Dear Dirty America

Wishing that family all the best…kind of

Even though this house has been sold (probably to a friendly family) I won’t stop dreaming about it at night. Or in the morning, either. I’ve been salivating over this abode for a few weeks. Rabidly lusting after it in hopes of signalling help from the Universe to get me there. You know, the goddamned Secret of manifestation? I’m tired of throwing so much rent money into a meaningless black hole.

And now that there’s a family moving into that house, I will not stop doing deep, detailed meditations where, in a trance-state, I wander the spacious hallways and intimate balconies of this home. I imagine the cool polished wooden floor beneath my feet. My fingers register the coarse white walls. My nose tingles with the natural smell of old wood and plaster. I open the balcony door, and I take pleasure in the weightiness of the sliding doors. My muscles lightly tense to open them. Outside, on the balcony, the L.A. air cools my skin and reeks of barbecued meat.

If that family claims there’s a ghost tromping around like a late-night lunatic, they’ll be right. It’ll be my essence, my ‘ghost’, floating out of its corporeal body, spread in bed in a dingy apartment about a mile away.

My soul can travel far. My soul is bright. I’ve been everywhere in spirit. But it’s only my soul, and I have a nearly impossible time dragging behind it my body. Whoever bought this house might, out of the corner of his eye, see my naked figure lazing in the afternoon sun on that second floor balcony. The main floor will always smell like freshly brewed coffee. I won’t move out. I’m far too stubborn, and far too German to give in.

After dark, about midnight or so, I’ll be staring from the top of the house at the stars, and imagining colonies on the moon and the unknown planet that mysterious female body dubbed Mona Lisa E.B.E. came from before she tragically crashed her ship into the moon’s craggy dark side.

Life’s a bitch for a lot of creatures, not just mankind, and not for just those on living on earth. Hell, even Justin Bieber’s restless, and he’s got hundreds of millions of dollars stashed in his pants’ pockets alone. He could have bought my dream house, used the toilets once, and never walked inside again. What does it matter to him? That bastard. He probably did buy it. He’s probably the one who jacked up the bidding so far out of my reach I can’t even imagine earning that much money in two working lifetimes.

This house is in Los Angeles, and because of that, I would buy two vicious Pitbull dogs to keep vigilant at night. They’d circle the house and sniff for predators. Atop the house is a perfect flat level roof to plant a sub machine gun and maybe even a pillbox. I’d have to assess my financial account and consult with my banking executives about getting a little extra thrown in on the loan to install that kind of high-powered protection. But it’s needed. America is a cesspool of crime. Especially when nobody has work.

There are five bedrooms. That means four extra rooms. An office to continue work on my highly anticipated novel, and to keep DDA rolling. And three other rooms to house friends, family, and guest artists, philosophers, and local politicians.

These dreams were all very vivid dreams until the website where this house is on sale announced the house was, as of recently, under contract. That news acts like a spurting firehose on the fiery persistence of my imaginings. Hell, when Venus valiantly skipped across the sun’s path, I threw out a bid for my dream home. But somebody else beat me to it. Probably in 2004, when the prior Venus transit took place.

I was too young in 2004. I didn’t know I’d end up in LA. I didn’t know that house existed. If I had, I’d have thrown out a very serious wish at that time.

The worst part of all — the old salt in the wounds bit — is the thriving garden I had been tending in the backyard. This new owner or family will no doubt tear the damned thing up. Or, worse yet, take over and assume the garden had been started for them. What about my blueberry bushes? The strawberry patch? The potatoes and lettuce, sweet corn, and onions.

Eat it up, folks! There is no such thing as personal possession. It’s an illusion. It’s not real. You think you own something, but you don’t. All matter comes from the earth. Those hard elements are designed and shaped into products that we buy, and then we call it ours, but when the earth wants them back, she’ll get them. She’ll take them. The universe allocates what it wants to who it wants, and when. Your body isn’t even your body. You’re borrowing it. It’ll fall off you like a heavy winter coat drops from the shoulders of the little old lady as she stumbles, for the last time, out of the cold and through that familiar doorway, and into her home.