Stand Aside, Errant Knave; I'm a Homeowner

(listening to Benny Goodman live at Carnegie Hall)

Since I left home, I have never done anything but rent my walls. I left home in 1990. On Monday, July 12, 2004, Lindsey and I signed a bunch of pieces of paper, listened to a bunch of stuff that came out of a lawyer's mouth and drove to the house to make sure all the keys work.

Now begins a period of sweat, grime, profanity and unprecedented spending.

(listening to "Moby Dick" by Led Zeppelin)

I am excited, but I am also unnerved. We have bought something really big and expensive, and we have to do lots of things to keep it expensive for the next people that come along. Heretofore, I have never been a siding connoisseur or a pressure-treated lumber authority. Now, I have to be. I'm already getting handyman-themed junk mail, for fuck's sake. How did they know? The deed was recorded yesterday afternoon. These people who decide where to send junk mail should be in the CIA; they're damn near clairvoyant.

I can't wait to grill something. I can't wait to sit on the deck, look up, and exclaim, "Well, fancy that. No upstairs neighbors. No cigarette ashes drifting down into my martini this evening." I'm going to pull mail out of a regular old mailbox for the first time since before I could vote. Not a bank of mailboxes, my mailbox. Neato! Also, they left the fridge. We had assumed they were taking it, since it wasn't included in the contract. That's at least $900 we can spend on scotch and sushi. Maybe not. I married a sensible woman who will steer me clear of such wanton excess. Until I find a pile of money under one of the rocks in the back yard, that is. It will then be time for a bottle of the oldest Glenfarclas I can get my mitts on. I will also help myself to a wheelbarrow full of quiveringly fresh maguro. Fantasy Land is a nice place.