The Paper Street Soap Company

Our good friend Adam (from back when we lived in Cleveland) is staying with us right now. He and I are taking the i-impact courses together. Our 3-month course starts this weekend, and Adam has decided to take the plunge and live out here for the whole thing. We're really excited. It's been great having him here, and I think he'll get so much more out of it if he's actually here than if he were doing it via conference calls, emails, etc.

There are some ways in which it's a little weird having someone else in the house, though.

For instance, we've come to think of Meera (our cat) as our little daughter, talking to her as though she were a young teenager who doesn't have to go to school or get a job, but instead lies around the house all day and makes important furniture-scratching contributions to the household. We feed her in the morning and scratch her behind the ears when we come home from work.

Adam doesn't scratch furniture (yet) but he does eat seafood, so he's really just like Meera. As I was dropping him off at work this morning (he's doing temp work for Office Team) I found myself needing to resist the urge to hand him his lunch (like any good mother would) and kiss him good-bye. A small tear formed at the corner of my eye and I felt pride welling up inside me. Our little boy . . . a working man!

<shakes his head to clear the cobwebs>

So maybe it hasn't gotten that weird yet, but it still feels like having a son. Corey and Meera and I have a household, a set of routines, and a certain way of doing everything. And now we have another person here, so we get to adjust and play around with our routines and have family meetings and discussions. And Meera's not the only carnivore in the house anymore. And I got to take Adam to buy his very first cell phone yesterday. (<snif> all grown up!)

Actually, our house feels a little more like that scene in Fight Club, where they convert that old house into a soap-making company (the Paper Street Soap Company), and it's just filled with people all day, going in and out, rendering fat, making lye, pouring molds, and shipping packages (not to mention all of the subversive, mind-blowing, culture-changing projects going on in the other rooms of the house). With all three of us going through this life-transforming seminar, there's a very palpable "changing-the-world" energy in the place. So it's a great place to live. So maybe we'll start selling soap. Or maybe we'll change the world instead. Hmmmm. Hard to decide.

Posted: Wed - August 11, 2004 at 10:39 AM

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The Paper Street Soap Company

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