RAMBLING | Is this about the ORC? About house hunting? About something else entirely?

It’s 8:10pm on the night the ORC posts are supposed to go up and I’m lying in bed next to my five year old, who is still wriggling. She won’t fall sleep without me here, or not without a fuss, and I see no reason to court more fuss, so here I am, typing this with my thumbs on my phone.

I just glanced at her to see if her eyes were closing, and she chastened me. “You’re supposed to be ignoring me, Mama. Just do your own thing.”

If that isn’t the most on-the-nose thing I’ve ever heard…

I haven’t made any progress on the bathroom.

And when I say that, I mean it. I haven’t done a single thing this week in relation to the ORC. The wallpaper remains unchosen, the walls unsanded, the light fixture unchanged. I haven’t lifted a finger, nor a paint brush. There is a crack running from the light switch to the door frame that I have been meaning to patch for four years. It remains unpatched.

Why am I even writing this?

I had resolved to skip this week — to stop being so infernally competitive about getting my post up and linked ahead of everyone else’s. The ORC seems to feed something inside me that I don’t really like, some need to prove myself, some competitive spirit. At the same time it activates my impostor syndrome. It’s like I have a giant chip on my shoulder.

I mean, I always have, but something about the ORC seems to highlight that chip in new and unpleasant ways. I don’t like it. I think I said that already.

I did this last time too. I spent one post not talking about the ORC. Maybe this is just my thing and I should lean into it? Who am I even asking? Hello? Hello out there?

It’s not that I haven’t been working.

I’m always working. Working is my resting state. But I’ve been dreaming as well, mired in a sort of in-between place where I work and work, but don’t seem to make tangible progress. Did you read my last essay? I thought it was good, but what is that worth?

I posted a picture of one of my old apartments on Instagram last night — a place I lived in a solid fifteen years ago. And today I found myself Googling it, looking up the facade on street view, hoping to find out what it looks like now. This is not a good use of my time. I can see that. And yet, I think, could I go back there?

Late at night, I window shop for houses in cities I’ve barely heard of.

It feels like a sickness. I want to live in a place that is too cold for the American cockroach, and where there are no venomous snakes, but it’s more than that.

As grateful as I am to be a home owner (lucky, so lucky) this ranch house I’m in in North Carolina has never felt like a “forever home”. I don’t know if such a thing exists, but even if it did, this wouldn’t be it for me. While I have grown fond of this place, with no stairs to trip over, and no snow to shovel, it is not the type of house I ever really wanted. I don’t want to invest too much. I don’t want to settle in. This place is too new. I know it won’t stand up to the weight of the world. I’d crumble before this house crumbled around me. It’s not the one.

So where would we go? Is that the question? (Or do I mean when?)

For the sake of my business, it would be good to remain in the States, but it would be nice to be closer to home too — closer to my aging parents, and to my sister’s sweet littles. Canada is far from perfect, but it’s also so very far from this, whatever this is, and it would be better and safer to be all the way home, back in the land of universal healthcare and less overt racism and fuck my job, fuck my stupid stupid job that doesn’t matter in the slightest (except that it matters to me).

Is this the moment? What about now?

At the very least, I’d like to be nearer to the border. I’d like to be closer to the finish line I’d need to cross if I ran.

Are you one of the people who thinks politics is too divisive and that we should all just get along? Do you realize some of us are literally always thinking about when the right moment will be? When is the right time to run? Has it already passed? Did we miss it, like June in The Handmaid’s Tale? Like Emily? When is the exact right time to flee fascism? Do you not lie awake worrying about that?

Clearly it is a weight not all of us carry.

The election is coming, but after that, what? People laugh. People always laugh, but not the ones who are truly afraid. Uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 is now the norm in most of these 50 states. It feels like no one is talking about it it anymore. Do you know how many are dead? Did you enjoy those wings you ate, when you went to the barbecue with your family, unmasked? I saw the pictures. How did you stop the food from turning to ash in your mouth?

To answer one of my own questions, at the time of this writing (it’s now 8:42pm) 227,000 people are dead from this virus. Fewer than 3000 people died in the 9/11 attacks. Every day we lose about 1000 right now to COVID-19. So tomorrow it will be 228,000, then 229,000, then 230,000, and then and then and then…

Last night, I looked up a house that is currently for sale in Toledo, OH.

It is a Tudor Revival with the air of a castle. 6500 square feet. Seven bedrooms. Six baths. A butler’s pantry. A library. It’s less than a five hour drive to my family. We can’t actually afford it, but that’s not the point.

I have never been to Toledo, OH, and from what I’ve read, it isn’t a very nice place, but is any place a very nice place anymore? It seems like as good a place as any to watch the world die, and more comfortable than most.

I abhor bright siding, and yet here I am, looking at this fucking house.

I’m thinking, could we make this happen? Could we make this work? Maybe if you tilt your head and squint, this is all something to look forward to, instead of something to dread?

It’s absurd, but why not?

Why not this unbelievable mansion in a dying city in a broken country? Stranger things have happened. Every day, stranger things are happening. Things I never imagined. Will we have to run? Is that not the strangest thing of all?

I’m supposed to be writing about the bathroom. Maybe next week. I want to, even though it feels so trivial. It’s 9:45 pm. My daughter is asleep. I know I’m going to be first to post my link again. I can just feel it. But I’ve been wrong before.

Thanks to Linda Weinstein (creator of the One Room Challenge) and @betterhomesandgardens (official sponsor of the ORC) for not deleting this post from the link up even though it’s off topic and rambling and stupid. I mean, if that’s what happens. Or doesn’t happen.

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