Home on the Range- Back in Boise

The kid and I moved into our new place in Boise this weekend. This is the end, my friends, of a difficult two years of moving and trying to find a place. Many adventures and fine places to visit, but we decided to not settle in Albuquerque, Taos, Truth or Consequences, Koro Island Fiji, or Portland. It took two years of roaming but we decided to come back home to Boise.

The new apartment is great, with a huge shady back porch and a spot right next to a big window for my desk. The furniture arrived late yesterday and I immediately opened twelve boxes until I found my bamboo back scratcher, which apparently I cannot do without. Then, with boxes and bubble wrap everywhere, I took the backscratcher and went to the desk to work on the new story.

The new place is on a lake, and I plan to take my Wal-Mart fishing pole down to the water to cast. I don’t want to actually have to touch a fish, due to a traumatic fish incident in childhood, but I love to cast and hang about by the lake. If I want to get a small kayak or rowboat, I can tie it up to the dock. If I want to get away from the kid, I can row my boat out to the middle of the lake and lean back and think about stories! I suspect he will be cheering from the dock while I am cheering from the boat.

My parents are aghast that I am still living in apartments, at my age. The kid would also like a house, but that’s because he thinks of houses as places where the boys don’t have autism and there is a dad out cutting the lawn. I bought a house when I was twenty-five, and that thing felt like a rock around my neck until I was able to sell it. I’ve always loved to move, and living in apartments facilitated this maladaptive behavior. Now I’m determined to not move again, but I still like living in apartments. I call this guy for maintenance when the fridge isn’t getting cold, and go back to work until he comes.

I’m starting to think the key to writing well is to minimize all other distractions in life, and then lean in until my eyeballs bleed. Now I have my backscratcher and a bottle of Tylenol to deal with the consequences of moving boxes, and a cool rainy day outside my window, I’m ready to take over the world!