today i attended an estate sale at the mystery house on the corner of my street. often josh and i would question the fact that nobody was ever there, but an eerie blue light, much like a computer screen, would remain on in the upstairs window. for eight months, nobody occupied the house, an adorable red brick thing on the corner. it was one of those flat front brick houses; probably there before my house was built, with tall, rounded windows that had swirling black iron over the bottom half of them. historical.

the tenants, we concluded, were in their winter home on the sunny shores of Florida. vacationing from never finding a parking spot near their house in the snow.

the mystery house's interior is an absolute wreck: the walls were yellowed, even brown (at the intersection of wall and ceiling) and the majority of the ceiling was shredding off in strips. one could contend that she was a smoker, this Sarah Jo Barth (i peeked at a single piece of mail sitting in her mailbox from the City of Buffalo. was this her death certificate?), as everything inside was cast with unfathomable dinge. the once wallpapered hallway exposed layer after stained layer of the history of the house: i wanted to see what the very first layer was, what year it was put there. the corners of the house smelled strongly like skunk. i like to imagine feral cats claiming chairs and creating villages out of this woman's withered books. the furniture was remarkably high quality AND out of my price range, although i would trade my shitty Target Wobbly Desk for a mahogany end-table with brass knobs and a velvet-lined drawer and just make due.

there is no continuity of objects in my bedroom; there is a halo of cloth and denim surrounding my bed.