The MLS list has been generated.  The pre-approval process has begun.  I’m closer to buying a house than I’ve ever been, and it’s finally starting to be real.  All the big things start happening in October – my lease expires, four of my friends are getting married, and Halloween is the retail-sanctioned start of the holiday season.  Before any of those things happen, I should have my own house.

It might be on TV, too.  Vern sent me a link about HGTV casting for a show called My First Place.  On the show, all parts of the first time homebuyer process are documented.  This means that if I’m chosen, anyone who cares to watch will get to see the pukey look I make when I’m forced to hand over large sums of money.

If I’m chosen.  Apparently my agent has already been approached, which is good because evidently, I shouldn’t be trusted to do these things on my own.  When I e-mailed for the application, I called it “My First House.”  Twice.  Once in the subject line.  So if they happen to choose me, it’s almost for sure because they think I’ll buy a shithole.

Which I won’t because I have the best contractor in the city.  I used to work with/for Don, and one of the only things I could be happy about when I got laid off was him telling me that when it came time for me to buy a house, he’d look at twenty places if I wanted, just so he could be sure I’d get something decent.  It’s not that I want to find someplace with an impossible amount of work, but I still a) need his expertise, b) can count on him to do any necessary work at a reasonable rate, and c) really want to hear a Don-ism like, “Well, honey, that sticks out like a sore dick in the morning!”

…

I just got back from the Weir Homestead and my house still smells like leeks caramelized in butter and pork fat.  That’s the second step in making the awesomest homemade mac n’ cheese, you know.  You may have grown up with radioactive orange powder dumped over overcooked noodle sludge from a blue box, but in this house, we use leeks, pancetta, roux, and whatever kinds of cheese we can get our hands on (this time it was gruyere, fontina, and sharp English cheddar with a parmesan-pecorino crust).

Mac n’ cheese is what I make when something or someone needs to be fixed.  It is medicine food.  It’s pretty much a brick of gooey and you need real fortitude to eat the entire dish (seriously, it could crush a baby), but its enormous quantities of complex carbohydrates bound with lipids will repair you.  Because this kind of medicine is special, it doesn’t get made often or for everyone.  Stephanie and her mom got tonight’s batch.  Next week, I’m making one for Mike (who doesn’t need repairing to my knowledge, but he still lives in Seattle and needs the kind of meal cooked by women in the Midwest).

Food is the love that happens when you have problems with hugging people.