I was chatting with my dad this weekend and he was asking me questions about Arcata, none of which I knew the answers to. Population? Um… College enrollment numbers? Um… Industries? Um…

After I hung up, I went to wikipedia and read about Arcata for a little while, so I now know the population is somewhere around 17,000, about half of which is related to the university in one way or another, and that the “industry” is, in fact, the university. I also know that the average high temperature — all year long! — is in the 50s or 60s. All year long!

In September, which is the hottest month of the year here, the high temperature will be 62. And in January, the coldest month of the year, it will be 53. Ironically, that’s almost perfect weather for living in a van. On the other hand, with the low of 42 in January, I’d probably be quite happy to be in my cozy tiny house. (Except that I’m still planning on being back in Florida by then.)

Tank would be quite happy to be in my cozy tiny house, too, but he is slowly adapting to his own house. Okay, so the picture doesn’t show that, but I’ve caught him curled up in his own house at least a few times. And I’ve relented and let him into my house only when the rain was really pouring down. I’m not sure he’s figured out what the secret is, but at least he’s not trying to run in every time I open the door.

Now that I’m finally mostly done with house projects, I’m trying to get back to my writing projects. It hasn’t been easy. I want to write fun and joyful books, the kind of thing that you finish with a happy sigh, with maybe a chuckle of two of delight along the way, but every time I try to give my brain room to create, it falls into terrible spirals of self-loathing. In our culture’s stories, if your child rejects you, you must be a really horrible person. Even if you can turn it around and say, well, a child who rejects the mother who loved him is probably a horrible person, then you’ve raised a horrible person and that’s just as bad. Either way, horrible all around.

It’s not very conducive to writing joy, so I’m thinking I should probably write horror for a while. Something with lots of very gruesome murders, innocent people suffering but the bad guys getting theirs in the end. It feels like it might be very satisfying to commit lots of virtual murders. I suppose the alternative might be to play lots of video games for a while, but writing out my hurt and anger would be cheaper. And possibly more productive. Not emotionally productive — I told a friend yesterday that I didn’t see the point in therapy right now, because I saw no hope for change: my sense of betrayal is so deep that I don’t see how I ever recover from it. But there’s obviously a market for books with gruesome murders — a much bigger market, in fact, than that for books that try to delight. That said, I’m really tired of living in my head. I might need to look for more house projects to do instead.

Although Suzanne’s stepson, J, moved out of the Tiniest House months ago, it was not entirely uninhabited when I decided to move in. It had a resident cat, Tank. As I understand it, some years previously, the then-feral Tank started showing up for dinner and decided to stay. As far as the inside cats were concerned, he was very much Not Welcome, but eventually he became J’s cat. Not though — never! — the kind of cat that you can easily stick into a cat carrier and bring cross-country with you. So when J left, Tank stayed, and continued living in the Tiniest House. During the cold of winter, Suzanne set up a heating pad for him and the door was permanently ajar, so he could come and go as he pleased.

Unfortunately, I’m allergic to cats. Enter the New Tiniest House. I ordered it on Amazon, it came last week, and we promptly put it together for him. I’m not sure Tank likes it much so far, but eventually, we’re hoping to make an awning for it that will keep off/out the rain (that blue tarp was an attempt that didn’t work — the tarp is not waterproof) and when it gets cold, we’ll put the heating pad inside. On the one night of serious rain since I moved into the former Tiniest House, I wound up with a wet cat snoring on my bed, but that’s not a great long-term solution. Neither is me moving out for the winter so Tank can move back in, mostly because my house is much too nice now to be left entirely open to the elements.

Speaking of which, my countertop solution was to cover the counter with contact paper. It’s not a long term solution, because the contact paper’s not going to last, but it was a way to make it bearable for a few months until I feel like I can afford some nice tile. My cabinet door solution was to take one of J’s old curtains and tack it up across the open space. I still haven’t painted the cabinets, and I need to touch up some paint on the shelves, including one bracket that had to be replaced, but my tiny kitchen is looking quite kitchen-like.

I cooked my first meal in said kitchen this morning. After I walked the dogs, I was making myself a cup of coffee and decided it was time to dump my compost (mostly old coffee grounds & some dog food) into the chicken coop. The chickens were happy to see me for the sake of the dog food, but while I was there, I found an egg in one of the nests. Freshly-laid, still warm from the chicken.

One part of me thought, “Wow, the whole concept of eggs is really gross when you think about it.” The other part of me thought, “Okay, that’s really cool, I could eat the freshest egg ever.” And so I did. Totally simple egg scramble – just egg, butter, salt and pepper — and it was, in fact, delicious. Not so head-and-shoulders above any other eggs that it would have been notable, but as I sat in my camp chair, sun shining, breeze blowing through my open window, I very much appreciated my breakfast and my life.

That side of the house is also looking nice, IMO, although it’s all about the outside. I found a $10 shoe rack at Target that seemed perfect for my needs, and a wooden coat rack at the hardware store. I borrowed a drill and a level to put the coat rack up and am quite pleased with my endeavors. And with my coats!

Funny story with the coats: J left behind a large screen television which didn’t fit in the Tiniest House at all — there was just no room for it. I kept putting it outside and then moving it back in when rain threatened, but it was very much in the way, so Suzanne posted on Facebook offering it in trade. The very first person to respond offered raincoats and home-brew. We never investigated the Why of the raincoats — I just said, “Yes, raincoats!” because my notorious eggplant coat, while quite nice, is not actually waterproof and Arcata is a place where a waterproof coat comes in handy. I didn’t worry about whether the raincoats would fit or whether I would like them, because anything other than a bright yellow plastic poncho would have been fine with me. As it happened, though, the raincoats were basically what I would have picked if someone invited me to walk into a store and take what I wanted: three of them, one lightweight, one medium, one heavy, all in shades of purple/blue, all that fit perfectly. How nice is that?

I posted the above picture, though, mostly to show off my door. I painted the design in the sky blue of the ceiling (Harbor Fog), because I thought it would look nice and it does. I wish I’d painted in the sand color instead, because I think it would look even better if I had, but I might do that when I paint the cabinets. Which is still going to happen someday, although I’m enjoying not being covered in paint. (I’m an appallingly messy painter — I was wearing as much paint as the walls last week.)

Circling all the way back to the point of this post, Suzanne and I were talking about the house no longer being the Tiniest House, since Tank now has the True Tiniest House. Almost-Tiniest House just doesn’t have the same ring to it. Former-Tiniest House? Once-Tiniest House? She was suggesting alternate names — the beach house? the Wendy House? (<–a joke that means less if you don’t know that my real name is Wendy, I suppose). I think, though, that my house ought to be named Serendipity. In fact, as I look at my new raincoats hanging on the wall, I’m very, very sure of it.

At some point in the last two weeks, Suzanne and I were sitting on the back patio — the one with the fire pit, that gets the best late afternoon sunshine — and I said to her, “When I move into the Tiniest House, I’d like to clear some space on the patio by the doors and put a small table and a chair or two out there.” Suzanne agreed that sounded like a good idea, and our conversation moved on to other topics.

A day or two later, we were at the hardware store, buying more paint and gear for our various home repair projects. (Along the path of fixing up the Tiniest House, we’ve also painted Suzanne’s kitchen in the Tiny Mansion, including the ceiling; replaced the wax ring on the Tiniest House toilet; removed an old intercom and doorbell; repaired some holes in the walls, and so on. All of our handy-person skills have leveled up in the last couple weeks!) While I was waiting for her, I sat down in the patio furniture area, on one of these chairs — a rather nice bistro-style rocker with teal blue cushions. It was comfortable, but I didn’t even bother to look at the price: I knew intuitively that it was out of my price range. Plus, my future chair and table were far-future, after I’d gotten all of the things on the “needs” list for my Tiniest House, including blankets, and trash cans, and a shower caddy, and, and, and.

I went back in the store, but when Suzanne and I were leaving, she said, “Hey, did you see these?”, headed straight for the patio furniture, and sat down in the same chair. I had to laugh. Great minds! They were good chairs. But she looked at the price, shook her head, said, “$100 less, maybe…”

I took a photo of the label for future reference, though. And that night, when I was downloading my photos to my computer, I decided to search for the chairs, just to get the photo out of the way. Funny thing: Ace Hardware Online had the exact same chairs — for $110 less, and free store pick-up at the exact same store we’d been at earlier in the day. I sent the link to Suzanne and said, “Split it?” For $400, the patio set was way out of my price range. For $275, it was still more than I was ready to spend. But for $132.50, it might be a deal too good to pass up, despite the need for such useful things as curtains, and cabinets doors, and a nightstand, and, and, and. I don’t think she even paused to think, she just texted back, “Ordered!”

A few days later, she picked the set up at the hardware store and we spent the evening putting them together. Close to sundown, we sat in our chairs and watched the street and chatted. Later, we moved the chairs onto the patio. The next day we ate our lunch out there. The day after, we brought our coffees out from our separate houses. In the evening, we sat in our chairs for a while, then decided to walk the dogs. And while we were walking the dogs, it occurred to me: our patio chairs — metal and teal though they are — are rockers.

We are officially old ladies, sitting on our porch in our rocking chairs together! It’s about twenty years early, I expect, maybe thirty, but the thought still made me laugh.

My intensive painting days did not last for the three days I expected them to. They lasted FOREVER. Well, or a week, whichever comes first. Technically, I’m still not done: I have a door to paint, some shelves to finish, and a cabinet to both primer and paint. Not to mention some touch-ups around the ceiling where I was so eager to get it DONE that I put tape on paint that was not quite dry yet, therefore ripping off the paint when I removed the tape. Sigh. And we still need to do something about the countertop — tile, I hope.

My new home is still very much a work in progress. The furniture currently consists of a bed and my camp chair, plus a box that I’m using as a step stool for Zelda to get on and off the bed. The bed might have been a mistake: I bought a 14-inch mattress, which didn’t seem huge, and an 18-inch frame, which also didn’t seem huge. Put them together and you’ve got 32 inches, which also doesn’t seem huge. But it’s closer to three feet than two, and while Zelda could have made the jump easily five years ago, it’s a little much for her now. I’m also, sadly, not sure my quite senile dog will be able to figure out how to use a step. She’s pretty foggy these days. I may be lifting her up and down a lot. But the mattress is comfortable, and the frame was always intended as a temporary solution, so it’s not an insurmountable problem.

It felt pretty strange to be moving out of Serenity. I… well, I just spent a long time thinking about that instead of writing. Suffice to say, my feelings are complicated. What a weird time it is. The other day Suzanne and I were sitting outside on the back patio, enjoying the sunshine and eating something — possibly gluten-free chocolate cupcakes with mint buttercream icing? — and I said, “I’m quite enjoying our apocalypse.” Whenever I’m thinking — about the state of the world, about politics, about the economy, about my son throwing me away like I’m trash — I’m deeply scared and desperately hurt. But whenever I stop thinking and just exist, my life is delightful. Moral of the story: more existing, less thinking. It’s not very good for my writing career to be existing, not thinking, but there’s a roof over my head and chickens clucking next door, so I’ll worry about that tomorrow. Tomorrow being a metaphorical future day that is not today, not actually the period of time twenty-four hours from now. During that period of time, I will probably be painting. Or maybe tiling. Definitely doing something to make my already adorable tiny house even more adorable.

Speaking of which — how about some pictures? These are the same shots from my earlier post.

Today is going to be massive painting day: I tried out colors for the tiniest house yesterday and bought them right before the store closed yesterday afternoon, so I’m finally going to start adding some more interesting shades to my paint-saturated clothing. Plus, Suzanne has a long weekend, so we’re also going to primer and paint her kitchen, which we’ve been talking about doing for oh, approximately a year now. (Since I was here in 2019, in fact.)

So instead of reading a blog post from me, here’s my friend Greg to entertain you:

Watch, like, and share, please!

Well, really more like four or five. But I’m getting there. Oh, so slowly, though. Some of that is inefficiency: I should have splurged for the wide brush and the long handle for the roller, and I didn’t. And dragging the ladder around is a pain, made worse by all the things in the middle of the floor turning the space into a teeny-tiny obstacle course.

Some of it, though, is simply physics. Or would it be chemistry? The primer dries only as fast as it dries, and trying to rush just makes drips that will need to be sanded away before I can start with the real paint. And the only thing that’s worse than that orange for the coverage is the bright green. I’m still not reconciled to living with it, but if I’d known how much time I would spend grumbling under my breath before it was gone, I might have rethought. Fortunately for me, at this point it’s too late.

This morning I reminded myself to practice happiness as I painted. The first step in practicing happiness is always to take a deep, mindful breath. But my deep breath smelled like paint fumes, of course. The second step is to think of something I’m grateful for. That’s easy right now, of course, because the world is a terrifying mess, but being grateful not to have bad things happening to me or those I love (to the best of my knowledge) is not a good kind of gratitude. It doesn’t make me happy, it makes me anxious.

My third step in my happiness practice is to check my physical well-being: is there something I could do to be more comfortable, to feel better? A snack, a sweater, a better arrangement of pillows? A cup of tea, a more pleasant scent from my essential oil diffuser, music more appropriate for my mood? Given that I was painting, the answer was basically no. A cup of tea would have been lovely, but I wasn’t going to take a break for it.

The fourth step in my happiness practice is to look for something delightful. Maybe it’s something purely beautiful, like the rhododendrons that are flowering all over the place, or maybe it’s charming, like the chickens or the sleeping cats. In a national forest, it’s remarkably easy to find something to appreciate. But in this case, I was staring at a wall and I’d been staring at the exact same wall for four mornings in a row. It didn’t give me a lot of scope to find delight.

At that point, I had to laugh at myself. I have never failed quite so thoroughly in my happiness practice. Fortunately, laughing at myself improved my mood and I started working on reframing my task, from an incredibly tedious repetition of yesterday’s chore to a careful investment in my long-term future. I started imagining what the Tiniest House would be like when I’d been living in it for a few months, a year, many years? The longest I’ve ever lived in one place is seven years: my average is a lot closer to two or three. But I pictured myself twenty years in the future, still living there. My imaginary Future Me was being very grateful to imaginary Past Me for creating such a pretty space, which made current Present Me a lot more tolerant of my efforts.

All that said, tomorrow I will be back at it. I’m not excited, but it’s going to be really nice someday very, very soon.

When I was in Arcata, a year — or maybe a lifetime? — ago, Suzanne’s stepson, J, was living in her backyard, in a building known as the Tiniest House. It is — was? — maybe the former garage, sorta remodeled for habitability. I say “maybe” because it doesn’t really look like a garage to me. If there was a garage door, it’s long-gone, replaced by a wall, and the ceiling is sloped, with skylights.

But I say “sorta” because while it has a bathroom, it didn’t (apparently) have hot water. While it has nice laminate flooring, they mistakenly installed the flooring without putting a moisture guard between it and the ground, so the floor needs to be redone. While there is a tiny kitchen area, they’d stopped construction midway through the job, so the countertop is unfinished and the cabinets have no doors, with the plumbing open to the room. There was no heat and the electricity was unchanged since maybe the 1950s?

Although J was managing fine, and had been for years, he was also talking about moving out. I claimed first dibs, if and when he did. It was theoretical. Maybe a plan for when I got tired of traveling, a few years in the future. Maybe a plan for when Suzanne retired, several years in the future. Maybe a plan for when one of us or both of us had enough money to really fix up the place as it needed.

Or, you know, maybe a plan for when the world is having a major pandemic and I’m trying to live in a street. That could be the right time, too.

So, yeah, plans for fixing up the Tiniest House have been occupying much of my attention and internet time recently. We started with the electricity: it’s now been inspected and confirmed safe by an actual electrician and an electrical wall heater has been installed. In the quest to figure out what exactly was wrong with the plumbing in order to talk to a plumber about it, we discovered that the plumbing is fine, hot water included. On our every-other-week CostCo run, I discovered that CostCo had mattresses on sale, so started my home-spending by buying a mattress.

And now I’m painting, because I am pretty sure I can live in a space that’s 108 square feet. But I am pretty sure I cannot live in a space that’s bright orange and green.

Isolation offers a lot of time for self-reflection. In the grand scheme of things, self-reflection is pretty close to infinitely more worthwhile than reading the news, following social media, or watching the death toll tick up on the Washington Post map tracker, but I’m sick of it nonetheless. The line between insight and insult is too easy for me to cross.

Yesterday Suzanne and I took the dogs to the park after dinner and while we were there, she said, “That dinner was so good.” Then she laughed and said, “Is that the fourth time I’ve said that?” Yep.

It made me laugh, though, because dinner was grilled cheese sandwiches and soup. So exciting, yes? Admittedly, the grilled cheese sandwiches were made with caramelized onions, and the soup was sweet potato with ginger, smoked paprika, brown rice and spinach, so, yeah, it was good. And the relevance is that whenever the level of self-insult rises too high, at least I can remind myself that I taught myself to cook. Making a fantastic grilled cheese sandwich is not the world’s least accomplishment.

The weather is warming up in Arcata — which means it was 48 instead of 44 when I left to go on my morning walk with Zelda, and that it might hit 62 this afternoon. I am not complaining, though, because I know how hot it is in Florida and how miserable we would be if we were living there in the van while it was 95 degrees.

Zelda actually really loves this weather. She’s always eager to walk. I keep threatening her with a harness because she wants to run and I don’t like being dragged. Yes, my 18-pound, 15-year old dog is dragging me down the street. That’s good news.

I have no other news. I’m social-isolating like a good pandemic survivor, but Arcata in general seems to be starting to relax. Maybe it’s the weather; maybe it’s that there’ve been no new cases in Humboldt County for the past six days. I’m judging the relaxation by the number of people wandering by the van during the day and the number of people I see out when I’m walking the dog. I passed seven people on my walk yesterday, feeling guilty every time for having forgotten to wear the mask that Carol kindly sent me. Masks are running about 50/50, I think.

Yesterday, I made the Washington Post’s maple-mustard chicken thighs with cabbage. The day before it was gluten-free pizza, made with pesto & goat cheese instead of tomato sauce. On Saturday, we had cornmeal-crusted rockfish with jalapeño tartar sauce. On Friday, I made meatloaf with sautéed mushrooms as the binding agent, and roasted sweet potatoes. The common ingredient? Mostly the oven. I don’t think an oven is an essential kitchen tool — I can survive without one — but I’ve been enjoying having it. (The rockfish was pan-fried, though.)

Suzanne and I are also planning lots of house projects. Her kitchen currently has multiple splotches of yellow paint on the walls, and I’m fairly sure we’ve selected the winner. Next step, primer. Tomorrow the electrician comes to update the electricity in the Tiniest of Tiny Houses, and we’ve been browsing electric wall heaters online. Also mattresses and beds. It feels weird in the midst of the worldwide pandemic to be nesting, but maybe that’s exactly the right time to be nesting.

In writing, I seem to be working on Cici 2 again, although not very efficiently. Departing the planet feels like the right choice, though. I’d like to get back into my other story, but it’s just so hard to drown out my own pandemic knowledge in order to let my characters have fun at Disney World. I’ve written some snippets, too, while trying to find a story. Here’s one I wrote last week, funnily enough several days before Jenny Crusie posted a chicken snippet on her blog. Do pandemics put chickens on the mind? Maybe…

I like chickens. 

They’re such honest animals. They’re out for whatever they can get. They’re not nice, they’re not friendly, they don’t need to be.Their survival is their highest priority. 

People use their name like it’s an insult. “You chicken.” It means you’re a coward, right? But it should mean that you’re a survivor, willing to do whatever it takes  — peck, claw, screech — to get yours. 

Okay, sure, they’re kinda stupid. Slight problem there. But still, when my brother called me a chicken, I just narrowed my eyes and glared at him. I’m not stupid like a chicken, I don’t need to fall for that. 

“Go on, Kylie. You can do it.” He shoved my shoulder blade, just a little. Not such a hard shove that it was gonna knock me down or anything, but enough that if our mom had been watching — if our mom cared anymore — I could have complained and gotten him in trouble. 

But our mom wasn’t watching. She was sitting on the couch, staring at the television, her face as blank and dead as a zombie in one of the movies we weren’t supposed to watch. You could tell she couldn’t really see what she looking at. It was all just noise and flickering light to her. Maybe not even that. 

“I’m not going down there.” The open door was like a black hole, a portal to a netherworld of nightmare. 

“We need more beans. The beans are in the basement. Someone’s gotta get them and I gotta stir the eggs or they’ll burn.” 

“I can stir the eggs,” I suggested. 

“You’re not supposed to touch the stove.” 

I folded my arms across my chest, mutinous. 

“Go on,” Bradley snapped again. “Go on or you ain’t eating tonight.” He waved his wooden spatula at me threateningly, like maybe he was going to hit my head with it. 

I pointed at him. “Touch me with that and I will peck your eyeballs out.” 

He rolled the eyeballs in question. “Go. Get one of the bags of beans. And maybe a jar of peaches if there’s still a couple on the shelf.” 

I dropped my arms. Peaches? I liked peaches. A lot more than beans. 

And if I was a chicken — not the coward kind, but the survivor kind — I’d be willing to do a lot for peaches. I eyed the door again. 

It was dark down in the basement. Dark and smelly. But peaches… 

I held out my hand. “Gimme a knife.” 

“What? No.” Bradley stuck the spatula back in the eggs and stirred. 

“I want a weapon.” 

He sighed. “Here.” He grabbed a wooden spoon from the jar next to the stove and handed it to me, shaking his head. 

Fingers tight around the handle, I approached the doorway cautiously. 

Rereading it, I so want to know what’s waiting in the basement for her. Something must be!

I admit, I am one of the obnoxious people using the pandemic to learn a new skill. But if it’s comforting, I’m being terrible about the things I actually should be doing (you know, like marketing the book I released a few months ago or writing a new book). And I’m very much enjoying learning my new skill. It’s probably not quite as soothing as Animal Crossings would be, but it’s not far off.

In actual news, yesterday was my birthday and I managed to have a really nice day, despite the end of the world busily happening. Mostly because Suzanne rocked the “giving your friend a good birthday” skill. Also because R sent me a birthday text which at least reassured me that he was alive. (Does that sound bitter? I don’t mean it that way. My sense of litost has faded and mostly I’m just really sad that he feels the way he feels. But he’s an adult and even if he weren’t, we don’t get to control other people’s feelings.)

Back to the birthday fun: the cupcake store is closed, but is doing special orders, which meant I couldn’t get a single gluten-free cupcake, but I could get a dozen of them. Carpe diem! I’m sharing, but I’ve still eaten three. They’re grasshopper cupcakes, which are chocolate with a chocolate fondant layer, and then mint buttercream icing topped with chocolate chips and an Andes mint. Just writing about them makes me want to go eat a fourth.

But after yesterday’s first cupcake, we went to the beach. An isolated, northern California style beach — the closest we came to other human beings was well within the social distancing 6 feet and probably closer to the realistic 22 feet that airborne pathogens can spread from a cough or sneeze. We brought all three dogs and I let Zelda off leash, which I don’t usually do these days since she a) can’t hear and b) can be quite forgetful, including forgetting that she’s supposed to stay near her people. But it was a big empty beach with plenty of room for her to run around within my line of view. She had a lovely time. She’s so tired today that when I went in the house for lunch today I couldn’t even convince her to raise her head off the bed, much less accompany me, but I’m sure she would say it was worth it.

After a couple hours at the beach, we came back to the house and while I spent some time on the phone, Suzanne went and picked up take-out sushi that we had pre-ordered from a local restaurant. She built a fire in the backyard fire pit and we ate our delicious sushi fireside. Afterwards, I toasted Peeps over the fire and Suzanne toasted marshmallows, having decided after last year’s Peep-toasting that they were too dangerous. Caramelized sugar is hot enough to make for a painful burn.

We sat by the fire and chatted until the sun went down and the colorful solar lanterns lit up and the fire turned to coals, then embers, then ashes. All three dogs stayed close and Tank, the supposedly feral black cat, came and sat in my lap and purred at me for a while. Fortunately, I had my lovely cloth face mask around my neck still (thank you, Carol!) so I put it back on and managed to escape without too much of an allergic reaction.

In between the beach and the fire, I checked my email and I had the loveliest email from a reader about A Precarious Magic. It was such icing on the cake of a nice day. I know I haven’t done a good job of marketing A Precarious Magic — my March goal was to rewrite the blurb, and I didn’t even manage to do that — but the book business in general has been so bad for me in the last year that I’ve really questioned why I bother. But L wrote, “your books never fail to make my days better.” That’s worth writing for. I read Suzanne the entire email and she told me to print it, frame it, and hang it on my wall, and if I had a wall, I actually might. Vans don’t really have a lot of wall space, though. 🙂