do you believe you can walk on water?

...we will be closing.

On the house.

Which is such good news to hear, considering everything that's happened today with Egg, who thinks we're bluffing with the whole moving thing.

She's gonna be so surprised to see us returning...with keys! And paperwork!

Guess what bitch we accomplished something you thought we never would. Kept going on about how much ~we need you~ and ~you need us~ but really you were the one who needed us, we have no need of you.

Initially with this whole thing I only intended on going salted earth...but Egg chose the nuclear option of her own free will out of anger. What is the "nuclear option"?

Scorched earth.

So okay, Egg. You wanna bust out the nukes? We'll have nuclear fucking warfare then.

So today we got an update email...we are officially in the final approval process, like they are getting everything ready for closing final approval process...

[deep breath]

And the mortgage insurance people need a letter typed up and given a wet ink signature stating what this $28k deposit is in her bank account. "Why do they need to know this?" you, the hypothetical reader, ask me. "What does it matter where this money comes from? It's your money."

well who fucking knows it's probably to make sure that it's not from some major drug deal or idk defrauding someone I don't fucking know. I honestly don't know why these assholes need letters of explanation for half the shit they've needed letters for. At one point (during the underwriting process) they needed a letter of explanation as to why there were bank debits made in Elmira, Corning, and Matamoras PA; imagine having to type out "we were looking at houses in Elmira and Corning and stopped for gas and food" and "my spouse works in Matamoras, PA and that's where we grocery shop" and fucking sign that shit...

So my wife had to type up a letter of explanation saying that that money was a life insurance pay out because her mom died. Even though it says METLIFE as the entity depositing the money into her account. Metlife is a fucking life insurance company. But they need you to explain to them like they're five, I guess, what each and every little fucking thing is.

And our loan processor guy did warn Serena that these people might ask about the money. This guy is probably tired of this whole thing too. Everyone is tired. The sellers just want to be done with the house, their agent wants to get paid, our agent wants to get paid and is tired of the seller agent being up her ass every two seconds for an update, seller's attorney wants to get paid, our attorney wants to get paid... And I'm sure M&T wants to start getting paid too!

New York State is so fucking fickle with each and every goddamn thing. They needed a disclosure from the seller telling how old the goddamn roof was. Why do they need to know this? I don't know. A home insurer needing to know that makes sense, but SONYMA needing to know this? Makes no sense. Our private mortgage insurer needing to know this? Makes NO FUCKING SENSE NONE OF IT MAKES SENSE.

So she typed up the letter and printed the letter and signed the letter and then made a PDF out of it and emailed it off so our loan processor guy will see it tomorrow when he gets into work and send it off to whomever and then that should be everything, right? We should be able to finally fucking close on this??? I hope????

But every time we think this something else comes up and another fucking letter needs to be written. Like at this point they are out of things that need to be explained.

We have done everything they've asked for. Written all the letters. Gotten all the verification letters. Gotten all the disclosures. Closed all the accounts they wanted closed. We have the funds for closing. This should. be. it. But they will find something to nitpick about (they always seem to).

I want to be able to put in my two weeks.

I want to start actually packing.

I want to start getting supplies together for all the painting and improvements.

And I can't do any of those things until we know we're fucking closing and when. We need to know that we are clear to close. And then we can breathe a sigh of relief - a small one, because we won't be able to breathe easier until we close and we have the keys in hand so Aleks can jingle them in Egg's face and go

You thought this wasn't possible. You thought we weren't good enough or grown enough to be able to manage something like this. You thought you could suck the life out of us until you breathed your last. Well guess what. This is proof that we are better than you thought we were. You've completely underestimated us. And that stops here. Now.

The finish line is in sight but it feels like it's still so far away...

No, for real, our first realtor actually ghosted us after saying he was "travelling".

(Some say he's still travelling to this day.)

In the Southern Tier, where we were planning on looking for houses, there are two major realty agencies: Keller Williams (of the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes) and Howard Hanna (of which there are two offices: one in Elmira, one in Corning). We went with Keller Williams because they had good reviews on Google. They initially communicated via text and then through phone call once they assigned us our agent, whose name is Michael. Everyone seemed super nice! Professional! We were excited to begin the house hunting process!

In the interim we went down to our local M&T branch, found out that they don't deal with mortgages at that branch because Port Jervis I guess is in the middle of Bumfuck East Jesus Nowhere, and they gave us the number of the person who does do them...out of the Wallkill branch. (Wallkill is more or less part of Middletown.) Her name is Gretchen. She sounds like she's from my neck of the woods. I love her. I would die for her.

(Even after all the frustration with M&T I would still die for Gretchen, who at certain points kept doing the professional version of "what the fuck, why the fuck do they need to know this, why is New York State like this, what the fuck. What the absolute fuck".)

WE GOT OUR PRE-APPROVAL FOR A MORTGAGE. And we still heard nothing from our realtor. A week went by and Serena texted him. He said he was travelling and wanted to know what we were looking for so that when he was back, he could look for houses for us to look at. Serena sent him our criteria.

More time passes. We don't hear back from him. 16 June we get an email for us to sign a Non-Discrimination Disclosure. It gets signed. We continue to not hear anything from him. Serena texts him again. He's still travelling. He asks again for what we're looking for in a house. We're getting frustrated by his lack of doing anything, especially since we're now getting into July, it's well after the holiday...

Clearly he doesn't want to be our realtor and I want to get the fuck out of here before I decide to get out of here a different way that widows my wife because living with my abusive egg donor is worse than hell at this point. Aleks thinks he doesn't want to work with a same-sex couple. Whether that's true or not I don't know. It could be, it might not be. If he for whatever reason didn't want our business, he should've just said so, but a lot of people nowadays don't communicate and instead just cease all communication without a word to be said. He lost out on a 3.5% commission, he lost out on us recommending him or the realty he represents, and it worked out in our favour anyway because we ended up with the best realtor I've ever dealt with and at this point in my life I've dealt with a few.

By 1 August we signed a Purchaser's Agreement and a bunch of disclosures related to the property we wanted to purchase.

Maybe our first realtor is finally done travelling to destinations both known and unknown. Maybe he was searching for himself. Maybe he made some friends along the way. I don't know. What I do know is that our current realtor Michelle is fucking awesome and deserves all the awards and even though I'm not someone who hugs people I want to hug her so bad because she helped us get the perfect fucking house.

So yeah! Yeah.

I don't even like that song nor do I like Guns n Roses but anyway...

[BIG SIGH]

Some updates:
In regards to the house...
1. The money for closing is coming in the form of a check and will take SIX (6) TO NINE (9) BUSINESS DAYS I think the earliest it can arrive is like. End of this week. Once it arrives Serena can deposit it into her account and then let the Processing Manager (whose name is Glenn) know "hey the eagle has landed" and then that is ONE LESS THING TO WORRY ABOUT.

2. Serena has to be on a CONFERENCE CALL once she's done with work because the State of New York, being a pain in the fucking ass with everything, needs to know the DATE OF A LATE PAYMENT on her Overstock charge card THAT HAS BEEN CLOSED FOR TWO YEARS (and the late payment was four years ago during Lockdown) and they won't accept some third party verification, oh no, they need MY WIFE PRESENT (via conference call) FOR THIS.

For a date.

Yes that is as stupid as it sounds, yes Glenn agrees and thinks it's ridiculous, yes Gretchen (our loan officer) thinks it's fucking stupid, literally even the Underwriter is like WHY THE FUCK DO THEY NEED THIS and Glenn, reassuringly, "They won't deny you they just Need This Information for a Reason and Purpose Unknown to All Except Them." Because New York, as a state, is so fucking anal about the DUMBEST. OF. SHIT.

Don't get me wrong, I love my state. But still.

[GIGANTIC EXHALE]

3. Things are moving but they are moving at a snail's pace because it's not the bank holding us up or the attorney or some other Secret Third Thing but it's the fucking STATE HOLDING US UP and I am so fucking ready to just be DONE WITH PORT JERVIS, where the only thing I'll miss is the train.

(Not the river, because we have one of those up in Elmira.)

4. We have decided we are taking only the furniture that we need to take. Which does not include any of my bookcases save for five of them (the one in the bedroom, the folding bamboo ones in my office and Serena's, and the two Ameriwood ones that have my manga on them) plus the heavy duty shelving units in the back room. Everything else is going because I need/want new bookcases anyway and I want something sturdy and nice.

Plus it's less to move.

5. We are not getting Egg's bestie to toss all of our junk/"junk" because the amount of trash that we will have as we pack is going to be way more than some guy who only does this as a side gig and not professionally will be too far above his pay grade. We will be getting 1-800-GOT-JUNK to handle everything. Will it cost more? Probably. Will it be better and easier? Absolutely. These people are used on fucking Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive I think they got this.

6. DEPENDING ON WHEN WE ARE SET TO CLOSE is when I will be able to tie up my loose ends, like putting in my notice at work. Which will be sad but I will also be relieved because I can't stand working there anymore especially when the store is in TRUMP COUNTRY and the clientele is just so fucking ignorant. (A guy came in the other day and said the Harris isn't qualified to be president because she doesn't know anything about the law or how it works. SHE WAS THE DA FOR SAN FRAN AND THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR CA HOW MUCH MORE QUALIFIED CAN SHE BE but also that means that Trump isn't qualified either.)

Anyway there are some coworkers I would still like to remain in contact with so that will also be when I start gathering people's info lol.

What about Egg?
Aleks is the one who brought this up first. Originally Egg was just going to get a PO Box and my burner number and then that was going to be that. However, Aleks doesn't think she needs any of that because we are going no contact and she herself stated that she doesn't need it for anything (except "well I need to give it to the lawyer" no you don't, says my wife, who works as a legal clerk). So she is not getting our address and she is not getting any updated phone number. I'm not planning on changing my number but she doesn't know that (I am going to block all of her numbers though). She isn't going to know Jack shit about me ever again.

After all she said in 2010, "I don't care where you go once you leave here or if you ever talk to me again." So why should she fucking know?

That said we will be setting up a PO Box to give to Rob and probably other places too so that in the event Egg does get information out of Rob, it still won't be our address.

"She isn't allowed to know anything. She has no right to any of that information."

People I trust (who also have no contact with Egg) will be getting our actual address.

As far as we're all concerned, we are nothing but tenants. She's unrelated.

SPEAKING OF EGG...
She opened up my wife's mail from Westchester Medical.

Again.

This is the second time now that she's done this. We all have doctors with the same medical group.

The first time this happened (it was also my wife's mail), we brushed it off and told her to pay closer attention to the name and not the logo. She said she would. Now we have a second time, once again my wife's mail.

My wife's first name starts with a "T" and is 7 letters in length.
Egg's first name begins with an "N" and is 5 letters long.
My wife's surname starts with a "W" and is 10 letters in length.
Egg's surname begins with an "E" and is 5 letters long.

You literally can't confuse the names. So either she's still not looking at the names and is looking at the logos for things...or this is intentional.

Egg stuck a note on it saying that she "opened it by accident" and that she's "very sorry". She made it a point to make sure Aleks (who was fronting at the time) knew it was there and then decided it was appropriate to invade his personal space by saying there was something stuck to our hoodie and then decided to touch him.

Aleks doesn't like being touched. At all. Especially without any warning. It is a trigger for him. (If he trusts you, he can tolerate it, might even like it. But he doesn't trust Egg.)

And then when we came home from work she reiterated how sorry she was and she sounded like she was either about to have a nervous breakdown or burst into tears 🙄

I just want all of this to be behind us. I am tired of constantly being stalled by some thing or another - if it's not the bank it's the state. Like. I want to start painting and decorating my home already. To start moving things in and figuring out what rooms will be used for what. Getting our bearings... Joining the community... The synagogue across the street from our house and one of the churches do Pride things in June, and the church likes to host the parade... There's a flourishing LGBTQ community.

I can hang my lesbian pride flag outside. People in our area have trans flags and rainbow flags.

I don't have to hide who I am. But I need to be the fuck out of here first. Because Egg hates how loud and proud and out I am as someone who is queer, doesn't want me displaying any flags or signs, wants me to be silenced. After all, she said on 23 July:

“Even Serena had something to say and was shouting down about it. About how I’m a bitch and everything over a stupid flag. I mean if I were gay I wouldn’t be flashing it around to everybody, you know, like that. I’m beside myself.”

Ah, yes, it's just a "stupid flag".

People have died for me to have the right to display that flag.
People have died for me to have the right to marry my wife.
People have died for me to have the right, full stop.

So because no one is going to tell me I can only be sapphic so long as no one knows... My wife bought me decals for my car... ( which you can view here )

If you're on my Plurk then you're already aware of these decals because I put them up a month ago lol.

idk if Egg even knows these decals are on my car, but since it's not her car, she can't really tell me what I can put on it. And if she ever did, she really doesn't have anything she can do legally to get me to take them off, since my car is parked out on the public street!

This can be one of many reasons why she won't hear from us again.

So getting that letter I need is going to be a production but I should be able to get it either tomorrow or like. Tuesday. According to Taylor.

So that's good. Hopefully it has all the information that is NEEDED but yeah. YEAH. She had me fill out a form because this come from REGIONAL HQ like holy fuck. All this for a letter to go "yeah they work here but they won't be once they move lol" I have no idea what wording there will even fucking be on this thing but whatever.

also I gotta write a letter MYSELF explaining my work commute and if I will be continuing that or some shit? idk I have to look at it all again. this shit is making my brain spin. thankfully my wife and my bestie Dusty are helping me keep everything straight in my head because they ask this shit even when you're getting a car loan. It's just a general loan thing. and it makes sense of course because they want to make sure if they loan you money you're going to pay them back. Serena has to do the same thing.

She also has to explain why she was late on paying her car note once and why she was late on paying a credit card payment on an account that's been closed for like three years. This was all during lockdown btw when these things happened so like, late fees were waived because everyone was struggle bussing. but these people don't care they gotta look at everything.

like I don't know. why is none of this easy. what are they gonna ask for next, a blood sample? saliva? my firstborn? (that I'll never have)

I went through like. a lot of mental anguish today. suicidal thoughts, "I'm gonna just walk out the door and never come back", "missing people who don't want to be found never are and I won't be"... Yeah. I was a mess today at work, but I am, dare I say, better?

I mean as best as I can be given everything.

IN FUN NEWS yesterday I wrote and posted a fic and then today I finished and posted another one, both are SebastianxFarmer (Reader-Insert) and one is very smutty so. Yeah.