Future Home

I'm not a house-y person the way a lot of people are. I've always ended up with a roof over my head, albeit sometimes one that rains indoors. I've lived anywhere and everywhere: in a ghetto, in a historical mansion, in a deceptively cute cottage that spewed septic into the shower when it stormed, unknowingly sleeping 5 feet away from a human finger severed from a fresh corpse.

But this morning I race down the stairs yelling to Mom, "I just found the place I'm supposed to live!" The ad in Renaissance Magazine mentions 50+ acres and an equestrian facility. The website begs questions: waterfalls? Federal forests to ride through? Pictures of the stables? Regardless, it feeds my imagination throughout the arduous, hundred-degree day.

I trundle up to the barn for evening chores, dreaming of castles and brainstorming $6 million mortgages....