pretty much the most awesome birthday present ever

I just bought a condo.

Uhhhh...

This is the part where I freak the fuck out.

But EJ, you ask, where exactly is this coming from? Don't you have a really cute, reasonably-priced apartment in DC in a neighborhood you adore that is close to a lot of your friends.

Well. If you want to get all technical about it, yes.

But this has been brewing for a while. I have my reasons, a lot of which relate to my personal finances, which, um, we really don't need to discuss on a website where I also talk about instances in which I've been semi-naked in public or discussed my really passionate feelings issues on things like feminism and leggings. But trust me, the reasons are there and this is a great investment for me and plus, this condo is so excellent, I feel as though I have finally tasted the ambrosial nectar of true love. And oh, it is sweet.

This condo was the third I'd seen since beginning my search on Saturday. Yes, you read that right. Last Saturday. My birthday. I actually rescheduled the initial showing of the condo because I was so epically hungover from my party that I had to IM a friend begging her to order me pizza because I'd lost my cell phone at the Black Cat and the thought of leaving my apartment (much less my couch) to get food was too horrifying to think about. And yes, thank you, a bank did approve me for a mortgage. Luckily my credit score does not reflect my rate of consumption for Stella and Wild Turkey, or I'd be living in a box by the Metro.

Thank God I got the pizza, slept it off and eventually made it to see this condo last night. People, it's a dream. I walked in and fell smack head over heels in love. The hardwood floors, the poky warm kitchen, the in-unit laundry (never again will I lose pillowcases on a sidewalk), the DEN next door to the bedroom... the real estate agent almost had to scrape me off the floor when I saw the DEN.

But I was nervous. It was the third place I'd seen and it was the third day of my search. The moment you dip a toe into the murky, eel-infested waters of DC real estate, you start to hear scores of horror stories from buyers who have looked for months, had to readjust their expectations and lower their hopes, found a place and got into a vicious bidding war only to be outbid and have to eventually settle on an Anacostia rat-infested basement with "growth potential" that costs as much as a four-bedroom colonial in Leesburg. And here, right away, was a place with all of my essentials, almost all of my preferences and the asking price was significantly UNDER my spending cap. IT COULD NOT BE THIS EASY.

And of course it wasn't. My heart, which by this point had leapt so high it was hovering around my tonsils, plummented to my toes when the agent told me the place already had an offer. On my apartment? Someone else put an offer on MY apartment? It's only been on the market for eleven days! I'm the only person insane enough to want to put an offer on a place so soon! And it's MY CONDO. IT'S CALLING TO ME.

The next twenty-four hours saw a blur of frantic faxes, emails, calls and one very snowy visit to a real estate office in Maryland. My luck continued when my boss, already pretty much one of my favorite people, kindly looked the other way as I did practically nothing job-related all day today. Most bosses would berate me for being gone from the office for almost three hours on a personal matter; she gave me the recipe for the Linzer torte she baked for my birthday and loaned me her springform pan so that I could make one myself. Seriously, I am the luckiest bitch around these parts.

After biting my nails down to the painful quick and taking yet another practice GRE Quantitative section (yes, I'm also taking the GRE on Saturday. Have I mentioned I'm insane?) I went home to wait for my agent to call. She'd been very optimistic that we would be attractive to the seller and that, if necessary, we'd win in a bidding war. I was convinced that the bidding war would escalate into armed conflict and that some unknown bidder would break my heart and maybe somehow manage to destroy my credit in the process.

That didn't happen. They accepted my offer of the asking price. We close in thirty days. I'm going to be a homeowner.

Sweet bejesus shitfuck.

In all seriousness, I have huge, immense thanks to give to the incomparable Velvet. Most of you already know how much this girl rocks, but did you know that she took time out of her Saturday to walk me through the scarily intimidating process of buying DC real estate, just because I bought her a cup of coffee. She made this whole crazy idea of buying a condo seem feasible and valid and I'm so very thankful that she was willing to answer all of my questions, big and small.

Now, who has some bubble wrap I can borrow?