Walking a dog

We are house-sitting for friends in one of those neighborhoods where everything looks the same. It's quite pretty and it was especially so today, everything sort of drenched and lush. Greener and more vibrant than you'd imagine.

But it's weird walking around with each house looking identical to the one we are watching. I keep thinking I could just walk up any one of the tiled driveways and use my key to open the door. Probably there are only four or five different floor plans. What are the odds that two of these maybe 300 hundred houses have one room decorated in the exact same way? Maybe both families went to Ikea; maybe both appreciated modern, concise design.

I think I'd love to be a realtor because then I could go into so many different houses.

It's also strange walking around because to me there's something about the kaleidoscopic effect of so many identical houses that makes it feel as if no one else is home. Like some kind of post-apocalyptic movie where the dog and I are the only ones left. We should gaze into each others' eyes, the dog and I , and then look to the sky, searching for life.

If the dog we're watching and I were the only living beings left in the world, here are a few things we would do:

1) We'd drive everyone's cars and park them in interesting formations. I'd tell the dog that this is a new art form, and he, being a dog, could do nothing but heartily agree. I'd create a little magazine about the movement and deliver said magazine to my own mailbox once a month.
2) We would break into the mall and pretend that zombies were attacking us. If zombies did attack, we'd move our operations to one of those super stores, preferably Target because I like their dishware.
3) The dog and I would have to learn how to cook. We'd just have to.
4) Go into everyone else's house. Like realtors.

There really is nothing quite as lonely as walking through a neighborhood seemingly devoid of all other life. Save, I suppose, the lawns and the trees and the flowers and the mosquitoes. But mosquitoes, as we all know, do not good neighbors make.

Walking around with the dog, I find myself thinking a lot about the future. I don't know if it's all the post-apocalyptic imaginings or something else, but I can't seem to help it. I haven't heard yet whether or not I got a job. Waiting like this is like slowly stretching your spine until it cracks, or like hitting the snooze button and going right back into a dream, or it's like letting the facet drip water into the sink until the sink is full and it overflows.