1:53 a.m. Do houses dream of other houses while we sleep?

Today I had the oddest set of reactions, feelings, moodiness -- all because I went to look at a house. A very pretty, very ornate Victorian from the turn of the century, which in itself is very very rare for this part of the world. Most of this paradise was paved long ago.

We're not looking for a new house or anything. We just like to look. We're not interested in changing anything -- we just like to see what's out there. Let's call it research. We like to keep our membership in the Future Achievers of America active. So we go and we look. No harm.

The house we saw was cozy; our house is airy. That house has nooks and crannies and a big round turret; our house basically *is* a big round turret tricked out here and there with a nook, a cranny.

That house made me very, very depressed, and I really don't know how that could be when the house itself was as beautiful as any sane person could ever want a house to be. I think the deep, deep historicity of the place forced me to look backward, rather than forward.

Yeah. That must be it. When you go into a house you might want to live in, you walk right into a magic machine that projects your future for you right there against the walls and floors and ceilings. But the future in that place was the past. If I lived here ... how would I feel? The way I used to? Who would I be? Who I was?

Would it change me, or would I change it? Yeah. That was it. There would have been a battle at that house between me and the walls, and that house would have won. It's older and wiser. It has bigger secrets and deeper, darker roots. My little schemes would have been wind in the eaves and ten more years would pass before I remembered that I can't.

It was a dreamy house, and I will take its picture and for those of you who share my house-lust, you will drool. You will say it's one of the prettiest you've ever seen. You will want to go inside and slowly consider moving there, just like I did.

But unlike the strange house in The House of Leaves, this one was smaller inside than outside. The reality was a tighter fit than the capacious dream I was spinning as I lingered on the street outside and looked at the dancing ivy, the mustard trim, the bay windows.

So, I came home somewhat chagrined that I'd strayed and thought of living somewhere else, even for an hour. I hope this house doesn't find out about my little dalliance with another property while I'm sleeping tonight.