I'll Be Your Kato

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some are born to be houseguests. Kato Kaelin had it right. Why be known for anything other than being physically present in someone else’s domicile? That is the level of fame/responsibility I am interested in these days. My state of nature is me in somebody else’s linens.  A borrowed mansion, or cabin, or hovel is where I am truly most myself. Being graciously invited as a guest is great. But then there’s one better: housesitting. 

I had the opportunity to prove this theorem over the weekend, when Eva invited my small family to a Connecticut country home. Being from Massachusetts and residing in New York, prior to this weekend, I harbored a hatred for the state of Connecticut almost as much as I detest injustice and people who wave when they are on a boat (Do you wave from any other conveyance?! Just stop!).  Connecticut is the State That Is In The Way. You’ve got Massachusetts- Pilgrims! The Berkshires! Thin-lipped Irish people! And you’ve got New York—the Mario Cuomo Bridge! Randall’s Island! Buffalo! —and then you’ve got Connecticut…. Joe Lieberman? Connecticut, what a snooze. But the Martha Stewart idyll of this past weekend has forced me to revise my position.
 
Eva is now officially a Big Effing Deal (this newsletter is mostly just an Oklahoma! fan blog) and was invited to a lavish shindig of a Broadway doyenne, an invitation she could not even dream of turning down. Except, of course, she did, because, you know, logistics, the life of a producer, etc. That is until a wiser and weekend-housed friend implored, don’t be silly, you idiot, here borrow my house! (To be in the position not only of owning said country house but of lending it out to those in need, I mean, jeez). Fearing a visit from Dick and Perry in the eerily bucolic quiet, Eva brought us along as her fierce security detail.
 

I love to be a guest. If you’ve been to any of my parties, you might assume I also love to host buuuuut you’d be surprised. Hosting, like writing, I enjoy in the past participle—having written, having hosted. Prior to every single holiday party or BBQ on the deck, I go on a tirade about these people (our beloved friends): they come HUNGRY, they come THIRSTY, they poop in the toilet (you know who you are). Worse, they casually toss their subway-infested coats on the bed. This is the only place in my life I am a germophobe. I return the baby’s pacifier dipped in groundwater, but I send that nasty ass party duvet out to be disinfected every time. And then there’s the pre-party requisite handwringing over not having enough food to serve, which is a genetic inheritance from my matrilineal family, for not having a surplus of food at a party is The Greatest Shame.
 
For many years I enjoyed a good run as a go-to house sitter for friends, as they knew I was in inevitably in some form of crappy living situation: loud roommates, cramped quarters, lady orphanages. Cathryne lent me her apartment on Horatio Street for almost two weeks some summers ago. I’d wake up to the sun streaming through the window and drink coffee on her fire escape made from French press, a device I have zero patience for in my life, but in hers, seemed so perfect. Dipping out for a walk in the wending West Village streets, I felt fancy, and also the weight of my loneliness. (On that housesitting stint, I’d forgotten my deodorant and, being broke and single AF, I decided to conduct a money-saving experiment to see if the pheromones released from going au natural would attract a mate. It did not and I got a rash from sweating.) Dina lent me her apartment in Williamsburg when I lived just a few blocks away but hers was free from my gross roommates’ noises. I’d wake to the sounds of softball games beginning at daybreak in the park across the street. Sally and I have lounged and read and cried in horse pose in borrowed manses in St. Paul and Madeline Island. My greatest coup of all was dog sitting for Peter’s late Boston terrier, Mimi (RIP), who summered in sublime restored barn on Nantucket. 

One of the parts I most enjoyed in Brittany Runs a Marathon (a film that is far better than its title suggests) is when our heroine gets a gig dog sitting in some palatial New York abode, the kind you can’t imagine exists on this cramped island until you see they do, and the cramping is a mere function of your poverty (or upper middle-class status almost anywhere else) rather than space itself. It’s not just immersing oneself in luxuries one does not yet possess- high-thread-count sheets, towels that always seem fresh from the dryer, a dryer—but it’s also calming to be inside the life of someone who seems to have it together. There, she can tap into her best self, the self she already is, though obscured by the fact of dingy apartments.
 
The owners this past weekend were so aspirationally organized. All their family photos had matching white frames, the dog toys were all sitting together in a bin, the stuffed otter upright like he might come alive, Velveteen Rabbit-style. All their cleaning supplies were kept neatly arranged in intuitive locations. I was not witness to the labor that went into creating such placidity. It was seamless. Attempting similar feats in my own home doesn’t contain the same touch-free pleasure, because I know the negotiation of time and work.
 
Being in someone else’s place is utterly relaxing in a way that being in my own just is not. Being in my apartment is like being in the inside of my brain, part sanctuary, part psych ward. Even when I’ve carved out time to chill, I cannot unsee the layer of dog hair blanketing everything (Bonnie’s shedding is the boulder and I am Sisyphus), the stack of random papers and files to be sorted, the too-small baby clothes to be donated or put somewhere that doesn’t really exist. Home is a haven but also a workspace. Someone else’s home, on the other hand… heaven.
 
And being a house sitter is the true calling of a writer, and not just because we are broke, but because we are professional psychopaths. Slipping into someone else’s existence, into their most personal essence, immersing in their daily life. The best. 
 
So if you’re reading this, I’m available as a house sitter or even as a houseguest. And if you happen to be disposing of bloody gloves at the time, I will tell the jury I ain’t seen shit.
 
Recommendations!
 
The Shakespeare Requirement—A moment in this book made me laugh harder than anything in literature ever has, and in trying to recount it to Scott I could not stop LOLing. Not sure it will tickle you in quite the same place, but it really got me.
 
Hands on a Hardbody- Good God get yourself the 7-day free Sundance Channel trial membership through Amazon to watch this 1997 doc. It’s sublime.  

The aforementioned Brittany Runs a Marathon- She runs a marathon, and more!
 
Are you not obsessed with the Caroline Calloway/Natalie Beach feud??? I’ve gone deep and dark on the subject. I saw somebody call this the story obsessing white feminist Twitter, and ya know what? Guilty as charged.
 
The aphorism: “The lights are on but nobody’s home.” Topical, yes, given the subject of this newsletter BUT have you stopped recently to revel in how funny and perfect that saying is?
 
Personal nooz:
I am grinding on a draft of my forthcoming book on prison relationships, tentatively titled LOVE LOCKDOWN: Dating, Sex, and Marriage in America’s Prisons, to submit in the spring. I have written many words but they are all the wrong words. Teaser: one of the people I’m writing about is a trans female prisoner named Sherry Berry, whose birth name is Larry Berry and who has a twin brother named Jerry Berry. I shit you not. I hope this fact alone makes the price of your pre-order worth it. Please send thoughts, prayers, and salt & vinegar chips.