Category: Life As I Know It

Lately I’ve been feeling kind of like my nervous system has been put on one of those medieval torture devices known as The Rack, and ratcheted up just a few notches. There’s sort of this constant slightly raised level of stress permeating my life. It’s mostly to do with the whole condo thing and the realization that it seems like we will never have any money ever again. The monetary freedom we’ve grown accustomed to will have to be greatly reigned in. I’m sure this will settle down a bit once we’re moved in, Jess has a job and we have gone through several months of the new budget and become accustomed to its fit, but it still scares me and stresses me a bit. My mind goes over everything from the necessary (doctor’s appointments, house/car repairs that may come up, etc.) to the leisurely (musical instrument related purchases and maintenance, computer upgrades, FUN).
Then there’s the whole Jess’s job thing which is a separate dilemma altogether. I so want her to work at the same company as I do because it’s a cool place, but the pay sucks. There is always the hope that she would eventually move onto to bigger and better things within the company, but that’s only a hope, and one that probably wouldn’t even have a chance of becoming reality for at least a year (no particular reason other than job loyalty and just a random estimation). She could very well be offered some other jobs more in line with her skills which actually pay real money too. If this situation arises, which route should she take? I honestly don’t know.
Then there’s the constant and ever ongoing saga of my creative pursuits, or more in line with reality, the lack thereof and my ever fading dreams fed by laziness and the worry that I’m entrenching myself more and more firmly into “the big machine.” There are people I know and admire who have done and are doing admirable things with their lives. I am not one of those people. I’m not really in a position where I can or even desire to “pay my dues” any more (I say that, but if the right opportunity just landed in my lap, that might change).
In the words of one of the greatest (and under-appreciated) bands of all time:
“All I want is Everything”
-Jellyfish

Happy third anniversary to me and Jess! Three years and she still hasn’t traded me in or killed me.
This year’s tip: Marriage means never having to play video games alone.
Love you, Grr!

You ever feel like you’re in the role of Charlie Brown, and life is in the role of Lucy holding the football? Even though she always yanks the football away at the last second causing you to fall on your ass and get the wind knocked out of you, you keep thinking that this time is the time that she really means it when she says she won’t move the football.

We are now officially the owners of a three bedroom two bathroom condominium. Because we are nice owners, we are leasing it back to the sellers until around Thanksgiving to give them time to close on their house and move in. Excuse me, while I go and pass out now.

The “Spam” email list at work is a wonderful thing. For many reasons. For example, I may have never found the true religion without the spam list. More importantly I am now going to not one, but two “Serenity” premieres because of it.
First, I heard about a website where they were putting bloggers on the “press list” to get into to a premiere on Tuesday as long as you write about the film afterward. Then, this morning, Athena posted a link to a contest where you could write a love poem to River, Kaylee, Mal or Jayne for a chance to win two VIP tickets to a special premiere put together by our favorite theatre, The Alamo Drafthouse and Ain’t It Cool News. I originally had some very entertaining ideas for comedic poems about Kaylee and River. I decided to go with River as I thought she was easier subject material. Then I decided that since Haiku has become a sort of running “thing” with me I should take that route. Maybe it would add some extra novelty value to my entry. When she sent the email there was only about 15 minutes until the deadline, so there wasn’t really any time to really toil over it too much. Even though I really wanted to go comedic, the haiku just sort of went where it wanted to go and ended up being more serious, much to my disappointment. Since it was then about 4 minutes until the deadline, I sent it off any way and ended up winning one of the may pairs of tickets. Athena won a pair also with her much more entertaining poem to Jayne.
Here’s the details:

Ain’t It Cool News and The Rolling Roadshow will be hosting a sneak preview screening of the film on Wednesday, September 28 at 8:00 along the streets of an old west town near Austin. Details and directions will be given to the ticket holders. Stars Summer Glau (River) and Jewel Staite (Kaylee) will be live in person at the screening and will conduct a Q&A after the film.

So it looks like it’s 2 premieres in 2 days for me, and one on the set of the Alamo replica that was built for the movie “The Alamo” which was filmed near here with a Jewel Staite and Summer Glau. Nice.

Or so you would think from the way people are acting. Here’s the deal: Houston and areas closer to the coast have a real and immediate concern. From what I understand, Austin does not.

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I started getting really cold feet about this condo business once I’d crunched the numbers, but have made some peace with it now. I talked to our bank this morning and ironed out all the numbers and have now worked out a plan that should work for us, although it will stretch us uncomfortably close to our monthly limit. This is some heavy stuff man. I’ve found this whole process to be like a series of ninja hurdles. Every time you think you’re done, another one pops up.
First we had to pick a place and a realtor. Then we had to see other options and actually decide. Then we had to make the offer and have some money ready to go up front. Then I saw what the “closing” costs would be and thought that there was no way this was going to happen because we have NO money saved up. Then we borrowed some for the up front payment (thanks, Papa!) and worked out a financing plan that alleviates the closing costs problem. Now if our offer and loan all go through we’re going to have to show we have “liquid assets” enough to cover at least three months of payments, which we do not. We shall see what happens.
In other exciting news, after getting back from out UK trip where we had pretty much blew off the diet, we went back onto phase 1 for two weeks to try and do some disaster control (I had been meaning to go a little stricter for a while anyway just to get a little closer to where I’d like to be). The two weeks is over and I am at my new record lowest weight. Sweeeeeet. Some people think I’m getting too skinny, but believe me, it’s only by comparison to the old me. There is still some flab and some love handles going on. I am no skeleton. Nor do I intend to be, but I’m liking the progress I’m seeing.

We made an offer on a condo yesterday. It was all very sudden, but I really felt like fate had lined it all up perfectly.

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Jess and I drove to Houston to see the LOTR exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science today and then drove home. It ruled.
Regarding the title: As Jess was fixin’ up some grub, I stood there noticing that we were both wearing T-shirts we got at a mad $5/shirt sale at Mondo Tees, a local business which sells sort of “retro”/cheesy t-shirts. She was wearing a Sin City shirt and I was wearing an “Austin Film Society and Alamo Drafthouse Present “Kill Bill” shirt.
I suddenly had to laugh and say “Here we are wearing shirts with a film by an Austin director, a local hip Austin theatre, bought at a trendy local Austin retro T-shirt shop, I’m an actor and musician, we make our own short films, we don’t eat refined carbs, you work for a green high tech company, me for a video game company and we drive a Prius hybrid. We are such stereotypes. I roll other people’s eyes at us.”