A Girl...

Whispers

I've been keeping a secret from you, Internet. The secret has only existed for one day, but did you know that the passage of time is inversely proportional to the magnitude of a secret?

I haven't slept very much the last two nights, and when I have, I've managed to keep Simon from enjoying what few winks he's been getting: when he's just on the precipice of slumber after many hours staring at the ceiling or wandering around the dark apartment in his slippers and bathrobe, he's been victim to my sleep-thrasing, sleep-grunting, and sleep-kicking (only once, but HARD). We are restless and anxious and also very very tired.

In order to dispel any hopes/fears or neutral/disinterested thoughts that I might be pregnant, let me use pregnancy instead as a metaphor for what's actually going on. True, it might be my metaphor of choice when explaining everything from how to bake a cake to the best way to play the stock market, but it also, in this case, happens to be apt. Witness: the recent hours punctuated by nausea and cheek-clenched sprints, the appointments with experts, the "oh my hell what have we gotten ourselves into"s. I'm a bit of a limb-trembling, eye-twitching, ulcerating mess.

Keeping a secret like this, I imagine (and actually kind of know after my brief stint with that all-caps WHAT IF), that it's a bit like those early weeks of pregnancy, when you not only want to jump from rooftop to rooftop shouting the news because it's the biggest news evar but you feel like you have to because if you don't let it out, all that pent-up energy will blow off the top of your skull and shoot through the hole like Old Faithful. BUT ALSO a lot of us would feel like, with a secret this big, with a secret this unsure, we don't dare whisper a word about it to anyone, in fear of the Almighty Jinx. (Note: Although Jinx could ruin a wanted pregnancy, I don't think it can disintegrate an unwanted one. Can you imagine all the unwed teenagers posting positive peestick jpgs on MySpace as a way of after-the-fact birth control? Yikes.)

You know Jinx, don't you? The superstition that even the unsuperstitious indulge in from time to time as a way of imposing their control on the vast uncontrollable universe? Jinx, like religion, has the power to charm the fence-sitters--caught between Belief and Non-Belief, they reason "if it's all a sham, it won't hurt to play along; and if it is true, playing along will only help." Thus we have the masses of noncommital faithful and casually superstitious.

Now it's audience participation time: Please to be sticking your bellies out and Care Bear staring us some good vibes while we wait on some very important news. Yesterday afternoon we signed and initialled eleventeen hundred documents, the result of which was an offer on a house (best evar). It has foundation issues! It has termites! It is absolutely perfect for us, and I want to invite you all over for dinner and games! Oh, and you should probably bring your bathing suits when you come(!!!).

The bad news is that even though it's been on the market for a while--so long that the price was reduced $20,000--we now find ourselves in competition with three other parties for it. How this will end is anybody's guess, although Simon and I are definitely up for a fight if that's what it takes. We'll armor our fists with dollars in place of brass knuckles. (Please mail your checks and money orders to my attention.)

After this morning's discussion with Simon about the impotency of superstition, I'm still crossing my fingers and toes and eyes that your bloggy superpowers will nevertheless help. Besides, asking for your good wishes isn't any more or less superstitious than keeping mum about the whole thing until we're under contract (or tossed out of the ring on our homeless asses with much crying and rending of garments), which, until this morning, was my original plan. But then Simon had to go and tell his mom and her best friend and his bandmate and Larry King and Oprah, and so then I went ahead and told my parents and one or two others, and now here we are, you and me, writing/reading about it on the internet. I'm sure you'll agree that it's at least more fun this way, especially since when the verdict comes in (5 p.m. tomorrow!), it will be more exciting to have you rejoice/despair with us rather than raise your eyebrows and ask "House? What house?" (I really can't wait to tell you about The House. Hopefully soon, I'll be able to tell you about Our House.)

One more bit of superstitious silliness and then I'm off to cultivate my stomach ulcers. Although we are aware that it is unwise to get attached to something that might be snatched away from us forever, we haven't been able to help ourselves. In addition to mentally decorating every inch of its glorious hardwood square-footage, we've made friends with the next-door neighbor, outlined a "christening" schedule, and discussed giving up The New Yorker for Sunset. Today I also Googled my way to a picture of one of the house's former owners.

This is Henry, newly endowed (by me) the Patron Saint of Buying This House. He lived in the (our?!) house in the 1940s. In addition to being quite the dapper fellow, he was also a member of a local ornithological society and the author of several books on birds. Perhaps it was he who was on the scene yesterday when we visited the house after signing bid documents all afternoon--Henry, the hummingbird, mistaking my ear for a cala lily and flying in close enough to whisper his blessing.