InsaneJournal

I hate houses. This is a different tune from what I used to sing, but rest assured, it's the truth. If I never check another piece of wiring, life another hammer, staple another piece of insulation, move another bookshelf, turn another mattress, or set another window, I'll be a happy man. But my future is full of houses. I can't weasel away from them if I try.

At the moment, Noel and I are approaching the throws of our second of what will be four house inspections, in the process of bringing Claudia home. I didn't know anything about adoption, before we hesitantly embarked on this project, and it's good that I didn't. I might have been wary, and where would that get us? Adoption agencies do everything in twos. They're neurotic. When we passed the first part of the screening process, the second was a house inspection, to make sure we weren't planning to throw her into a rat's nest, as soon as we had her out of the foster family's sights. The problem is that we were living in New Orleans at the time, in our penthouse. That's not our permanent residence, so nice or not, it didn't count for anything. We had to leave Claudia in the early stages of this mission, to come back to Philly for a few weeks, and let someone go over my house with a finetoothed comb.

Of course, I explained that we just bought property in Nevada and were going to be building a new place there. We had the show them the deed and have the property sceduled for inspection (which hasn't happened yet), I guess to prove we weren't moving to a radioactive test sight, and instead of the rats, throwing her to the mutants. At the moment, we've done that, and had the Philly house checked out once. We have a six month inspection of the Philly house next month, to make sure we didn't make it nice for the domicile police once, and then blow it up. After that, back to New Orleans to fetch the girl. A couple months in Philly, one visit from the inquisition somewhere in there, then the ranch is finished. We move to Las Vegas. We get inspected. We live in Vegas for six months. We get inspected.

Maybe it isn't houses, so much as scrutiny, that I'm tired of. Noel and I have been under a microscope since the beginning of the year. My decision not to play character witness at Oliver's divorce, in the middle of an album release, didn't fly too well. I got married "fast." The adoption people have been breathing down our necks since May. We know Claudia. We met her in December. She's three and a half now. Her foster parents have been putting her on the webcam with us, and sending us pictures since before we ever talked about taking her away with us. We love her. Madonna spends five minutes with a baby, a thing with no personality, in Africa, and she can take it home. She doesn't know it, doesn't care about it, and didn't wait for it. Money doesn't speed this process up by much. We're maybe two months ahead of couples with a normal income level, and it's still an uphill battle.

This is the kinda thing that would worry Noel, but my main concern right now is that we won't have her before Christmas. As soon as the second inspection is over (as long as we pass), we're going back to New Orleans. (I'm losing a small fortune renting the penthouse out every month.) I'll stay there through Christmas if I have to. I'll stay there til the cows come home, but it would be nice (said as viciously as possible) not to have to visit my daughter in someone else's home for Christmas.