywhere we could move to (both location and actual living space) is so very flawed and there is so much market uncertainty, interest rates are a mess, etc. I’m so angry to be feeling so stuck here.
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I can imagine how stuck you feel. It makes me sad. Here’s a link to my most recent song. It has a few dicks in in it: https://soundcloud.com/user-334086053/kevin-and-karen?si=43b498e5196f490d9ca5c4a5a9b2c0ab&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing
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I love this. The beat, and excellent lyrics with all the dicks. You know me too well! Thank you. This has improved my day considerably!
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I am so happy to improve your day. Thinking about mortgage interest rates, if you find what you like, and you can make the payments comfortably the interest rates shouldn’t matter that much, because you can refinance if the rates go down. Are you ready for this. When we bought our house in 1982 our fist loan was at 15% for 20 years. A couple of years later, the interest rates dropped to 8% and we refinanced for ten years. We paind it off in seven years after the refinancing. Finding a house and neighborhood with the least bad points is the main priority, and let interest be what it be’s.
Okay one more music video that I think you might enjoy. Dicks of a different type in this video and some very sexy ladies: https://wp.me/p1yQyy-8zg
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Love this! Great footage, great beat and music, and especially great lyrics! Love that plot twist with the cop car and aftermath!
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I’m happy you liked it. I can’t get away with too much.
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Do you ride motorcycles?
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No. I haven’t ridden in years. I rode mortycles from age 9 to 22. I was pretty wild, but not as crazy as some of those riders in the video. When I look back it’s surprising I survived. But then I raced bicycles for years. My daughter has a motorcycle and she keeps trying to get me to get a one. I would love to ride again, but with so many distracted and aggressive drivers on the road, it’s not worth the risk these days.
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Here’s a Tales from my Youth motorcycle story if you are interested: https://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/8/tales-from-my-youth-stranger-than-fiction
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Though try to think positive, this only being a transition period.
Hopefully, the landlord has already solved all the defects.
Keep your head raised and make the most of it.
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I try to be mindful that I have a lot to be thankful for – there are people in far worse situations. It’s not easy to maintain perspective
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Albeit it won’t alleviate anything now but these are the moments you’ll laugh and appreciate much later in your life, after things got better whilst you were invested in survival day by day.
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I’ll take your word for it. It’s hard to imagine that this will be laughing matter, to be honest.
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I feel for you. We have no AC but we do have the leaky windows that let in wind and rain. And no heating except for a small wood stove. It’s not a fashionable opinion in many circles, but this world is run by and for rich people. The rest of us don’t count. We either mutter rebelliously or grovel in admiration.
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It does take a certain amount of comfort and peace, and a certain mindset to enjoy the change of seasons. Honestly when you’re sufficiently angry about your circumstances, it’s hard to give a shit about the beauty of the seasons.
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You’ve really captured the annoying sounds of the rattling air conditioner and the hissing autumn winds’, as well as the frosty words. I hope things get better for you soon – the new job should help. Great haiku to sum it all up.
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Thanks! Yeah, some people hear the sounds of crunchy leaves, but these were the sounds that really resonated in my case, to be honest.
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Reality bites.
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Indeed.
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You wrote about what autumn means to you- well done. And I’m sorry times are tough. Hoping the new job helps and the new year brings more hope.
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Thank you. I appreciate the prompt inspiration. It ain’t all crunchy leaves and birds!
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Indeed it isn’t.
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Leaky windows suck!
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They really do!
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Sounds all a bit grim YJP. but cheer up, worse things happen at sea (or whatever wherever.) Get some insulating tape and invest in new ACs for next year. (I know that deadly sleep-denying grind and rattle of a noisy AC. Got a new one this summer from a brand I had never heard of and it is actually quiet! (For real and not just alleged.)
And if you really want feel grim just think how the good cheer of the alleged holiday season is almost upon us together with the cultural waterboarding of incessant holiday music.
All the best!
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“the cultural waterboarding of incessant holiday music.” – ha! this is spot-on. The funny thing is that even though I’m Jewish, I don’t necessarily mind some of the Christmas music. I even have a favorite carol. The problem is that everyone plays the Christmas music non-stop for a month, which makes one go from not minding it to outright hating it real fast!
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Agreed on some Christmas music – Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols is gorgeous. Ditto Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. Jingle jingle and maudlin musak in the supermarket not so much.
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When reading this I know how privileged I am. Hope there will be some way to improve the conditions…
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I appreciate that, but also, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I’m privileged too. Quite privileged. The current living situation is the result of numerous bad decisions, not poverty.
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Maybe it just the result of bad luck and bad timing really.
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Bad luck, bad timing, bad decisions. A lot of factors, really. It’s a long story.
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I am sorry about your problems, darling. I suppose here -we are lucky to have only two seasons, the tourist season, and the no-tourist season.
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Which season do you prefer? Tourist or non-tourist?
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Non-tourist, of course. Nobody litters the streets and the beaches, and nobody blasts music from snazzy rental cars at 3 AM.
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I get it. On harsh weather days, the hubster and I keep saying, “Winter/Summer makes us all that more thankful when summer/winter comes around.”
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Ha! That’s funny. You’re always grateful for the season you’re not experiencing…
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I think it depends on where you live. I have no air conditioning, only electric fans in summer and oil heaters in winter, but I love every season. But then, I live in the sub-tropics and would not contemplate going anywhere colder. I hope your circumstances might allow you to move eventually. Awful to continually hate one’s environment!
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When I lived somewhere better, I felt indifferent to the seasons. I was never one to get super-excited about them, but there was no season that I really minded or dreaded. I’ve never lived in the sub-tropics – I definitely see the appeal!
It does suck to continually hate one’s environment. It’s been a theme of the last 2.5 years.
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😦
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Try and see what you can enjoy right in this moment. I used to think that I am not allowed to be happy until every single box is checked, everything crossed off the to-do list, every bill paid. That day will never come. So I try to say to myself, okay in this very moment, what do I like? What is making me happy? It could be something so simple. Someday we’ll look back at these times and say “Those were the days.” How scary is that?
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I can acknowledge that I have good things in my life and plenty to be grateful for. But I find it very hard to imagine that I’m going to look back on this time with nostalgia.
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🤔 I guess that shows how deep my pessimism goes that I believe things can get so much worse that these will be the good ol’ days!
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Boy, and I thought I was the pessimist!
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I’m married to someone who’s a VERY noisy snorer, so I wear those foam earplugs. Any chance they could help with the outside noises?
Hope the “temperature” inside gets a little warmer for you soon.
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I hope things improve. It is so hard to find THE HOUSE.
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It is very challenging…
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The reason we live here is because I had tantrum and refused to look at another house. I told my husband to find a hosue and I would live in it.
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It came pretty close to tantrum recently…
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I have a loud snorer too. I plug into my ipod and listen to Daivd Sedaris or True crime to drown him out.
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I give you both a lot of credit. I think if I were married to a loud snorer, I’d be doing the whole separate bedrooms thing.
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The struggle is real. It is worse is when he has caffeine at 830 pm, we go to bed, and he wants to talk and talk.
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Appreciate the idea. My sibling is a huge fan of earplugs (more for loud music at events – earplugs are certainly versatile!); it’s funny because they were just talking about earplugs.
Kudos to you for living with a loud snorer. I think I’d be tempted to do the separate bedroom thing if my spouse were a loud snorer….
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Wonderful haiku even down to the snarkiness.
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Thanks! I find that I really like the combination of haiku and snark or profanity. I know there are haiku purists who’ll disagree…but haters gonna hate
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