Hours of Daylight – 13:09
We leave tomorrow for interview number two. It is exciting to be going to a part of the country i’ve never yet seen. True, i’ve been to the high dessert of Arizona many times when my sister lived on the Navajo reservation, but i’ve not been to the high Sierras.

I’ve been scanning the real estate listings at Realtor.com, and have met with some initial success. However it all seems like unproductive fantasizing; the tacit assumption being we’ll never actually go through with buying a place.

Truth is Annette and i are horrible when it comes to places to live. We’re very, very pragmatic and functional. Most people when they buy a place immediately set about changing it. Painting, renovating, putting the stamp of their personality on the place. That need to “mark our turf” is simply lacking in our personalities. We did do some rudimentary changes to our condo in Brooklyn, but they were purely functional changes. Basicallly we ripped out all the useless glass block the previous owner had installed in an attempt to give the place a “miami vice” kind of feel.

So, as i look at all these little houses for sale all over upstate New York, i cannot help but think we’re just adding to the whole cycle of consumption and disposal. First you buy the house, then you make endless trips to home depot for new this and that. Then, after countless hours, you’ve achieved your dream home. What then? Do you exist in some state of nirvanna? Is this what Buddha meant by the bliss of enlightenment?

But you never achive your dream home. There’s always *something* left to change, repaint, throw away and replace, etc., etc. I look at these houses and think, “i suppose i could repaint it.” But i know i never would. I see all this ediface and artiface as superficial, distracting junk that has neither worth nor value.

So, then i start to think i might be more worthwhile for us to live in a couple of yurts. But a quick glance at the impossibly conservative zoning regulations for these little tight-ass comunities quickly shows that soft sided structures are not acceptable as permanent living spaces. This only serves to remind us there is no such thing a private property in this country.

So, we’ll see what Reno yields. I’ve seen some very nice scrubby pine-covered property just outside the town limits that all say “horses: yes” which means i could keep chickens and not have to worry about my neighbors complaining that my rooster was waking up too early.