Adrenaline wins. That's good.
Panic responses can be remarkably 'sticky'. Yesterday a car stopped in front of my house for several minutes. The car was one of those annoying Priiiiiiiiiii, and it was covered with annoying graphics for a company called RealityHomes.com We Build On Your Land.

In general I appreciate what RealityHomes.com We Build On Your Land is doing. Infill is a city's salvation. But the thought that they might be considering We Tear Down MY House And We Build On MY Land gave me a momentary BANG of terror and a momentary squirt of dark adrenaline.

THE THOUGHT MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE. I own this property completely. Mortgage was paid off in 2006. I have no debts, I'm not behind on taxes, and nobody has even OFFERED to buy this place. It's HIGHLY UNLIKELY that anyone would want to steal it, because the lot is tiny (possibly the smallest occupied lot in Spokane) and the cost of tearing down this house would overbalance the minuscule value of the lot.

Where did the terror come from? It came from 20 years of renting, often with too little money to stay in a good place. When you rent you're always instantly evictable unless you belong to an Officially Aristocratic Holy Vulnerable Endangered Species, which I don't.

You'd think the 20 years of renting would have been pushed out of the memory stack by the 25 years of ownership, or at least by the MOST RECENT 9 years of fully paid-up ownership. Nope. Adrenaline wins every time.

That's a good design. Threats are permanent and real, and always return in one form or another. "Legal" protection is ragged and ephemeral, especially in today's hyperinsane infinitely convoluted Klein-bottle world. My only real protection is the abovementioned negative value.

Most likely the car was just parking to make a phone call. This block is a calm backwater, and cars often park here to check trailer loads or look at maps or make calls.

Labels: infill, Smarty-plants

  ¶ 2:15 AM