My Big, Big House, (with lots and lots of room)

Let me make one thing clear: the USA is my home. The entire nation. From sea to shining sea and beyond to the outer limits overseas. I am not homeless because this nation is my home and I take ownership of the entire place as though it is my personal domain in which I am the master. I have servants working for me in the government to maintain all the necessary operations of such a large estate and I prefer to oversee them with a very hands-off and uninvolved approach.

The last thing I want to do is get in their business and tell them what to do, but if it turns out that they are up to no good and abusing the privilege of working at my estate with such generous benefits as they are granted, then I will step into their day-to-day affairs. I will personally get into everything they do, examine it for the smallest specks of dirt, and set everything as it should be, disciplining, commending, and adjusting as necessary so that their operations are both efficient and in accordance with written standards. Writing down standards, and just about everything else the government does for that matter, is essential because that is how they are held accountable. If they have not been doing that, it is a serious crime and they will be in a lot of trouble.

One of my favorite parts about my home is that it is open to everyone. People can just move in at a moment’s notice without even having met me, and it’s usually fine. I trust people in general enough to allow that as long as the law enforcement servants are making sure that all the house rules are being followed and the chores getting done. If not, then we’ll talk about it personally at a house meeting, find out how best we can help them in the most reasonable and lawful way possible and give them enough time to get on track.

If they can’t get with the program after we’ve exhausted the options of help, then they are going to be told they have to leave within three days in best cases and one day in worst cases. They will have all of their stuff moved out too, or we will do what we see fit to dispose of it to make room for someone else who will do their part. The house rules and chores are extremely easy too! We all do them, and they are necessary that they get done because they are common areas we all use! People, like all of us, do not like having someone else’s dirty laundry or dishes in the way when we may have only limited time for lunch until we have to go back to our jobs and earn our wages to pay our monthly dues.

I don’t care what you do in your own room. No one is going to check unless there is an extreme situation that requires it, such as an emergency, a safety concern, or if it is so filthy, the stench is permeating into the common areas. It may also happen if there is a breach of the house rules that prohibit certain things we are all recovering from after they were abused in the not-so-distant past. However, there will be compelling evidence of a relapse if that happens and whatever the problem is, because it wouldn’t be happening if there wasn’t a problem, we are going to find out what it is and take care of it as soon as possible so we can all get back to our lives.

Those kind of things will not happen unless there is in fact a problem, because nobody wants that to happen. Especially not in their own private place when privacy is limited for all of us when we all live under the same roof. We don’t want to have to do that either because it takes up time from our personal lives for one, and two, it’s awkward and uncomfortable. We probably hate having to do that more than you hate having it done, I would at least because I don’t want those situations to ever happen anywhere.

If someone else in the house is bullying you, let one of the senior residents know who have been there longest, or someone else you trust, and we will put a stop to it as a house and it will stay in house. If it is so bad that we need to get the badges involved we will not hesitate to do so, because there should be no bullying at all in this place. People have moods, sometimes get overwhelmed by their emotions, or they may just have trouble communicating, and those can be minor problems, but that’s not the same thing.

It’s simple. We have some written rules that we all signed and agreed to abide by. That is a promise to everyone who lives here and yourself, and those rules have been around for a long time, a lot longer than I’ve been here. They’ve proven to be effective and reliable, so we aren’t going to bend them or break them without careful consideration together at a house meeting. It may be something as simple and easy as granting an extension of time on the monthly dues without a penalty because someone just started a new job and hasn’t been paid yet, but we will talk about it, propose a solution, and then vote on it.

Nobody here is trying to screw anyone else over! None of us own this house, most of us spent some time in the klink, and all of us are recovering from a dangerously powerful, life threatening, and overwhelmingly self-destructive past we now reject for a new and better life we’ve become aware of and choose to accept. My point is, the world is going to keep turning whether we pay the bills or not and they need to get paid because none of us intend to go back out on the streets or to the klink because it is good to have a roof over our heads, food to eat, and most importantly, freedom to live our lives as we want.

We are all helping each other here, and if you aren’t helping, you are going to be sent away to anywhere else, because it only takes an instant for the monster of that past which we have rejected to destroy everything we have worked for to get our lives back. One single drink of poison can cause the monster to return at full strength and be worse than ever. Not the little monster it was in the beginning that we thought we could live with. The one at the end that destroyed everything in our lives; marriages, careers, public offices, families, friendships, bank accounts, and more— that deadly monster it became at the end will be back like it never left.

That’s why we all take this so seriously. It is life-savingly important that we do. Simply taking it seriously is one of the things that helps us recover our lives the way they should be and keep them that way securely.

It’s like that. So, I’m the master of the house because there wasn’t one before I took that role when I moved in. Although everyone was willing to do it, nobody seemed to want to and it made no difference to me, so I did it because it was convenient for everyone, but I would have done anything else were the open spot different. It’s not like I get any special privileges for that anyway! Nor am I overseeing everyone who lives here like some overlord tyrant pretending to be everyone’s parent or worse, a false deity. I still have to pee in the cup if I get drawn for the random or if one of you picks me to when it’s your turn to pick someone. I pay the same amount of dues, I don’t get a special room or cabinet, I rotate on the chore list the same, and I have expectations and duties I am supposed to fulfill specifically for the role.

It’s mostly for the function of the house so that we can do all that important stuff at the house meeting most efficiently and reliably and get back to our private lives without wasting anybody’s time. Each of us have roles to make that happen, and being the president of the house is no more important than the treasurer, the secretary, or the chore inspector.

…and now for the initial thought I had in mind when I started this. I am good with my accomodations. I know the room is the smallest one, but that is the way I prefer it. I am comfortable in confined spaces, which is one of the reasons why I had no problem being on submarines. A house with a bunch of rooms needs people and things to fill those rooms and I would have stress and anxiety trying to find what could do that because I am relatively simple and don’t want much more than a good game room. Even better if my bed can be in that room like it is now in my cozy studio. I have no desire to move out because I find it good living here for a multitude of reasons that vastly outweigh the nuisances of living in a 100 year old building in the middle of downtown.

Downtown Portland, in Oregon of the Pacific Northwest, where there are plenty of vampires who prowl about at night looking for an open window to enter, and occasionally werewolves howl wildly in frenzied states under the full moon waking everyone on the block up. Not to mention witches brewing up their… whatever the hell it is they do, because you never know with them what they are up to, even when they actually do it. I’m okay here. I don’t want to move in with you.

You can move in with me though, because although it is just a studio, it’s rather roomy, and has enough space for me to be comfortable with one other person sharing. Also, life is exceedingly difficult in the USA right now with the tyrant overlords the way they are trying to micromanage everyone’s private lives as if we work for them and not the other way around. Curse those brutes.