I Sometimes Have Trouble Enjoying Myself

So, I read Dwell in the checkout line at Whole Foods.

I think this is why, a few days later I was sort of musing about getting one of those prefab houses someday on some incredible piece of land, with no other houses, far as the eye can see, a glorious vista of wilderness but somehow inexplicably near enough to some urban area that I can drive in for bagels and The Times on Sunday. OK, it has to be Manhattan because those bagels need to be good.

You know, I'm being realistic. It doesn't have to be the actual Phillip Johnson house. It doesn't have to be designed by a famous architect or nothin'. It can be a knockoff of a house designed by a famous architect. I'm not that picky.

So I'm envisioning in my mind's eye the amazing wall of windows that I will have after I win the lottery or it turns out my husband is a billionaire and never told me because he wanted me to love him for himself and then the niggling thought arises: But what about the collapse?

The hordes, you know? The hordes will find us. After the collapse. I mean, I'm not crazy enough to think they'll be actual zombies at that point but they probably will be reduced to savagery from hunger and the radiation or the microbes or whatever follows the overall collapse.

Yeah, a wall of windows. What was I thinking?

I try to sustain the pleasant imaginary life I was leading by considering that perhaps we could have an incredible alarm system or maybe an electrified fence but that's just downright impractical. There won't be electricity after the collapse. Of course, we can have a windmill but who knows if it will still give us electricity once civilization falls.

OK, maybe I'm thinking concrete walls, industrial style, high windows, lookout tower, a few gun sights but with a rooftop deck?

Comments

[Average Jane]

So you're saying you want Penn Jillette's house: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-10-28-at-home-penn-jillette_x.htm

[Jo]

Wait, but what about some sort of underground thing with glass-covered or open-air growing spaces as hallways between the rooms of your warren?

There's some place in California like that. I read about it on the internet. There are, like, microclimates and shit in there.