Oh, my. What to post, what to post. More to the point, where to begin. Once again, I've let things build up to the megapost stage, but that's mostly because I dislike making a number of small posts throughout the day. For whatever reason, I prefer the entries that I make into this diary to be fairly substantial, so I tend not to say when single events crop up that would make decent entries, simply because I feel like there's not enough to them. This leads me to put off posting for far longer than I should.

I guess the issue at hand most immediately is the dream I had last night. It's the first time in a long while that LoveBear played a central role, not me. That sentence still sounds quite ludicrous, but I'm sure anyone who knows me can understand what I mean by it, I hope. At any rate, the setting seemed antiquated, lots of wooden fixtures and what I would think these days of old-fashioned housing on narrow streets, lots of kids playing ball and such. The one thing that stuck out about the setting, though, was the fact that the Jewish community was very Mafia-esque. They really did run things behind the scenes, and everyone knew it but it was politically incorrect to
call them on it because they still publically played the "victims of the world's hatred" routine.

Bennie and I and someone we were visiting had been invited to go to someone's house for a meal, and it would've been a bad move to turn it down, but I tried anyway. The old man asking us if we wanted to eat with him asked me why I was being rude, and I asked in return if he'd be willing to join me for bacon cheeseburgers that I'd just made. He looked justifiably insulted and said that while he was under a prohibition to partake in my food, I was under no such restriction to eat his and so he had the right to expect me to take him up on his offer, while I had no such guarantee in response.

Then we were inside his house, and his kids are playing in the kitchen with a dog, and his wife—or maybe his daughter; he was pretty old—was at the sink, washing dishes. Between the sink with all the dirty dishes in it,
and the window over it where wind off of the street blew into the room to kepe it cool, sat a huge pile of raw hamburger. For whatever reason, the people in this brand of Judaism bought meat fresh at the store every morning, and they cooked it that evening, but it was against their religion to refrigerate it in the meantime, so it was just sitting there. I'd heard rumors about this, but I'd never seen anything to substantiate it until then.

I turned to the old man and pointed to the meat and told him that wasn't healthy. He sneered at me that it was tradition and if I was turning my nose up at it then I was probably incapable of understanding anything else about
his faith. I turned to the kids and asked them if they wanted to eat meat that had been sitting in dirty dishwater. They said no. I asked them if they wanted to eat meat that had been curing in the sun. They said no. I asked them why they ate the meat that was sitting on the countertop exposed without a cover. They shook their heads and shrugged.

The old man started to tell me that the countertop was scrubbed clean every night and I was making up stories to try to belittle his faith, when suddenly the dog jumped up on the counter and made a run for the pile of hamburger.
The woman at the counter swiped at it with a wooden spoon and it jumped back down to the floor, but I rounded on the old man and pointed at the dog and said, "You might as well have thrown that meat on the floor right then. You have to assume every meal you've ever eaten has been licked, bitten or pissed on by that dog."

At this, Bennie gave me this look that said, quite plainly, that however much he may have agreed with my sentiments, I had just gone way out of line in stating them publicly. Our friend—I never did figure out who it was—starts freaking out that I'm going to get all three of them killed. The kids start crying because they've been eating tainted meat. The mom's yelling at the kids to be quiet because they're having hysterics over nothing. The old man is yelling at me about how I'm one of those dirty stinking goyim. I'm yelling at the old man about his stupid religious rules don't mean a damn thing to be because I'm a Gentile. Someone puts a hand on my shoulder to spin me around, and—

Then I woke up. I have no idea what any of it means. I'm not even sure I want to explore it. It's too much of a treasure left unexplained.

---

I keep wanting to talk about the whole home-buying process, and yet I keep avoiding it. It's almost as if I feel like I'm going to jinx the whole thing by discussing it anywhere. It's weird. Though, I also don't like posting stories in the middle, and this one is clearly not done yet, though that seems a totally stupid reason not to post. I mean, no story is every truly finished, or even begun for that matter, and so at best one gets coherent snippets that stand on their own as meaningful. Clive Barker used this trick once to get out of writing the ending to a novel he didn't know how to finish—Weaveworld—and while it's a brilliant book, the lack-of-ending is truly obnoxious, so I don't like doing it. 

At any rate, the mortgage paperwork is now to the bank, and the home inspection happened last week. The inspector found a number of things wrong with the house, but most of them were trivial. The big on that concerns me is asbestos wrapping on the pipes in the basement that's starting to flake, but neither they nor we can afford to have it professionally removed, so it's going to stay there for a while. It should be harmless for the time being.
It's just annoying. The other big issue is the roof. It's not leaking yet, but it's probably going to start in the next year ago according to the inspector's estimates.

The nice thing is that the sellers have agreed to fix everything I considered important but those two things. The boiler flue is rusted, the drainage spouts are clogged, the shutoff valve to the washing machine is broken, and a
number of other minor things need to be fixed. The sellers have agreed to handle all of that, because they've got a house they want to buy and so they're willing to keep us happy with their deal so they can afford the house they want. I'm jazzed by this.

Hopefully Monday we'll get copies of the signed addendum and then the buying can proceed apace. I've gotten very good at initialing pieces of paper that have been placed before me without worrying about what they say. I get the impression that if I were to ask what every piece of paper I've been asked to initial or sign meant, someone along the way would have me killed as a threat to the bureaucracy. I value my life too much to question niggling details such as the ownership of my soul.

This whole housebuying thing really has my head tied up in knots. I'm consciously aware of going through the process, and yet the fact that in two months if all goes well I will be tied to a piece of land hasn't really sunk into my brain as of yet. I doubt it will until I actually hold the deed in my hands. It's very very strange. It's a huge commitment, one I'm not entirely sure is the right one, but that I know is better than any alternative.

Facing the nip'n'tuck was much the same.

In fact, it was almost exactly the same. I knew I needed to do it, but there was so much that could go wrong and so many problems I could end up having to face, and yet none of them were as bad as the idea of not doing it. It's a huge outlay of cash. It's got a lot of hidden costs that you can either accept without question or you can turn down in bulk, but you can't really avoid.

I just hope I'm as happy with this outcome as I have been with the other.

---

This being All Saints' Day, I suppose I should write up the results of last night's festivities, too. Jessie and I went to Bennie's for Halloween, which was nifty. Lots of people showed up, and it was good to see them all. The event was costume-required, for which everyone had something either well-done or at the very least creative.

Kage's costume was truly frightening to behold.

Jessie and I went as a pair of font-faces, Palatino and Garamond. If that sounds strange, it's because it is. Solid black outfit, with an iron-on on the back of the shirt giving a name and brief history, written in the appropriate face. Very post-modern and surreal. Very silly. We probably could've done better, but at the time I thought it sounded like a very cool idea. It didn't come off in execution nearly as well as I'd hoped.

The basis of Sue's costume had me mildly envious, admittedly. That style of suit, over which one could wear regular clothes if one wanted, is exactly the sort Jessie and I would both love to have. Personally, I would want the hood with ears attached, leaving the face open, but that's mostly because I dislike human hair on furries, myself included, so I'd rather have the complete package that way. However, that's a single trifling detail out of an
array of nifty ideas.

The big hitch is that hers was a gift, so I have no way of asking her how much it cost. I'd love to find out, though. I've seen sights that will do that sort of work, but none that do the quality of work I'd like or the price of work I can afford, at least right now. Maybe when we've got our debts paid, though.

The house is definitely a step in the right direction for that, though. No more rent into a black hole.

At any rate, much fun was to be had. Wolf made chili which turned out quite good, if a bit different from my usual style. Though, that's because I make chili-for-Frito-Pie which tends to be very thick, and this was thinner chili-for-eating-alone which was very juicy and flavorful. Sue made what I can only describe as country mashed potatoes which were slightly chunky and really tasty. I made broccoli and cheese, which I thought turned out alright, and Bennie picked up a cold cuts tray and some Atlanta Bread Company bread which was really good.

Everyone also brought lots of Halloween candy. I'm glad I went off the diet for a few days to enjoy it. Well, I say I'm glad I did. I actually can't even drink diet soda any more; it's too sweet. I can handle real sugar, but in very small amounts. I'm apparently better off sticking with bread and complex sugars. Anything more heavy than that and I start to feel nauseous. Being on the low-carb diet really has screwed with my body.

At least I'm losing weight, or I was.

The exercise I've been taking has helped, too, I'm sure. Even if it is just DDR on Workout Mode. It's still better than nothing, and I'm doing it three times a week these days 'cause I feel better about myself when I get some regular exercise. I thought that was just the health-nuts talking, but it turns out to be true. Lots of crazy stuff like that. Who'da thunk it? 

This started out as a Halloween thingi and turned into a ramble, so I'll finish by saying thank-you to Bennie and Gideon and Vulp for having us over, and to everyone that kicked in and made it such a good evening. Now I have to start prepping for Thanksgiving.