Plaid Shorts and Black Socks

Saturday afternoon I noticed that the place across the street had a for sale sign in front of it. What a coincidence. I put my house up for sale on a street that hasn't had a sale in nearly two years, and suddenly the guy across the street gets a bug up his ass to sell. I think he looked up the asking price for my property and his eyes got very big. Of course the first thing I did was to check what the price was on his place. It's a decent price considering he has no pool, no landscaping (just dried out weeds), and no taste in remodeling (I've been inside his building). I'd have been pissed if he was undercutting me.

This whole house selling thing has got me on edge. Last night I dreamt I was in my living room and my house was full of people mocking everything I owned... oh, and I was naked. It's a very personal thing to sell the home you've lived in for over twenty one years. For one thing there is the graveyard outside my kitchen door. I have six cats and a dog buried out in the dog run and it will be difficult to leave them there. I've tried to discourage any future owner from digging around back there. I covered one of the cats with concrete and another has a tree growing from her grave. Besides the haunted pet cemetery, there are my trees. I love my trees. I have two live oaks, one of which I planted the month I moved in, that are now towering over the front yard and dripping with Spanish Moss. As strong as my feelings are for this house and all the good times we've had here, I do need a change of scenery. If I don't do something I will slowly morph into a fat old man who wears pink shirts with clashing plaid shorts, and black socks halfway up my calves, just like all the other geezers here in Florida. I need a real city to liven things up. Mark needs no such thing. He's quite happy here in Florida and would be happy to live his days out here. It kind of creeps me out, especially after watching so many of my elderly neighbors slowly fail and die. I'd much rather go back to Chicago and be the aging hipster, the old fart around town, and die the way my grandfather did. That is, the grandfather who lived to a hundred and two years old, not the one who was murdered on the street right in front of his house in Chicago.