sliiiiide away

What's weird about being an adult is that sometimes you get excited about stupid things, like when your husband changes your windshield wipers for you. This was exciting for two reasons. One, I didn't have to do it. And two, I hadn't changed my windshield wipers in...I don't want to say YEARS but you guys it was totally years. Like...when did I get my car? 2008? Let us check the archives! Oh, no, I'm sorry, it was 2007. So, if we use math, we will discover that my windshield wipers were REALLY FUCKING OLD. I'm sure they weren't really THAT old, maybe? Like maybe I changed them at some point and forgot? But still. I fail. I fail at life and stuff.

What's also weird about being an adult is that sometimes you get excited about willingly putting yourself in a great deal of debt for the next 80 bajillion years. What's also also weird is that someone will let you buy a house even though you routinely stay up too late on school work nights watching zombie shows and don't shower on the weekends until at least 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

My point is, a lot of things are weird so get over it. Sorry, that was mean. And that wasn't even my point because OBVIOUSLY I DON'T HAVE ONE WHAT ARE YOU, NEW? Well? Are you? If you're new, how are you even reading this because you are obviously a baby and babies can't read until they are really old babies so what's up with that, are you a really old baby?

Is anyone even still reading this? I wouldn't blame you if you weren't. Anyway. We closed on our house on Friday, which I think means that it is closed all over the place, man, there are no open windows or doors or anything in that damn house. It also means that the next two weeks aren't going to be very much fun unless you like having to pack and paint and clean more than watching reruns of Mad Men and if that's the case, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU.

I'm sorry, I'm being really combative today and I have no idea why. Whatever. The closing was odd because the sellers were there and they seemed really nice but it was kind of weird because, like, we're going to be living in their house. Which is now our house, but like, what if we find something weird in a hidden drawer in the basement, like a homemade sex tape or a box of blood slides? I don't want to have met these people face to face if we end up finding something like that. OH WELL, I guess.

I am going to miss our realtor. She's pretty much the nicest realtor ever so I'm thinking about maybe buying a second house so we can continue to hang out with her. She's THAT awesome. And she seemed to like us even though we looked at approximately 75 houses and I'm not even exaggerating, I think we really did look at 75 houses, AT LEAST. That's a lot of houses. But because I am me (who else would I be?), I felt like we had to look at every house we might possibly want because what if we didn't and THAT WAS THE HOUSE. And, you know? It's a good thing I spent so much time obsessively combing the internet for available houses because that's how we found the one we bought, I think. I don't know, I don't remember. Wow, good story, Jennie, TELL IT AGAIN.

Channeling Jessie Spano

Oh, hey, so it's October. Did you know? Because it is. It happened a couple of days ago but it was on the weekend, so you might not have noticed. I about had a full on freak out yesterday when I realized it was not only a new month but that, omg, we close on our house next week. WHAT. NEXT WEEK?

All September, I just kept thinking things like, "oh, we'll be closing in October," and "we should start packing soon since we move next month," and OMG YOU GUYS, IT'S NOW NEXT MONTH HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

What's crazy is that I haven't started packing at all yet. What's even crazier is that I haven't made any lists. Not a Moving Timeline list, not a "Things To Buy For New House" list, not even a To Do list! WHO AM I. I should really get on that, I know, but frankly I'd rather sit and read and try to ignore the fact that WE ARE MOVING THIS MONTH.

What's the craziest is that we are sort of busy, plan-wise, this month already and the month just started. My sister spent the weekend with us this past weekend, and even though I threatened her that she'd have to help us pack and clean, we did none of that. Yesterday, we celebrated my friend's birthday with massages, fried pickles, Irish food, and beer, along with a surprise party later in the day, so GUESS WHAT, I did nothing yesterday either.

I also thought it would be a great idea to buy/get some tickets to a few shows at work this month. One of those is on the Thursday before we move, so that should be fine. Just fine. No, I'm sure I won't be freaking out at all that week because of the THERE'S NO TIME THERE'S NEVER ANY TIME.

Did you see that Joe reviewed Felicity? Because Joe reviewed Felicity. So you should read it.

Just call me Sawyer

So I was in a glass case of emotion pretty much all of last weekend and not just because of Ripley but because ALSO we bought a house. Or, you know, started the process of buying a house because, weirdly enough, it's not like going to the store and buying something and then it's yours. It's more like, you go to the store and ask to buy, say, a chocolate cake for a certain price and then the store is like, "hmm, no, how about this price," and you're like, "well...OK, that sounds reasonable," and then you sign a bunch of paperwork and maybe in a month or two, after some cake experts inspect the chocolate cake you want to buy, you can have it.

We are at the cake expert stage of home-buying, meaning we've signed all of our paperwork (I think?) and just have to wander around what will hopefully soon be our house with some strangers and cross our fingers that nothing is terribly wrong. I think I'm still wrapping my brain around the house thing because I found out about the house the same day I found out about Ripley, so my emotions were like a rollercoaster from Hell on crack WHATEVER THAT MEANS. I don't think it will feel real until we have the keys. That said, I have already started thinking about decorating and I don't even like decorating that much WHO AM I.

I sort of can't believe anyone sold us a house. I guess I've gotten really good at this grown-up ruse I've been pulling for the last ten years because apparently I look trustworthy. I don't FEEL trustworthy, though. I mean, this was happening while we waited for the realtor to gather our final paperwork:

WHAT

Can you believe we were allowed to buy a house? I mean, seriously. Most of the time I feel like I'm pretending to be a grown up. Like, I don't really feel all that different now than I did ten years ago, so it's very disconcerting to me that I'm married and my friends are starting to have babies and I JUST BOUGHT A HOUSE. I don't feel old enough to do those things. I don't feel almost 30 but, I don't know, maybe I do, because who knows what almost 30 is supposed to feel like?

My mom said something on Saturday, when we got home from the vet and were sitting around moping, trying not to look at the dog toys littering the carpet. She said, "Can I be done being a grown up now? I don't like it anymore," and you guys, it was like the floor fell out from underneath me because I realized I'll probably feel like this forever. Like I'm pretending or pulling the world's longest con, hoodwinking the world into thinking I know what I'm doing.

if my brain could throw up, this is what it would look like

Did you know that you can only listen to 40 hours of Pandora a month? I didn't. Until I apparently reached my limit, which I did today. I thought at first that 40 hours was really impressive but I don't think it is. I have Pandora on most of the time at work, so that's an easy 40 hours right there. In a week, even.

At first I was really worried because WHAT WOULD I DO FOR MUSIC? I found out that we can hear the music from shows in our offices during rehearsals and showtime but there aren't any shows right now. And I always forget my iPod at home, or if I do remember it, it's not charged and don't ask me where my charger is because I DON'T KNOW I DON'T EVER KNOW. But whatever, don't worry (I know you were worried), I paid 99 cents and now I can listen to Pandora for the rest of the month and my limit starts over in September. Can you imagine, though? No music at work? To miss out on the joy that is Part of Your World popping up after, like, Radiohead or something? No thank you.

Anyway, what was I talking about? Who knows. How many times have I typed "what am I talking about?" on my blog might be a better question only probably not really because the answer is DUH A LOT. Guess what we did last night? Guess. I SAID GUESS. No, but seriously, folks, we put an offer on a house last night. I wasn't going to say anything because I was afraid of jinxing it but we didn't say anything LAST time we put an offer on a house and we still didn't get it so I am throwing caution to the wind. Here, wind! Take it! Take all the caution! I don't even want it anyway!

So, yeah, we met our realtor after work to sign all the paperwork and did you know putting on offer on a house is kind of a big deal? Because I guess it is. There's a contract and you have to hand over a check and everything. I signed my name a bunch of times and didn't even hyperventilate once! That will happen when and if we end up getting the house and I then realize we just bought this giant thing where millions of things could go wrong and we won't have a landlord to call anymore. OMG WHAT HAVE WE DONE.

No, seriously, it's fine. It'll be really nice if we get it because there's a giant backyard, all for Max, which is great because he refuses to use the litter box, unless he's sneaking into it to steal cat poop. We mentioned the cat-poop-thievery to the vet when she suggested putting Max on a diet (he's packed on a few pounds...don't mention it to him, he's sensitive) and I was all, "I think he's hungry because he got in the litter box the other day and hardly ever does that," and she was like, "Oh, yeah, he's not hungry, he's just stealing Kitty Cookies, lol. Cat poop is like dessert to dogs." It was an informative visit, is what I'm saying.

Anyway, there was an earthquake today, too, so that's weird. I mean, it wasn't IN Ohio but I certainly felt it in Ohio. We don't usually get earthquakes here but this one time when I was in 3rd grade they were worried about some giant earthquake that was supposed to hit (I don't know the details because I was 9, but it probably had something to do with the Hellmouth being in Cleveland) BUT ANYWAY we had to have earthquake drills and that consisted of sitting under our desks, which doesn't really seem that safe but whatever, I don't know about surviving an earthquake, only about surviving tornadoes and MORE IMPORTANTLY zombies. Did you know this entire paragraph was only two sentences? Well, three now. Four. Five. Shit.

You guys, WHAT is this post even about? You know what the problem is? I started it yesterday morning and now it is today evening and guess what I don't even care, I'm posting it anyway, non-sensicalness and all. For what is life without a little non-sensicalness? Besides more sensical and stuff. But who wants that? I can't decide how to end this but I need to go watch some Mad Men reruns until it's time to go to bed so BYE.

I think maybe Dexter used to live in Dayton, Ohio.

You know what? Weekends seem a lot shorter when you have a job to go to Monday morning. For like three months, weekends only felt different to me because Joe was home, which meant I (usually) showered before five o'clock. But this working thing? Working full-time, I mean? It's really cutting into my free time. For instance, I started writing this post LAST weekend and this is the first chance I've had to finish it. Although, that's not really true because I watched like three hours of Mad Men the other night but whatever I digress.

We've been filling a lot of our non-work free time with hunting houses. We found one that we loved and put an offer on but...didn't get it. Someone beat us. I would like to beat them. Jerks. But whatever, we'll just keep looking and I'm sure we'll find something. I keep going back to one of the first houses we saw that was built in like 1920 and had hidden little nooks and an awesome basement we could finish and WAS FREAKING BEAUTIFUL and just, you guys, we could not stop gushing about it. But the backyard is small, the garage looks like a strong wind might knock it down, and it's right on a busy street. This is what I keep reminding myself. Plus, we saw the electricity bills for the summer and the gas bills for the winter and HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD were they high. SIGH.

We looked at eight houses this morning and I have to admit, I'm feeling a bit discouraged because we weren't really wild about any of them. Two were OK but we had reservations about both. And my notes on the houses? The notes that started out really detailed with stuff like...I don't even remember, something about the taxes and the size of the rooms and whatever, house stuff? Those have devolved into this:

Which is not altogether helpful but, you guys, this house TOTALLY HAD A MURDER ROOM. I'm almost positive I saw blood on the walls but I don't know, I'm not a blood spatter expert.