via oliveryaphe.com
(via a NYT article, I believe, but Oliver Yaphe did not attribute)
I spend an inordinate amount of time daydreaming about winning the lottery. The scenario is the same, although the amounts vary. Sometimes I think it is too greedy to imagine winning a really big powerball jackpot, like $130 million, or $216 million and so I think I will win the powerball after one of those and a mere $17 million would do; or maybe just a $1 million scratch off.
I begin with the amount. And then I deduct taxes and lump sum vs. annuity decisions. And then I pay off my student loan, imagining what it would be like to click the button at Sallie Mae, transferring the full payoff sum. And then, the remodeling begins. Finding the architect, regrading the land, moving out into a temporary house (a hut on the beach in Tulum, Mexico is the usual location I imagine riding out the remodel). And then, moving things back in. But only those things I've cherry picked as absolutely wanting in my newly remodeled house. I leave all the clutter behind. In my closets are neat, monochrome rows of straight hanging pants, coats, shirts, and short lines of shoes. In my kitchen cabinets are stacks of plates with plenty of room to breathe, impossibly straight rows of canned goods, perfectly balanced piles of silverware. The long hardwood floors and high ceilings gleam in the sunlight that floods in through walls of windows.
In other words, in my head, daily, I rebuild my house. Mostly it's sleek and boxy and modern. But some days I decide it would be better to build something new, and I've set my imagination upon a barn house. And this one always comes to mind.
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