No photos yet. I’m doing my best to distract myself. I sent an email to our photographer last night trying to sound all casual and not at all like I could climb a wall right now while I wait, and I haven’t gotten a response.

But now for some real excitement.

Steve and I have been looking for a home to buy for quite some time now, and since the housing market has been such a wild ride, we are a bit hesitant to jump in there. We have found pricing to be a moving target. So far, not a target worth wasting ammo on. Plus, our rent is super-economical, thanks to Julie & Dave, who double as our buddies and landlords. Hence, there's no urgent need for us to go flying out the door on our current arrangement.

Although, Steve said this week that the size of our current place is driving him crazy, and he says he needs more space. I'm doing my best not to be offended by that, since he obviously shares the space with me. But he assures me that when we have a family, he'll want to get away from all of them, not just me. Uuummmm. There's always the great outdoors? Take the kids to play tag, but then just run really fast.

Anyway. So we keep looking at homes, and we keep Not finding anything we want to buy. Yet. We’re hoping that prices keep moving in a southerly direction.

The crux of the matter is that we’re stuck in that age-old debate of size versus location. I’d had an inkling a long time ago that if Steve and I could find anything to really disagree on, it would probably be living arrangements – knowing that I need an urban area to be happy, and that Steve prefers a more spacious living quarters to feel at home.

Since we aren’t so wealthy that we own a commercial yacht and a sports franchise yet, we’re going to need to make that compromise between the “where” and the “how big.”

I found the perfect house today that would have met Steve’s needs – a large 4-bedroom house – and while it would have fell short in terms of location for me, it would have been marginally acceptable since it’s located on the metro. Except that the place is about 100 grand over our price target. So forget it anyway.

So if y’all would please do a dance to appease the housing gods for us, that would be swell. Thanks.

This weekend, Steve and I played poker at Julie and Dave's and slept over. Then Saturday morning, we rose early and drove up to my parent's house in the wilds of New Jersey. The plan was to spend some time lazing about in the pool or in the hot tub, but there was a fall chill in the air, and so we settled for sitting around the pool deck instead, and then we moved into the house as the sun went down. 

While I always have a great time up there, the down side is always that we're spending a weekend away from our apartment, which is now resembling a ... a place where people haven't yet mastered the art of putting their belongings away.

Last week I ordered a book called Clutter's Last Stand and I am eagerly awaiting its arrival so I can attack the clutter in the apartment armed with an inspirational manuscript. I started with my closet last week, and I'm really sorry I didn't take before and after pictures, because I am still stunned by the difference. Before, it took me forever to get ready because I couldn't find anything, and also because I kept trying on the same items that I don't like or don't fit right. Now it takes me forever to get ready because I am blinded by awesomeness and I like to stare at the orderliness.

Soon, I will have lots of staring to do, all over the apartment and I look forward to that. It's my (ehem) 21st birthday present to myself (and if you believe that one, I've got a bridge to sell ya) to get the apartment in gorgeous, neat, orderly order, and while I know this has been a goal of mine for some time, I finally mean it and believe it.

And for my next project, I promise to take pictures.

I’m hoping that by typing out this recurring nightmare, which I had again last night, I won’t have it again, because it is ... how you say ... scary and stressful.

Here it is:

I want to take a shower, and I have a bath towel wrapped around me. I find myself at the entrance to a large public women’s restroom with rows and rows of stalls. It’s faintly lit and my eyes struggle to adjust to the darkness. The distance from the stalls to the sink is improbably wide and the length of the stall rows is almost unending.

The place is undeniably filthy, and even through the faint bluish light, I notice the damp floors and dripping pipes and faucets. There’s toilet paper strewn across the floors, sticking in puddles in some places and collecting what I hope is dirt and mud. I’m afraid that I might step in something, and my bare feet squish on bits of detritus as I begin my timid search for the showers.  

As I get deeper into this place, my pulse quickens as I realize the first room opens into another room and then another and another. It’s a labyrinth, but each room is different from the next. Some rooms are square and the stall doors are missing or hanging off their hinges. Some have showers, but the curtains are closed and I’m afraid to open them for fear of what or who I will find inside. While I travel into the maze, I can hear voices and the slap of bare feet on the floors, but the moving shadows are unidentifiable. I'm afraid to know I'm not alone, but I decide it would be worse to hear silence and to be left to wonder.

I come to a room that is absolutely pitch black; I cannot see my hand in front of my face. I open my eyes wide in the total and utter blackness while I strain to see, and still I’m greeted with nothingness. In the same instant, I hear a woman screaming in terror while I realize the room is flooded with water almost to my knees. I feel the panic wash over me in my desperate search for a way out, but I don’t scream. Someone else is doing it for me, and I feel akin to this person, knowing that someone else is terrified in this black, flooded room with me.

And then we emerge, breathless and tentative, back to the filthy dimness.

We’re together now, me and this lanky African-American woman; she too is clutching a bath towel around her with the towel’s ends in a fist at her chest. We acknowledge each other only peripherally, united in our effort of escape and taking comfort that we’re not alone. We’re trying to find our way out of this place, back through all the rooms.

And then I wake up.

Maybe this means it’s time to clean the apartment.

Tomorrow my photo goes to a good home. I’m sad. {sniff sniff}

I love that stupid thing! But it doesn’t fit in my life anymore, both from a space perspective, and just because it’s of a person and from a time in my life that’s long gone, and honestly, it’s all best forgotten.

I’m a big girl now.

So my photo adopter and I pinky-swore not to murder each other, on account of the meeting-over-the-intertubes weirdness of the whole thing.

Also, The Bed comes tomorrow! Hooray! The bed is coming, the bed is coming!

And the cleaning people came today! Hooray! The apartment will be clean, the apartment will be clean!

And I need a drink! Hooray! I’m going to have drinks tonight, I’m going to have drinks tonight!

I’m exhausted, but I’m happy. And soon I will be exhausted, happy, and with any luck, drunk.

I have the bad habit of getting all overly excited about my projects, and then instead of taking my time and choosing carefully, I tend to leap in with both feet plus dive in head first, if it were possible to do those two things simultaneously.

I just stopped myself from ordering a poster size version of this vacation snapshot, plus a frame to put it in, to hang over the mantle. Not that there's anything wrong with this picture, but it's the first picture I've considered.

And besides, the mantle is not a pressing project right now. There are many, many other things that need to be done before I can get to the finer points.

Deep breaths.

I need to remind myself to take it slow. Think. Breathe. Enjoy. Repeat.