What I Want: Home

Being out of work for several weeks has afforded me the opportunity to be more reflective about what I want out of life (because I'm only spending about fifteen minutes a day dealing with actual, immediate life-sustenance... what else is there to do besides watch TV?). So I've been allowing myself to develop a mental image of an idealized future life in all its components--home, work, relationships, lifestyle, etc. I can't say I've developed this fantasy in any great level of detail, or at least there's only so much I can keep in my head at once before some of it has to get written down. I'm a little reluctant to actually write any of it down, because an idealized life is a moving target... what tickles my armpit today may not tomorrow. Then again, maybe that's as good a reason as any to document it. Perhaps I can mock myself derisively at some future moment of unemployment. But certainly the point isn't to create a wish list or to-do list, but rather to start coloring the image in my mind. To the extent that it starts influencing my life decisions, it may not be a bad "planning" tool. Here goes the "What I Want: Home" segment of the fantasy:

- I want a house someday. How... American! Yuppie! Phony! Sure, but when I imagine the movie scene that is a representation of my everyday life, I see me in a small, kinda crummy old house. It's in a city--one of those old timey in-city neighborhoods that is neither ritzy nor squalid. The paint is peeling in places, but for the most part it's a neatly kept house with some charm. For whatever reason, I have gray hair, am wearing blue jean shorts with a hanky out the back, and appear a little crazy (like Christopher Lloyd, only a little heavier-set). I think I'm yelling to myself, or perhaps at someone in the house while I'm out in the driveway. I DO NOT wear blue jean shorts, so I guess some revolution must have to happen.

- There's a driveway. It must lead to a garage, because I'm sure I want a garage... not so much for a car (more on the later) but rather for a shop. I want a project shop. Not necessarily dedicated to woodworking, although I'm sure there would be a saw or something. Just a place to get inspired to make stuff and then quickly lose interest, thereby piling up strata of unfinished work. A place that is separate from the rest of the world, probably with big weedy bushes growing around it. And yet still a neatly kept place... hmm, something about neat today. Does strata negate neat?

- I'd have a car, and there would be a place for it in the garage, but it would always be covered with stuff that makes it inconvenient to move. That's my natural defense against overusing the car--keep it hidden in the garage under stuff, and that way I'll only use it when it has to be used. It looks like a black 2003 Hyundai, so I guess I never get a new car. Ever.

- I like modernish furniture--in keeping with the neat motif--but I don't see myself growing into middle age with "sleak" style. Dark woods and cubic stuff seems like it'd make sense right now, but in the future I think it'll be a mixed bag of worn-out furnishings. I can't really have nice things, because I never take good enough care of any of it. It's stuff. It holds up other stuff. How precious can it be?

- The house will need to be in a well-serviced neighborhood, that is, walkable to everything I need. Which will make this either a very rare situation or a very expensive one--back to paying a premium for crummy housing! A grocery store, pharmacy, library, restaurant, bar, post office--it all has to be around. I don't really care if it's a ye olde village or just a decent plaza that is at the end of a sidewalk. But it has to be comfortable with no pretentions. If I want a gin & tonic, I don't want funny looks when I come in in my jean shorts and hanky, probably with socks pulled up way too high. Just give me the damn drink, Mac.

- I want a comfortable outdoor patio or porch. I want things growing on it, giving me shade in the summer, and I want to use this space from St. Patrick's Day on to at least Veteran's Day. I want a comfy chair out there, a crossword puzzle I can't finish, and a cup of coffee if it's the morning or a glass of wine if it's afternoon. I want the fucking cat to sit out there without having to be leashed to it.

- I want a small yard that feels like a courtyard. Just big enough to have a slightly dangerous game of volleyball that can be observed from the patio or porch, with maybe one end of the net hung off the side of the garage.

- I want enough scraggy trees behind the garage that it feels like woods but isn't... like, if there's a child in this equation, they grow up thinking that they live next to some woods with a little trail or swamp, but then come home from college one day and realize that it's just a few trees and bushes. The old hike across the block to their friend's house? Mere steps through the trees to an adult.

- I want the house to be small, just big enough for what I need and that's it. Extra space bothers me, like a domestic black hole. It begs to be filled, but you know what? I have nothing more for you, black hole! You'll have to be empty!

- My house cannot be new, or at least not designed new for me. I need a project to lose interest in. I need several projects to lose interest in. I need a house that understands that it is imperfect and not ideally suited to me, but that we're going to break each other in. I'll fix you, you break my will, and that'll be good enough.

- I want a house that calms my restlessness. I want a house that cures boredom-induced pacing. When I feel like staying in, I want my home to make up reasons to keep me in so I don't feel like I'm wasting a nice outside day. Break a little, or creak funny, or come up with an odd smell to investigate. And when I actually feel like being outside, the house needs to give me a reason to be outside... the sound of rain and thunder over a metal porch roof? A perfect ray of sunshine on the patio in the emerging spring? Support my subconscious whims, house, and don't let me second guess them.

- I want real wood blinds. I am so sick of cheap plastic, metal, or bamboo shades, miniblinds, valences, etc. etc. Give me a nice light-stained, inch-and-a-half wide SLAT. I want it to sound like a fucking Jacobs Ladder when I pull them up. I never want another bent or broken blind that makes my home look abandoned (thanks, Fenway..). And closed miniblinds, unbent, are not much better. They say to the world "I would rather look at white plastic then let the world see into my home for even a second." Everywhere I look, it's like a wall of spite for the outdoors. At least make them wood so I don't have to see naked plastic.

- I want my home to be alright. I don't want a nice house, or a peculiar house, or an avant-garde house, or a period house, or a McMansion house. Nor do I want a hazard house or a haunted house or a mobile house. No ripped window screens, no broken windows. Just alright. How about this: a converted house? A house that used to be something else, but not something big or strange? A house that used to be an old-time fire station, but not one of those historic register things that's totally redone inside with period colors and fixtures, just something that's old, has some character, felt neglected... ready for a symbiotic relationship that won't bring back its glory but will keep it from total obscurity...

Stomach tells me it's dinner time, so off I go. Next up: Work? Maybe...