I am so envious of my friends who own houses that I could spit, or go stomp off in a huff and pout in a corner at least.

I so want to be a homeowner. I don't, however, want it badly enough to take a house that isn't exactly what I want. I used to have an Elvis Costello quotation in my email .sig, that went like this: "It isn't that I don't know what I want, it's that I want it now." This is the way I want a house of my own. I want something that's mine, all mine. Me me me me me. This is the house where Ed lives. This is my place.

Problem: the houses for sale here are not the houses I want. I've looked; I'll continue to look. I know right now that the thing that's right for me isn't there. I'm too ideosyncratic, too selfish, too persnickety, too too. I have a very certain way things need to be in order for me to be happy with them. Houses built to other people's standards don't fit this bill. At. All.

The one place that was within easy walking distance of work, near my friends, and affordable, had blue ceramics in the bathrooms and would have required the kitchen to be redone immediately. Brown carpet upstairs. A window into the utility room, which is a waste of a window if I've ever seen one. Now, most of that stuff is fixable, but there are issues. Losing the blue toilets would mean replacing them with low-flow models, which are unacceptable. The kitchen could be done for $8-10K, including appliances, but that would be money I'd have to pull directly out of my wallet. After kitchen, carpet, new washer and dryer, etc, I'd add another 20% on top of what I spent for the house, which doesn't seem right to me. I shouldn't have to pay that to undo what somebody else did in order to get what I want.

So now I'm starting to entertain the notion of having a place built. I'm insane. I don't know if it's possible to get builders interested in a custom project under $500K, and mine would definitely be under that number. Way under. But the idea of spending the money to get exactly what I want instead of some approximation is, well, the way I buy everything. I'm selfish, I'm particular, but I'm always very happy with what I get when I've gotten it My Way.

Me.
Mine.
Now.

I am a two year old.

(2000-04-29)