I'm sure pretty I've never washed a window

I am trying to write and I find myself very distracted by the idea that we might be getting a house sometime soon. It’s not for certain; in all honesty it’s not even all that likely. But it is a possibility and I’m the kind of person who finds possibilities very distracting. (As an aside I’m also having trouble coming up with something to write about that doesn’t center on houses and nostalgia; I have a hunch that I should be reflecting more on the world at large instead of thinking about chickens and escrow.)

I was writing recently about how I never expected to be the kind of person who would buy a house. First and most dramatically, I never expected to be able to afford to buy a house and without the fortuitous (ha!) explosion of the market, I never would have in this sunny state. Secondly, I figured that house buying was for squares with, like, kids and Precious Moments figurines. As I’m light-years away from anything so domestic, I didn’t think that buying a house was in the cards.

But here’s the thing: I’ve always been obsessed with houses. I have that misguided impression that the coolness of your living situation rubs off on you and you must strive to find a home that expresses your personality. This is total crap, I know; the kind of emotional sloppiness that sends droves of post-collegiate scoundrels wandering towards the east coast each year. It’s shallow (and we’ve been over my profound shallowness before) to think that your house has a bearing on your personal worth and that there can’t be perfectly decent human beings living in luxury condos. That said, I’m not in favor of settling.

I’m of the opinion that people shouldn’t settle and they shouldn’t buy houses for their alarming re-sale value. Everyone should get really teary eyed over their house; they should covet it and clean it and not foreclose on it even when that seems sensible. Obviously I’m feeling a bit scattered and emotional at the moment and I do believe that housing decisions should be made with the purest clarity of mind and the driest pragmatism. But after you’ve coolly and cleanly assessed your personal worth and your dividends and your credit score, you should probably gush a little bit. If you are using the words “starter house” and not gushing, you probably should stick to the emotionally stagnant world of renting.

A final thought on this topic and then I’ll leave it for the time being. I don’t think that I ever imagined that I would be old enough to buy a house. And believe me, I’m not old. I’m youthful and snooty bartenders in fancy restaurants card me to the point of rudeness. I suppose I’ve always thought of houses as a fixture of matriarchy – the family seat in the old South and all that nonsense. A home means legitimacy as an adult; it means buying a Christmas tree, cleaning out gutters and washing the windows. It means staying in one place for a long, long time.

It’s disconcerting to think that I might have my own family seat for my two-person-one-dog family. And by disconcerting I mean pleasant and absolutely terrifying.