I ran a few errands this afternoon, which wasn't all that much fun since it put me squarely out in the rain and the cold. Despite the adverse weather conditions I persisted and in the end I got almost everything done that I had on my list. Oil has been changed on the Expedition, I picked up my share of the apartment's soda supply for the week, I got a few new rolls of film and a postcard to mail in for the LiveJournal postcard project. For those of you who live in more remote and interesting places than myself (you know who you are) I really suggest you give them a thrill and mail them something. Come on, it'll be fun, I promise. If it isn't fun, I'll buy you a cookie.
The three things that I didn't get done today are bothering me a bit. One, I didn't get my rolls of film dropped off for processing. I just can't find anyplace local to me that seems to be a reasonable balance between cost and quality. The second thing that I didn't get done, and which is really starting to bother me, is cleaning my bedroom. It gets trashed fairly quickly despite my efforts otherwise, and it's once again reached a point where I'm frankly embarassed to admit I sleep in there. I think what I need at this point is to bag everything up and storm the local laundromat. The problem with this plan is that once the laundry is all washed I still don't have anyplace to put it -- my dresser's storage space is finite. Damn this lack of closet space! Oh yes, before I forget.... the third thing I didn't do is cash a check from my grandfather. He mailed it to me back in August as a birthday gift, and I still haven't deposited it. I am a lousy grandson.
Work towards the house purchase is moving slowly, oh so slowly. Tomorrow I'm securing a copy of my 2002 W-2 form from the kind folks in the company payroll department (I have to go in to the office if only to get that sheet of paper for my records). I am still waiting for the twinks over at Experian Credit Bureau to acknowledge their mistake and rectify the "open/balance due" status of my Camaro loan on their report. I've been talking with some folks here and there in an effort to locate and line up some finance options and real estate agents. I'm waiting for a packet from the FHA with some information about what they can do for me as a first-time homebuyer. I figure in another two weeks I'll be ready to actually give a list of criteria to somebody and say, "Go find me a house while I go get a loan." Once I've done that it'll be off to the races as I try to prequalify and lock in a mortgage while the rates remain low.
I'm amazingly intimidated by this next step. It's utterly necessary, but it's terrifying at the same time. I'll be assuming 30 years of debt and a house, as well as all the responsibilities that go along with it. A thousand worries are dancing in the back of my mind. What if I have to change jobs? What if the neighborhood goes bad? What if I lose my job? What if I run into unexpected expenses? What if I have to move back to Minnesota? What if I want to move out of the country entirely? What if I don't like my neighbors? What if they don't like me? What if, what if, what if what if whatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatifwhatif?????
Man, I need to lay off the coffee.
On a less awe-inspiring note I spent most of the rest of my day either sleeping or watching movies. I plowed through the second disc in my "A Nightmare On Elm Street" boxed set while
roho and enveri were at work. While I was out running errands I picked up a copy of the newly released Platinum Edition of "The Lion King," so I put that in and watched it while I ate dinner. I think I spotted the additional footage that Disney put in for the Special Edition, but I'll have to go back to the theatrical release and compare. It's been so long since I saw that movie (nine years) that I honestly didn't remember most of the musical numbers. After dinner Roho, Kestral and I sat down and finished two episodes of Babylon 5. We're now done with disc three and moving on to disc four. This is a good pace, and it's fun to watch the episodes again. What I find even more fun is listening to Kestral's reactions as the plot unfolds before her. I keep forgetting that she's never seen the series, so each episode is a whole new experience. I'm glad that Roho and I could introduce her to a qualitify science fiction series.As an added bonus to the day I got to spend about three hours talking with
shiver101, a pleasure that I just cannot get enough of.Tomorrow I'm going to make a best effort to get into work, because I need that W-2 I mentioned above. I'm sure when I sit down at my desk I'll be deluged by spam e-mail (spam seems to make up eighty-five percent of all the mail I get at the office.... the other fifteen percent is made up of trouble tickets from the help desk or managers screaming at me). I'll take tomorrow slowly, and see what I can accomplish without putting myself under an undue amount of stress. It took three weeks for my immune system to crack to this point, it'll take just as long if not longer for me to put it all back together again.
All we have is now
