people "showing you the house" the first time you go over to their place, search and destroy / classic or dud?

The part I always dread is when they show me their brand-spanking new stereo system, give me a little background on why they bought this particular outfit, and then, to prove how good it sounds, they make me listen to some track that is particularly odious to me, like Iggy Pop's "Candy."

I thought that I was being a good host. It occurred to me that I was being a show-off. I'll be more careful next time, especially in regard to when I have hobos as houseguests.

my place is small enough that i don't even need to point. i really need to move.

Sounds good to me. I'll guard you from the cats.

I always think it's really funny when people ask me where the bathroom is. It's the room with the TOILET IN IT!

Huk-L, when you gaze out your window can you see Terry and Julie cross over the river?

I have a separate bathroom and toilet. I normally figure people are looking for the latter.

I have had the grand tour of Spencer and Ned and kyle and Jaymc's places of residence!

Our house is so small it seems kind of pointless.

There are only eight rooms.

Why is this hard? Someone who has never seen your house probably doesn't know you well. You are showing them who you are, or at least where you come from.

Er, that sounds weirdly status-conscious to me.

Count all your CDs before and after and you'll get an idea...

huh?

I tend to let newcomers know everywhere that the magic has happened. Why contain it to one room?

Our bathroom has the original (~1940) linoleum in nice condition and coved floors w/ ornate little metal trim around all of the coved corners. If I open the door to show you the crapper, that's the cool thing I'd hope you'd notice.

It does have a toilet and a hand basin though. And a tub even.

Er, that sounds weirdly status-conscious to me.

Perhaps, though I don't think it's status-conscious to be excited about your home if you happen to like it.

Nope but it makes folks like me feel sad. I wish I could afford to own a whole space that I could call my own. And then paint most of the walls red.

What about unsanitary?

Yeah, Ned... so take that!... ;)

I sure hope not. I feel bad enough when I want someone to hear some new song I just recorded... The last thing I want to do is also worry when they come over to my house and I want to show them something cool I hung on the wall.

The seat is DOWN in the picture fer Chrissake!

http://www.xte.com/igs/eames/prints/eames_image/prints05_mini.jpg

But if it were up and I was sitting on it, the cute little fishes would be swimming about BEHIND ME. I'd have to swivel to enjoy them and then there could be an accident...

http://www.steelform.com/pics/hill.jpg

Martin, is your flat bigger on the inside than it is on the outside? Is it very cold?

This made me cackle.

x-post: "And this is where we'll be circle-jerking"...

Well, this might have something to do with how I grew up, I don't know -- but keep in mind that, being a classic Navy brat, I moved a lot. From birth to now, I've lived in...twelve different locations (one of them three separate times), and up until recent years would be moving every two or three years. I can't pin down specifically what this has meant for me in terms of particular psychological inclinations, I think, but I can safely say that I am not tied into house = identity any more than I am hometown = identity, because in both cases I didn't have one -- or rather, didn't have just one, but a collage.

The closest thing to a permanent house I had growing up was in Coronado, which was also the closest thing I had to a hometown. But it was never continual and I don't have any true feelings of specific, locked in 'identity' regarding both house and hometown, they were places that I lived for extensive periods of time, but I look back on them with neither particular affection nor explicit 'wow, this is what we were' feelings -- I enjoyed the experience of living there but still. It was never the location or the accoutrements or the building itself, it was the people, it was my family that mattered, those who I was with, that made the house. My parents moved to Carmel in 1994 after both my sister and I were at college and I've only been back to Coronado itself once in 1998 after that time, and I didn't bother seeing the house then because what would have been the point? And I don't regard my parents' place as 'home' per se because it's not where I grew up, it's where my folks live now. Without getting unduly morbid, I suspect that in the hopefully far distant future whenever the house descends to myself and my sister that, depending on whatever we're doing, we might just simply sell the house, like my dad and his brother did with their mom's place when she died for similar reasons -- it wasn't home for them while growing up, it was just where she was at.

But this I suppose steers away from the discussion -- to focus back, good friend Stripey -- who *has* bought her own condo and specifically decorated and designed it the way she wanted, and has done so excellently -- talked about how there's an impulse she had always felt to be able to decorate and set things up in as perfect a fashion as she wanted, to repaint the walls, to put in new floors and so forth. And it occurred to me when she said this that I don't feel this impulse *at all* and never have -- I don't feel so connected to the idea of a place that I would want to make it such a translation of my own mindset or aesthetics or whatever it might be. It may well be because I'm just used to the idea of moving, and that what I have here is for the most part excellent personal storage, ie my books and discs and what have you here for the asking, because I'm only going to move again, and at some point I will, probably after this year.

I mean, I don't hate where I live at all. It's very nice as a basic one-person apartment with white walls and standard light brown wall-to-wall carpeting that's easily vacuumed. The balcony's nice, I like the view out to the trees, the rain sounds lovely. I don't regard having a lack of the home design bug and being content with what's provided as some sort of crippling indictment on my lack of soul, I guess.

but then as the fermata guy says if women could stop time we'd just use it to check out other people's houses.

xpost

lolita, when my gf and I were looking for our place and going to open houses, it got really weird spending every weekend seeing strangers' houses with everything cool or lame about their taste and other people wandering around making comments besides. I enjoyed it but my gf was really into it to the point of creeping me out at times.

So you're saying I'm Momus? ;-)

although you haven't lived til long gone john gives you the tour.

Ha, I've not seen it but I've heard about it. :-)

I should say that Lolita's own apartment, based on my viewing of it at her way cool Halloween party, was wonderful -- she really does make it a project and it succeeds beautifully as such. My feelings are ones of admiration rather than any sense of "Gosh, I wish I could have the chance to do something like that to a place" -- and I think that's good! Because that just seems to be a bit of unnecessary jealousy when one should enjoy another's work.

I'll say that my parents, bless their hearts, do in fact have much more of a design-yer-place bug than I ever have, though in the sense of quiet and careful remodelling and extensions rather than radical changes. And again I admire the results -- sometimes their work is overt (the wonderful brick patio and sun room extension), sometimes invisible (new insulation and retrofitting and so forth). I'm glad for them because not only does it make the house a great place to visit, but because I know it will suit them as the years go by as a perfectly comfortable place to spend the rest of their days -- as they deserve.

Still, I'm not going to hide that I've talked to my folks about a couple of things -- making sure that my dad's medical bills are fully covered via his various Navy veteran and teaching work programs (which they are), for instance -- and my folks have already made clear to both me and my sister what they'd like to see us do should they both pass on together for some unknown reason. We have power of attorney in case they are incapacitated beyond revival, we know their preferred funeral arrangements and so forth. To me this just seems a bit practical, not anything to obsessively dwell on, which I don't. It just is. *shrug* Others handle it differently, I guess.

My idea of a tour when peeps come by who havent been here before is to stand in the middle of the living room and wave my arms around in a vague manner, put on a neil from the Young Ones accent and say "this is my house, where I live". Thats about it.

(nb I really do this).