Someone else's house

Housesitting is a really luxurious experience for me. Probably because my dorm room is something like 8x10', i've been trying to cook meals on a little electric skillet that never seems to be set on the right temperature, and I share a poorly-lit bathroom with two other females who seem to enjoy being in there for long periods of time playing chess or something (i don't have a better explanation for spending 30 minutes at a time in a nasty bathroom). A house is something exotic, luxurious, and even mysterious to me at this point. As you may remember from earlier posts, i lived in a permeable trailer this summer that was a home not only to myself, but to rodents of all sizes and six-foot-long black snakes. Two of the burners on the stove didn't work. I tried to use the dryer once when it was rainy and i couldn't hang the clothes on the line to dry, and the entire trailer shook. There was a hole big enough for me to fit through under the washing machine. You get it.

Thus, I take every opportunity to house-sit that I can. I love it. Especially when i house-sit for this particular family. They have a small, wonderful house next to a beautiful creek that makes a rushing sound that manages to lull even me to sleep, notorious insomniac that i tend to be, especially around exam season. It is so quiet and so dark at night that it's hard to imagine there being anything or anyone else on earth. Sometimes i need that illusion to keep my sanity.

I like to walk from room to room just because there is actually more than one room. To see how other people live fascinates me--their cups and saucers, their books, the children's drawings on the refrigerator. I cook dinner on their stove, plug in the lights on the christmas tree, and read M.F.K. Fisher to my little heart's desire. How wonderful M.F.K. Fisher is over a lazy dinner and coffee.