tiny house dreaming

Before I made the move from beautiful Rockridge to trailer life in cemetery territory, I engaged in a rigorous process of elimination. I didn't really want to pay the costs of taking over a lease in the city, partly because of the inevitable roommate problems, but mainly due to how school and part-time work tended to keep me in a more modest tax bracket than many landlords believe ideal. With that option out of the way for the time, I embarked on an extensive investigation of the live-aboard option but came up with nothing workable, however I promise to thrill readers with those particulars later on.

At about this juncture, I was taking this great environmentalism class taught by a real life eco-Nazi, tree huggin’ and a kissin’, activist type dude who calls himself Andy Peri. In the course text they had a section on alternative living that featured a sidebar on “tiny homes”. I did a bit of research and fell hook-line-and-sinker in love with the concept, much the way I had become smitten with the notion of living on a boat, living in a converted bus, living in a clay fired dwelling of my own making, and any number of other inspirations that formerly fell to the wayside, but not the way wayside; they’re still floating around out there along the perimeter of my mindscape and on recurrent, if unscheduled, patrols they get tossed the sporadic morsel to keep them sustained as back-up in case the current plot de jour flies off the bandwagon as well.

I came up with a way to swing a purchase of one those little dream castles with enough space for a middleweight bachelor and an eleven-pound assemblage of fur, tooth, claw and attitude. But where to put the thing? I figured it would fit snugly into one of San Francisco’s many charming rear gardens and look no more intrusive than some stately tool shed. It would require no more than a basic utility hookup and some fortunate party could have a fussless tenant, on-site security, and a wee cash cow chomping quietly in the backyard. I posted my offer on Craigslist with photos and links concerning the coming tiny house revolution but it was just another sorrowful instance of a dude a tad too ahead of his time.
There were no takers, but the offer still stands. Yo.

With all this manly marina/construction talk it seems as good a time as any to hear something in the lower ranges. Ramon Vargas sings "Una Furtiva Lagrima" (A Secret Tear) from Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore (The Elixir of love).