Hey, Buyers: When You Signed the Contract, Did You Notice the Indoor Pool?

You know what's fun? Watching the effects of a big, windy rainstorm on your recently deshingled roof. (Thanks, Mr. Roofer, for replacing our non-leaking roof with that oh-so-innovative tarp; boy, am I excited about paying you your $2,400, 'cause there's nothing, you know, that I love better than watching rainwater collect in pots and pans around my living room. I mean, whee!)

In all seriousness, it will be a miracle if we ever get out of this house. The blue house, with all of its rooms and its river, seems to belong on another planet.

Her Golden State

In California, among the stars and mountains, my mother's best friend attends the birth of her grandchild. The baby is born, to a world of eyes and wires, and the friend sits cooing, and feeling old. Aware of the screen door creak of her bones, of the rusty clank of her circulation, she checks for her reflection in specula and bedrails. Her head, it still has weight. Her hands, still warm. One by one, like drops of rain, the lights in the valley. The love and the light of a mottled moon.

Do Tampons Have Expiration Dates?

I've spent the last few hours cleaning out the attic. It's been a blast.

If all goes well, we will move into the blue house in 21 days. 21 short and fast-moving days.

Feel me shaking? Hear me hyperventilating? Care to join me for a lunchtime cocktail?

The Effects of Moving/Graduate School on Children

Last week, The Boy asked a neighbor to put her dog on his penis. The neighbor laughed, but you know what she must have been thinking.

The Girl, thanks to my father's good influence, now knows the word bitchin'. "Halloween is really bitchin'", she told me last night, "because you get a lot of candy."

The Girl said this to a friend on the phone: "School would be much, much more fun if you never had to learn anything."

More and more, out of necessity, they've been helping themselves to food and beverage. Also, if it weren't for The Girl, the cats might never eat again.

And one last thing: Baths, unless they're desperately needed, have basically gone by the wayside.

House of Cards

So it turns out that buying and selling houses, contrary to popular belief, isn't really all that much fun. As much as I ordinarily enjoy cleaning for swarms of strangers, and as much as I delight in termite inspections and exhaustive negotiations, I'm just not having that good of a time. Call me crazy. I have no idea when we're going to settle, or if we're even going to settle at all, because things have changed and have gotten ugly and I don't even feel like going into it now. I'm tired, pissed off and in need of a Butterfinger. And maybe a little Bazooka Joe.