I'm thinking.
*Don't hurt yourself trying to get down to the comments section to tell me what you think of that opening.*
I've actually been thinking a lot lately. I have my eye on a house across town from where I'm at now. It's a Victorian bungalow, three bedrooms, exquisitely maintained and perfect for my antiques (yep, priorities, priorities). What I really love about it though is that it backs up to a graveyard.
I love graveyards. I love the expanse of history and human emotion that plays across them, and the older the graveyard the more I love it. There is a graveyard in Dayton, Ohio called Woodland Cemetary that is probably one of the loveliest places I have ever been. I used to go there on my afternoons off with a notebook and write--always sitting next to a pair of forlorn graves from the 1880s (the couple had died within days of each other, tragically young) because I fancied that they needed someone to come see them. Then, of course, when I was a youngster I used to break into the Bell Cemetary in Adams, Tennessee quite frequently. For those of you who don't know, Adams is the home of the Bell Witch. *grin* Breaking into that cemetary took balls of steel, because I'm not talking about the public, pristine, clinical cemetary on the main road. I'm talking about the old, overgrown, hidden family cemetary about a mile from the road.
Yep. Trespassing.
You had to climb an eight foot tall iron fence with pointy tops, drop to the other side, cut across several cornfields (quite icky in late summer when the stalk were tall and "Children of the Corn" suddenly didn't seem like quite as stupid a movie), then hike through the woods, following a dry stream bed, until you found the graves. The gravestones leaned precariously, gleaming under the moonlight that filtered through the trees, and once you pulled the weeds back you could read the weathered names carved into the stones.
That was the high point. The low point happened every two or three times and that's when the owners' dogs realized we were on the property. Ever fled in terror through a cornfield at 2 a.m.? I don't advise it.
At any rate, I love this house. For one thing, it has built in bookcases! That means I can take my books out of storage! Yay! The second story has that steeply gabled roof, and I found a room that will be perfect for my study.
(Of course there's a window overlooking the graveyard. Duh)
Add to that a big bay window for my cats and I'm in heaven! Of course, the downside of all this is that I also have to think numbers. Numbers SUCK. Particularly BIG numbers. I'm not very comfortable with zeroes before the decimal point, I might add. *shudders in horror* Oh well.
My goal is to be in the new house by the holidays. For some reason I have this Americana bullshit Happy Housekeeping image in my mind of having my whole family (except for my younger brother, of course) gathered around my table for one big, happy meal---before the fighting starts. *Grin*
Can't help being a realist. At least I cook a mean turkey.
