I really hate Tom Petty. I feel a little bad for him, because it’s not his fault, really. In fact, it has nothing to do with him. Well, his voice is pretty whiny, so I guess it has to do with him a little. But mostly, the fault lies with Silence of the Lambs. I hear his voice, I think of that “American Girl” song, and the next thing you know, I’m thinking about clothes made out of human skin. My brain has become pretty efficient about it, actually. It mostly goes Tom Petty’s voice = skinning.

But still. The this particular song title is apt. We close on our house today. Possibly we’ve already closed, but there’s no way of knowing as no one ever calls us to tell us what’s going on about this huge purchase we’re making. It’s amazing to me how much lack of process there seems to be in something that involves so much money and red tape. Well, it’s not amazing really, since my mom has been able to work both as a real estate agent and mortgage broker with no experience and not a bit of sense in her head.

But still.

You have no real idea of how much money you have to bring to your signing until moments before (if even then). You get no real guarantee that your closing is even going to be on the day you plan it to be, even though it’s in writing and you’ve hired movers (or in our case, rented a truck and bribed relatives).

In truth, this is the easiest experience I’ve had buying a house. It actually does work a lot more smoothly when you have good credit and a savings account. This time, when our mortgage broker said, “this is everything I need”, she only asked for two more things. You have no idea how much of an improvement this is if you haven’t been through the mortgage process with only exactly the amount you need for a down payment in the bank and an avalanche of credit card debt. So, I definitely recommend the good credit/lots of savings method, if you have a choice.

All of our problems have been with the signing the papers at the escrow company portion of the festivities. And thinking back, I’ve always encountered problems with that, so it makes me a little suspicious about the process overall. With so many regulations in place, shouldn’t there be a way for someone to check everything and make sure it’s right in advance? And how much of that stuff is right, really?

The last house I bought, I got to the signing only to find out that they needed more money. The escrow company had miscalculated or something. And in that particular instance, there was really no more money to be had, so that was tricky. When P. bought his condo, he went to pick up his key on the specified day only to find that the loan hadn’t actually funded yet. As this was Friday, he would have to wait until Monday. Of course, he had to be out of his apartment that weekend, so that make things a little irritating. The real estate agent finally agreed to give him the keys early, but you wonder, why couldn’t the various people involved do things on time? And why was no one making sure everything got done? And why did no one call him to let him know? This one other time, the address somehow got recorded wrong in the recording office and I had to go down there to the basement in city hall where they keep all the records to initial a change.

This time, we were lulled into a sense of security when our loan process went so smoothly. But then we went to the signing. First, they asked us to come in but had no idea how much money we had to bring. We asked and they replied, “that’s a very good question.” Well, sure. That’s us. Always asking about the good stuff.

Then, we got there to sign. First, we noticed that it seemed like we were being charged twice for most of our closing costs. We’re doing two loans to sneakily avoid paying PMI, and there was both an addendum to the first loan with the closing costs for the second loan, as well as closing costs listed on the actual second loan. So, we pointed that out. Oh, right. That’s wrong. You’re being charged twice. We’ll just redo those papers. Hang on.

That made us less than confident that everything else was right. And what if we hadn’t noticed? How do we know if $600 is really what we are supposed to be charged for the appraisal? Maybe it’s a typo and it should be $300. It’s impossible to know. You just pay whatever’s listed.

Then, we got to the second loan papers and it was entirely the wrong loan. We were doing a 30 year fixed loan, but the papers were for an adjustable equity line of credit. So, we mentioned that. Right then. The bank has to redraw everything. Come back in a couple of days.

So, we did. These loan papers were right, but had someone else’s address on them. And the IRS-specific papers had P. and I as married with everything being reported under his SSN and me as spouse filing a joint return. Even the IRS is trying to marry us off! The girl who was doing our signing was nervous to have us change anything.

“Just sign it how it is.”

P. said he wasn’t signing something for the IRS that had inaccurate information and scribbled over it when she left the room.

After we finished signing, the escrow person realized she’d had us sign with blue ink when we should have signed with black ink. So, she made copies of everything and made us start over.

And then we waited. And we still wait. Supposedly everything is fine, but you would think someone would call us and let us know. P. is sending me text messages: “any word yet?”

And there’s no word yet. I called the escrow company yesterday. They said everything was “fine”. I asked when it would actually be recorded because we needed to arrange getting the key. Sometime during the day. Arrange to get the key in the afternoon.

Well, it’s 3pm. I called again. No, it’s not recorded, but everything’s “fine.” Well, right, but there’s only two hours left for recording to happen. Will it happen within the next two hours? Oh, well, maybe someone can call you back.

There’s no word yet. Should it really be this unknown?

Yesterday when I got home from work, I decided to be industrious and non-slackery for at least a few minutes and started loading the dishwasher. Soon I was punished for my industrious ways as I discovered a glass had fallen into the garbage disposal and was full of water. The glass was the perfect size for the disposal, seemed to be made for it really. Its circumference was such that the glass could fall into the disposal, but no room remained on the sides to use any type of utensil to get it back out. And the top of the glass came two inches or so below the top of the sink drain opening.

Huh.

My first thought was, “I’m glad P. is coming home soon so he can figure this out.” This thought was in no way triggered by the fact that I’m a girl and he’s a guy. This thought was triggered by the fact that’s he’s a person, other than me. And I expected him soon. Any person would have done, really. He was just the most convenient.

But as I waited, I did try to get the glass out myself. I tried everything I could think of, including lowering a large sticky ball of tape into the glass, hoping it would catch and I could pull it up. This did not work, in case you had any doubts whatsoever. I also looked under the sink, in case I could do something plumbing-related that might help, but realized I would have to completely take apart the garbage disposal, and even then, would probably not be able to get to the glass.

I could break it.

Nah, that’s craziness. Better to wait for P.

P. came home. I skipped the whole “how was your day, can I get you a drink” thing and went straight to the issue at hand. “Look. It’s a glass.”

He tried all the same methods to get it out (well, except that tape thing) and then looked at me.

“I could break it.”

He started stabbing at it with the back of a fork until it shattered. Then, he used tongs to get out all the pieces he could find. Finally, we turned away our faces and he ran the water full blast and flipped the garbage disposal switch.

As we cringed from the noise of grinding glass, he said, “it’s a good thing you’re moving soon.”

And I was thinking, we’re lucky we don’t have to pass a “prove you are responsible enough to be a homeowner” test when we sign our closing paperwork.

Buying a house is a lot like falling in love. Everyone is looking for something different. Sure, there’s the quarterback of the football team, class president, volunteers at the animal shelter, great kisser. And most everyone agrees that guy’s a catch, but even then, some of us, while admiring his beauty and wit, might wish he watched more Star Trek or something.

(An aside: P. thinks I’m this big Star Trek geek, on par with people who dress up and go to conventions. This is because he has apparently never seen an episode of Star Trek, so when, for instance, a kid on South Park wearing a red shirt with a little upside-down V insignia announces that he’s going to leave the safe bus and go out into the unknown wilderness where the monster is, and I say, “he’s the red shirt! he’s going to die!”, and then P. looks at me and says “what the hell is a red shirt” and I say “Star Trek, duh,” he assumes this means I know every obscure and insignificant fact about the show and this makes me a total nerd, when really, I’m the normal person who gets the standard pop culture references that anyone not living in a cave for thirty years would know and he’s the nerdy one. The nerdy cave boy. And anyway, I only have seen all the original Star Trek episodes as many times as I have because my parents watched that show anytime it was on, despite the fact that there were what, 10? 12? episodes of the original series. And yet, they kept on watching, every single time. And my parents controlled our one small black-and-white TV. If we wanted to watch TV, we watched what they wanted. And, the little South Park boy did die obviously, so I got the enjoy the joke and P. just looked like a nerdy cave boy.)

So, we all are attracted to different things - like maybe not everyone wants a geeky boyfriend whose wardrobe consists entirely of t-shirts he got free from software vendors and who can wax poetic about recursive programming techniques, although I don’t see why not.

So, there’s the initial attraction, and then, there’s the loss. When you think you’ve found the one, and it gets away, your heart breaks, just a little. Is there something better out there for you? Have you lost the love of your life? Will you ever find another one that fits you just right?

And so it went with our house hunt. Our real estate agent seemed bewildered by us. But this house has a huge bathroom with a soaking tub! This one has a hot tub on the deck! You should get this house! But, none of those houses were what we were looking for. We didn’t feel that spark, that chemistry, that feeling that this is the one. The thing is, we did feel it, way back before we were ready to buy a house, and of course, it was snatched away. And we were sad. We would stalk that house, drive by it really slowly, hoping the sold sign would come off. We’d drive through the neighborhood, waiting for our dream houses’s hot sister to go on the market. It didn’t.

But then, we found another house. It was sexy in an entirely different way. It felt like home. We know, like any relationship, that it’ll take a bit of work to maintain it, but we’re willing to do that for this house — we want to do that for this house. We know that it’s not perfect, but who is really?

There is at least one difference between houses and relationships. Part of what we see in this house is its potential. We know we can change it, mold it, make it ours. Relationships really don’t work that way. I’ve tried it with P. “I like everything about you, except that I think you should change just a little and do my laundry. Also, the ironing. And I’ll change by sipping a cool drink while I watch you iron.”

He laughed at me.

And I wouldn’t want to change that for anything. Good thing since my ability to change him would be like trying to take out the brick floor in this house and replacing it with granite or something. Oh wait. That’s something we’re actually going to do…

“We have no glasses. Oh wait. No wine glasses either. Do we even have a cork screw?”

“Oh! On my knife!”

“No forks for the salad.”

“We have these little plastic spoons from Baskin Robbins!”

“Don’t lose those.”

“It’s a good thing we stopped and got ice cream.”

This is what happens when you pack up and move all of your stuff, and when you are almost done and have only the big screen TV and futon left, decide that you’ve become very lazy and can just finish tomorrow. We have the TV and futon, you think. We can get pizza and drink wine and watch movies.

So, you rescue some wine from a box and you get pizza and ice cream and DVDs and then you realize that you no longer have any plates, cups, utensils, or other items that might be handy for eating.

We somehow managed. We found an empty water bottle and a measuring cup: both fine wine glasses in a pinch! P.’s swiss army knife had a cork screw, and it was really fun to watch him try to use it. Those little pink plastic ice cream spoons are not ideal for eating salad, but then, it wasn’t a great tragedy to be blocked from salad anyway.

And now, a week and a half later…

I have been wary about living with another person, I know. But last night, I came home from work. P. handed me a freshly-made margarita and was in the midst of making tortilla soup, chicken fajitas, and homemade guacamole for dinner. I could get used to this.

My ability to deal with planes is like the doors on that game show where you just never know what’s behind them until you open the door and get mauled to death by a ferocious monkey or rained on by a million dollars. Or maybe that show didn’t have killer monkeys. I don’t really remember. People dressed up in crazy outfits though, right? Like giant fuzzy dice and my favorite martian? Anyway, I guess my ability to deal with planes isn’t anything like that at all, since I almost never end up with a million dollars. And I rarely wear the fuzzy dice outfit.

What I’m trying to say is that I never know how I will react. And I seem unable to control it at all. I try my best. I do everything I can, but then the moment comes and it’s either OK or it’s not. I always freak out, at least a little. And I know that I need to get to the airport early, because any amount of stress could topple me right over the edge, and I know I’ll feel very bitchy at any setback, because deep down I feel it’s a sign that the trip is doomed and it’s all going to be that ticket agent’s or security screener’s fault because they jinxed me and now the plane will fall from the sky in a fiery inferno of death and screaming. Those are just givens.

But sometimes, I’m actually OK in the plane. And I can talk like a normal person and look out the window and appreciate the clouds and sky and barely notice the thousands and thousands of feet of empty air between me and the ground. But then there are other times.

P. and I went to LA this weekend. It was a short trip. We flew down Friday night and came back Sunday night. For the Friday night flight, the Xanax knocked me on the ass and there was nothing that could bother me. We boarded the flight and then were told the plane had a mechanical problem. We had to get off the plane and get on a different one. I didn’t even give a thought to my superstitions. We boarded the second plane. I vaguely remember the woman sitting next to me telling me that she liked my shirt and then I don’t remember anything else until suddenly we were about an hour into the flight. P. asked if I wanted some tequila. Sure, I wanted tequila! The flight attendant carded me. I guess I look young when I’m drugged out on Xanax. But then she didn’t charge us. I asked P. why not. He said that it could have something to do with us changing planes and then sitting on the runway for an hour and a half while they moved our bags and fueled the plane. An hour and a half? I had no idea.

I was awake for the landing, but I didn’t feel even a twinge of panic. I guess I was saving it all up for the flight home.

On Sunday afternoon, we got to the Long Beach airport and discovered that our flight was a little late. That was the first jinx. And then we found that the earlier flight that had been scheduled to leave at 11 was now not leaving until 6 at the earliest because of mechanical problems and our flight was jammed full of people from that plane. Another jinx. We talked to a woman who flew down on Wednesday and had the same get on the plane, mechanical trouble, change planes experience that we had on Friday. I looked out the plane being worked on. What was wrong with Alaska’s airplanes? Then I overhead a guy talking. He worked for Boeing. Sure, the planes were in perfect technical shape when they left the plant, but how well they did depended entirely on how they were maintained.

I decided I’d better take a Xanax. But I only took half because I didn’t know how long our flight would be delayed and I didn’t want to pass out before we boarded. As we waited in line to get on the plane, I started hyperventilating. P. suggested I take the other half. I cried during takeoff. I don’t think either half ever kicked in.

In addition to Xanax and alcohol, there’s one other thing that gets me through these flights. My Bose headphones. They help in two ways. For one thing, they block out all the engine noise. I don’t feel quite so claustrophic and constantly reminded that I am on a plane going very very fast, with the extremely loud and powerful engines constantly surrounding me with loud and powerful noise. It’s a reprieve. Also, because they cut the engine noise, I can hear the pilot when he makes helpful announcements. Normally, the pilot sounds like this: “Well, you probably want to know that –garble, garble, loud engine noise, sound of something falling off– so we’ll keep you updated.” That freaks me out a little. I like to hear the tone of his voice, to gauge if it’s false hope or if he really thinks everything’s OK. I want to hear every word he says, even if he’s just telling me to look down at Carson City.

So, I was already feeling a wave of great panic as we began our long, terrifying, endless descent, and at every bump as we hit clouds, I knew for certain that we were only moments from death, and the flight attendant, surely drunk on his own power, walked by and brusquely told me to take off my headset. As I formulated a thought and tried to process his insane request, he apparently didn’t think I was moving fast enough and even more rudely told me to take them off right now and then he stormed off.

That moment put me over the edge. I had been barely hanging on to my sanity by the thinnest of threads: trying not to cry, trying to breathe, trying not to think about the fiery inferno sure to overtake us at any moment and that was all I had. I was holding my book but could no longer handle even having anything in my hands. I threw the book (it bounced off the back of the seat in front of us and P. quickly took it and put it away before I could bludgeon the flight attendant with it). I threw my headphones. I squeezed my fists. I tried to breathe. I didn’t work. P. kept telling me it was OK. To take a deep breath. To be calm. I just kept repeating over and over again that I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it.

I told him, as calmly as I could that I hoped he could bail me out of jail because I would surely be arrested. I would not be able to stop myself from going over to that flight attendant and asking him why exactly it was that I could not wear a headset that was not attached to anything. It was not obscuring my ability to hear instructions; instead it made that easier. It wasn’t attached to a portable electronic device. And as to whether it was one itself, well, it operates from a watch battery. If it needed to be turned off, he’d better tell everyone to turn off their watches as well. I’ve never heard of watches being disallowed.

Not to mention that I have flown with these headphones from at least four years. And many a flight attendant has seen them on my head during take off and landing. Apparently, they were a problem only for this one person who at that moment, I hated more than I had hated anyone in my life.

And in that one surge of panic, I had to get off the plane. I had to never be on a plane or in an airport again where you not only had no control over getting off and on, but you were in control of nothing. The minute you walk into an airport, you give up all rights. If you question anything, you can be arrested. You have to take off your shoes and your belt and let people look through your bags and your wallet and feel your breasts. At that moment, it struck me as being the most outrageous thing in the world. This flight attendant could take away the one thing that was keeping me sane, while on a huge machine that could kill us all, and I could do nothing about it. I coudn’t even question it. I told P. that I could never fly again, ever. I couldn’t subject myself to this again. (He, of course, agreed with everything I said. “Of course we’ll never fly again. Of course that guy should be fired. Of course I’ll bail you out of jail.”)

And while I realized I was being irrational, illogical — frankly crazy, I couldn’t stop it, I couldn’t calm down, I couldn’t be reasonable. When the plane landed, all I could think about was getting away, and P. kept ahold of me the entire time, streering me off of the plane and away from the target of my irrational rage. It was a bad moment. The anxiety attack didn’t really subside until after we left the airport. Even then, I was having difficulty breathing calmly.

It was like I opened the killer monkey door. Which means surely, next time I fly, I’m due for the raining money. Right?