The Comforts of Home

It's an audacious undertaking.

I'm going to try to stitch together episodes from two parts of my life that are wildly different, separated by 20-plus years, a thousand-plus miles, and uncountable shifts in perspective.

I'm going to try to make a case for compassion, tolerance, and loosening up by reconsidering a time when I was not particularly compassionate, tolerant, or loose.

I'm going to add to a voluminous collection of anecdotes from my life that I like to call Geez, Maybe I'm Becoming Less of an Asshole by Accounting for What an Asshole I've Been.

Let's start with now and work toward then.

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​Now: December 2024

I live and work—happily, in both cases—in an 873-square-foot modern apartment (photo above). Nearly six months ago, my wife and I sold our much larger house, paid our debts, and headed to where our hearts are. She went to New England. I moved across town. Then I moved again, in September, to this place.

I really like here. It's quiet (I prefer quiet), it's comfortable, it's just enough for me. I was able to start from scratch, so nearly every design choice was a deliberate one, from the stoneware dishes (black) to the bedroom furniture to the rugs. The few things that came from my former life—the L-shaped desk and the bookcases with the industrial design, notably—were fortuitous fits with the overall aesthetic.

Because everything of note in my life happens here (work, leisure, mealtime, bedtime), I'm meticulous about keeping things tidy. I have a daily chore list—just one thing each day—that I work through week after week, ensuring the place never falls too far out of sorts. I make the bed every morning after Fretless the Dog has finished his post-breakfast nap. It makes me feel good, having everything in its place. It makes me feel proud. And the place is beautiful. So, yeah, you could say I'm fixated on upkeep. Anal-retentive, even. I wouldn't argue. Also, put a coaster under that glass, please.

​This is my life. This is how I'm living it.

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Then: 2002? 2003? 2004? I Don't Remember

I lived in California. I was a sports editor (or a deputy, or something). I never made my bed. I washed dishes when I didn't have any clean ones left. I mopped a floor when I spilled something on it. I cleaned a bathroom...sometimes. I sent my laundry out to a service.

I was a different dude, with different priorities.

I also had a lot of online dates. A lot of first dates, I should say. Second dates were rarities, on my part or on the woman's. I could tell you about the time my offer of a second date was spurned because, in her words, "I called my ex-boyfriend last night and told him what a good time you and I had and how nice you were and asked him why he wasn't that nice, and he said he'd try, so we're back together." Or I could tell you about the time I turned down a second-date offer of a trip to Cabo and was told that I had no sense of adventure. Guilty. But maybe I had a sense of proportion, anyway.

But this isn't about those.

This is about a quiet first date at a sandwich shop near my office with a nice woman whose name I can't remember, who told me about the house she had just purchased, and how proud she was of it, and how she had a list of daily chores so she could always keep the place beautiful, and how the thing she feared most about a possible relationship was that some man wouldn't love her place the way she did and wouldn't respect her need to keep it pristine. She didn't think she could handle that level of discord.

I remember asking about parents, siblings, high school, college, how she got into her line of work, which I don't recall. Banking, maybe? That would be funny. It wouldn't have given us much conversational fodder then, but we'd probably have much to talk about now.

It didn't matter, though, because every question was met with a pivot back to her beloved house and chores and her fear of having to share that with someone who didn't care about those things as much as she did. I nodded a lot. And when the date was over, having gone on long enough to be respectful but short enough to be perfunctory, I lit out of there with my uncharitable thoughts.

2002, 2003, 2004 me: What a bore. What a dullard. What a waste of a half-hour.

2024 me, looking back: You know, I get it, her thing about the house. I really can respect that. Probably wouldn't have been a love connection in any case, but I salute her.

Time, man. Eventually, it flips everything.