Thursday, February 27, 2003

Well, hello gentle readers.  Buying a house is a crazy, maddening process.  My extremely public web journal aside, I'm a pretty private person, and laying my financial life (and all that implies) out for a bunch of complete strangers is extraordinarily unnerving.  In fact, I am writing this on a quick lunch hour, before I go settle one tiny, ancient, black mark on my credit report.  I actually came home to drink a beer, it is making me so tense.  I haven't had a beer in weeks, so this one is making me a slightly tipsy/nauseous.  Yuck. We were supposed to go to Breckenridge this week, for a short ski vacation.  However, we were scheduled to leave during the worst winter storm Austin has seen in almost twenty years.  Our first flight was cancelled, and after a mad rush to the airport, driving too-fast down very icy roads, we arrived just in time to be told that our backup flight was cancelled as well.  In fact, all flights out of ABIA were cancelled, as the airport had run out of de-icing fluid.  Flying out the next day would have involved twelve hours of travel time each way, for what had at that point been whittled down to two days of skiing.  So, we bailed.  I honestly don't know what we were thinking anyway - everytime I visit my soon-to-be new house, I spot something else that I want to repair or replace, so we really had no business running off and dropping loads of cash at some pricey resort.  When we told our mortgage broker we were going on vacation during the closing period, she opened her mouth very wide.  Nothing came out, and then she closed it again, very tightly, and the little muscles around her jaw became visible.  Also, skidding down an icy runway to my fiery death is probably only slightly less horrific in imagination than it is in actual experience, I think, given my hyperactive mental state during times of stress.  Do you know that song by X, gentle readers, "The Once Over Twice?"  Exene Cervenka sings, "and then I died a thousand times/maybe you don't/but I do."  I run around with that song in my head pretty frequently these days - reality is nothing compared to the mountain of trouble, disaster, and ruin I generate in my own mind.  Particularly between the hours of two and four a.m. That said, it's all pretty exciting, however much I ardently wish for the loan approval and closing process to end, and end quickly.  This note is simply a stopgap to advise you all that I continue to exist.  I have compiled a long list of topics upon which to pontificate, and have set aside some time to further update this site, later this evening (maybe). Until then, gentle readers. 1:20:49 PM