Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House (30 page)
Read Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House Online
Authors: Meghan Daum
When I think back on the places I’ve lived, I now wonder this: I wonder if the real measure of “home” is the degree to which you can leave it alone. Maybe appreciating a house means knowing when to stop decorating. Maybe you’ve never really lived there until you’ve thrown its broken pieces in the garbage. Maybe learning how to be out in the big world isn’t the epic journey everyone thinks it is. Maybe that’s actually the easy part. The hard part is what’s right in front of you. The hard part is learning how to hold the title to your very existence, to own not only property, but also your life. The hard part is learning not just how to
be
but mastering the nearly impossible art of how to be at home.
For their insight, generosity, and patience, the author would like to thank Robin Desser and Sarah Rothbard at Knopf, Tina Bennett and Svetlana Katz at Janklow & Nesbit, Susan Brenneman and Nick Goldberg at the
Los Angeles Times
, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and Alan Zarembo.
Meghan Daum is the author of the essay collection
My Misspent Youth
and the novel
The Quality of Life Report
, a
New York Times
Notable Book. Her column on political, cultural, and social affairs appears weekly in the
Los Angeles Times
and is distributed nationally through the McClatchy news service. She has contributed to public radio’s
Morning Edition, Marketplace
, and
This American Life
, and has written for numerous publications, including
The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, GQ, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar
, and
The New York Times Book Review
. She lives in Los Angeles.
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2010 by Meghan Daum
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Daum, Meghan, [date]
Life would be perfect if I lived in that house / Meghan Daum.—1st ed.
p. cm.
“This is a Borzoi Book.”
eISBN: 978-0-307-59360-3
1. Daum, Meghan, 1970—Homes and haunts. 2. Real estate business—Humor. I. Title.
PS3604.A93Z46 2010
814′.6—dc22 2009037002
Out of concern for the privacy of individuals depicted here, the author has changed the names of certain individuals, as well as some of the addresses and certain identifying details about individuals and houses, such as exact home prices.
v3.0