Okay, that was closer to three weeks than two. But for the last few weeks I haven’t had time to eat more than one meal a day or have a decent conversation with Len, much less actually update my journal. Let’s hope that “better late than never” adage is true.

This is the first evening I’ve had relaxation time since then, and I plan to spend most of the remaining evening hours curled up with a book, but I thought first a quick “Hello! I’m alive!” might be in order. To make it easy, I’ll just run down my list from the last entry:

- Help coordinate house, radon, termite, appraisal, and god only knows how many other inspections for the new house, since we are under contract as of today.

Done! Well, all but the appraisal. And mostly done by Len, since I have been crazed with other things and he has a bit of a lull at work right now. I used to think that I didn’t know how anyone ever managed to buy a house without a partner, for financial reasons. I’ve now decided that I could swing buying a house on my own financially, but I still don’t know how I’d do it on my own because of the sheer load of paperwork and phone calls involved. If I were doing all of this by myself, I might have strangled the seller’s agent already.

- Deal with whatever fallout comes from said inspections in terms of negotiating fixes or deciding whether to walk away

Done! We had a rather scary week when we found out the basement might have asbestos and I had nightmares about giving up on this house and starting all over again, but we’ve had an asbestos specialist in and all is well with the world. No other bad inspection news.

- Submit formal application for a mortgage

Done! Every piece of money-related paper in the house has been photocopied and bundled off to our mortgage broker. What they’re doing with it now, who the hell knows, but we’re in pretty good shape with credit ratings and stuff so I’m not too worried about the mortgage.

- Take Schroedinger to a veterinary dermatology specialist; also talk to my vet about what to do in the meanwhile, since his bloodwork came back today indicating that he is having a bad response to his medication and the specialist can’t see him for two weeks.

Done! He’s now on different and less scary meds, and so far he seems to be reacting really well. Symptoms totally gone, and he clearly feels a ton better - he is his old frisky, perky, curious self again instead of holing up in a corner sleeping all day. I’m trying not to get too excited until we see whether this is a lasting change, but I’m hopeful.

- Deal with the impending death of my much-adored childhood cat, who is progressing more rapidly than we thought.

Still dealing with this. Apparently he’s holding steady. Not doing really well, but not getting any worse either. I’m trying not to think about it, lest I start crying at inconvenient moments

- Study for a final exam for the first time in half a decade.

Sort of done. My good intentions of well-organized study came to naught and I wound up doing it in one long cram session. But it was pretty easy intro material, so no big deal. And I was still in bed by midnight the night before the exam, which is much better than my student days.

- Take said final exam

Done! Grades aren’t in yet, but I’m confident that I did well. And now I get a break until late March before my next class starts.

- Finish my first freelance copy-editing job.

Done as of 5 p.m. today. I underestimated how long it would take me. Next time I will pad my job estimate a bit more so I do not wind up overextending myself the way I did with this. For the last two weeks I’ve been spending my lunch breaks at work doing this project instead of actually eating lunch, which is not terribly healthy or conducive to relaxation. But still, it’s done, and I feel terribly accomplished.

- Figure out how invoicing works for said job and attempt to get paid.

Invoice sent as of half an hour ago. We’ll see how the getting-paid part goes.

- Work my ass off to make up for the several dumb mistakes I have made at work lately in my stress, sadness, excitedness, and anxiety over all the above things.

Somewhat done. All this other stuff has definitely been detracting from my concentration at work, but I’ve still had a reasonably productive few weeks.

So, that’s where I’ve been. Super-busy and stressed out, but in an excited and productive sort of way. Things are good. Hopefully I will find time to write again, and something slightly more interesting than a check-in list, before another three weeks go buy.

Not to get sappy all over this journal or anything, but the close proximity of our six-year anniversary with Valentine’s Day does make me stop and think a bit, despite the fact that we don’t do anything much to celebrate either occasion. (I think we might have gone out to dinner for our anniversary, or something — apparently it wasn’t terribly memorable, though, since I have forgotten and it was only 2 weeks ago. January is one big blur of house-buying in my memory.)

I mean, six years. That’s three times longer than my previous longest relationship — which, okay, was my only relationship that lasted long enough to deserve the name, but still. That’s longer than I was in college. That’s longer than some presidencies, though sadly not the current one. That’s longer than my parents were married, if I have the timeline of their marriage right, which I very possibly don’t. Longer than the lives of all the fish I have ever kept as pets, put together. Think how many generations of mayflies have been born, lived torrid mayfly 24-hour lives, and died, in the course of this relationship!

Enough already. You get the idea. The idea is that I find it kind of amazing, and kind of wonderful, that it’s still working so well for us given how many changes we’ve both been through in the last six years. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in the next six.

(I do hope that sometime in the next six, my hairdresser will stop asking me when we’re going to get married. I am for the most part blessedly free of people in my life trying to push me into making it legal, but my hairdresser just will not let it go. I’m hoping that at twelve years she will realize it’s not going to happen.)

I had a birthday. I am now 27. I don’t feel any older than I did two days ago when I was 26, but I expect that a month from now when I am co-owner of a house I will feel far more grown-up really quickly. I can wait a month. (Okay, not really. I would like to have my house now, please.)

My birthday presents are in Philadelphia at the moment because my mother apparently mixed up labels on packages going to me and to my sister. But supposedly my sister will be sending the presents on to me. And in the meanwhile, I had a lovely day off from work, which we spent doing roughly equal parts errands and fun stuff. But even the errands were fun because I was not at work. There was Ethiopian food, there was German chocolate cake, there was lovely weather, Schroedinger got a clean bill of health at the vet and is going to start tapering his meds — it was a good birthday.

But I am writing less to memorialize my lovely but simple birthday, and more to remember this particular exchange from today’s ride home:

“She’s a good actress. It’s just that she gets naked in every single movie I see her in.”

“Wait. Are we talking, like, Sharon Stone naked?”

“Not really. More like Christina Ricci naked.”

Looking back at the moment, I think that Parker Posey naked might have actually been closer to the analogy I was trying to make, but still, it worked.

And I am very glad that I keep this site non-Google-able, because I shudder to think of the hits this entry would get otherwise.

I would just like to say that satellite radio is a beautiful thing. I got an adorable little XM receiver for my birthday, and set it up this afternoon. I set up a bunch of presets for channels that I think will be fun or interesting — jazz channels, world music channels, a folk channel, a heavy metal channel, an 80s pop channel, an opera channel, and a channel entirely of audiobooks and radio dramas. But I cannot listen to any of them, because I am glued to the showtune channel. A whole radio channel full of showtunes! No commercials or anything! Just lots of Broadway!

I realize that there are probably many people to whom this sounds like a nightmare, but I am utterly thrilled about it. My mother did a good job of raising me to be an utter showtune geek.

Also, this receiver has a 30-minute buffer like a TiVo, so I can rewind and fast forward and pause the radio when I leave the room. I have been wishing radios had TiVo features forever. Technology is so cool! Only the fact that Len is napping in the other room is preventing me from actually dancing around my little office singing along with the radio.

In completely unrelated news, I just took a batch of gingerbread cupcakes out of the oven and while I have not tasted them yet, they smell heavenly. Showtunes and cupcakes — I think I love Saturday nights.