Here I am writing The Phil Factor in my third home in the last 11 1/2 years. It’s because I’m always “on the lam”, staying one step ahead of the law. I wonder if anyone has ever been on the lam on an actual lamb. I think trying to get away quickly while riding a lamb would be ill advised, although if you were on the lam on a lamb you could always eat it if you ran out of food. You can’t do that with a motorcycle. For those of you curious, it is on the “lam”, not on the “lamb”. Yes, I looked it up just to be sure. I have to keep moving, otherwise my mysterious past would catch up with me.
I don’t actually move that much. I moved about a year after starting The Phil Factor in 2005 and stayed there about 10 1/2 years, until I moved yesterday. As the title implies, I moved into a tiny house.
No, that’s not my new tiny house, and truth be told, I did downsize significantly, but not into a tiny house like that. And sadly, my new house isn’t on wheels. What is it with the tiny house people? Sure they save money on property taxes and utilities, but to what end? How many tiny house millionaires have you heard of? If you’re a tiny person I suppose that a tiny house wouldn’t be so bad. Like I said, that’s not me, but right now my life is filled with boxes waiting to be unpacked and me wondering where everything is going to go.
For me, more interesting than my house, is my neighborhood. It’s the kind of neighborhood that you’d find in a Stephen King novel. It’s a small street, just six tenths of a mile long, ending in cul-de-sac. Most people that have never been on the street don’t even know it’s there. The entrance to the street sits between two businesses on a main road. If you stand on the main road and look up the street you can’t really see anything. It turns sharply after about a hundred yards/metres. If you’re looking for it you can just barely see the first driveway but the rest of the street disappears in between tall trees on both sides. After you go around that sharp turn you enter a street that was probably an idyllic little neighborhood when it was built in the 1960’s.
Aside from being a street that seems to be hidden in plain sight, why do I find it a little spooky? Like I said, it stretches off of a main road into nothing. It’s surrounded by woods on all sides. Also, with the exception of a few invaders, most of the homes on the street are occupied by either their original owners, or the children of the original owners. I’m worried that I may have moved into some sort of weird cult neighborhood. (Even if it’s not a weird cult, it’s possible that implying my neighbors are cultists may not be the best way to make new friends)
Thirdly, it has no streetlights. Being away from other main roads or streets and stretching straight into a woodsy area makes it inky black outdoors at night and in the early morning. It’s the kind of darkness that cloys at you and swallows up everything about twenty yards/metres ahead and behind you.
This is my new street
