1
I begin this writing with the declaration that, as of yesterday, I am a “property owner.” Scare quotes are appropriate as I am considered one who now owns versus rents though I own no property. Or it doesn't feel like I do. I have a mortgage. I am in further debt today than I was yesterday. In fact, I have never been this deep in debt. Even when I went back to college and amassed a fuck load of debt, I was still not anywhere near as in debt as I am at this moment.
David Graeber wrote a famous book about the history of debt. I’ve had it on my shelf to read for years, but I fear I will be depressed by page four.
David Graeber’s book is one of thousands I packed in the last two weeks. Currently, I have about sixty boxes of books waiting to be moved. This sounds like a lot to some people, but know that the number should be closer to eighty. I arrive at sixty because I foolishly packed large boxes with books, boxes that are not meant for books, boxes that are too heavy for a normal human to lift. I pray the movers I hired possess preternatural strength.
In the fortnight since I started packing, my back has twice rebelled. Once when I tested the weight of one of the large boxes of books and again as I tied my shoes. I stretch each morning and find long walks and even a few jogs restorative, but I know that the progress I’ve made toward health and physical strength has been compromised simply because I cannot part with most of the, I dunno, six thousand books I’ve accumulated.
I have this idea that I will both organize and count my books as I unpack them. Instead of the ramshackle system that has served me well enough in the decade I’ve lived in my apartment, I will have the library sorted by author, subject, maybe geography? The prospect excites me, but I know there’s no order coming. And I know that I’ll grow the library once I’m in the new digs, because that is what I do. If I move again, which would not be for (hopefully) another decade, who knows the number of books that’ll need packing?
Maybe, in this imagined future, I will sell the bulk of the library and keep only the essential volumes, a final library before I check out. Yeah, right.
Thinking of a future move while approaching the present one (in one week, dear lord) is silly. Why think that far ahead? Who knows what the fuck will happen? My life may be in any number of shapes, so why speculate? Worry about today. And next week. Fucking hell… one week and the movers will be here, cursing me.
I plan to pad the moving bill with a healthy gratuity. And I’m expecting the bill will exceed the quote, as I told the movers to expect a two-bedroom apartment. I made no mention of the number of books in this domicile, but hey, they’re pros, right? That stated, the sixty boxes should take a bit of time to haul. And then there’s the distance between residences, the real subject of this essay (one of them, at least). Here goes.
2
I am moving from the far-north Chicago neighborhood of Rogers Park to a far-south one close to where I grew up. This both excites and scares me. What if, after all this time, I am too much a north sider to adjust to the south? What if all the things I loved about the north side when I moved here in 1993 are absent in the south side?
These were my first thoughts, but I beat them back with reminders that 1. I rarely enjoy the things I used to enjoy about where I live, 2. I spend most nights at home, 3. I’ve made my home the best place for me in the city, 4. it has all my books and art and my couch and bed and cheap booze and a kitchen with better food than a lot of the paces I might drop a buck, 5. there are cafés and bars and eateries and distractions aplenty in other parts of the city, 6. I still have friends in the south side I would love to see more of, 7. most of my family will be closer, 8. I will own (not really) rather than rest and that allows me to finally have a pile of bricks with which to do more or less as I please.
There are further rationalizations and assurances, but eight seems like a nice number.
I’ll miss a few things. The lake. I can walk there in five minutes. That’s a nice perk of Rogers Park. I’ll miss the Red Lion Pub, which I only visit once or twice a year, but in theory could frequent more often. I retain nostalgia for the place, as it was my favorite bar for a long time, well before the remodeling. I see it as a physical representation of the kid who came to the north side eager for literary talk and an elevated experience that I, because I was a callow prick, didn’t find where I was. That stated… there are plenty of fake pubs where I’m going.
We all do this, right? Let nostalgia color our perception. Assign outsized value to places? Imbue the mundane with meaning. We do this in ways that seem ridiculous to others, perhaps, but I don’t think I’m alone, and I know that however much I may rhapsodize about bars or bookstores of past, were these places around today I may rarely if ever bother making a trip there. Chicago of 2026 is unlike Chicago of 1993, to me at least. My treasured landmarks are redone as places that young people love and will someday miss when they too go the way of the dodo. So it goes.
[Update from the future—I had to go back to the old apartment and grab a few items that the movers couldn’t get in the truck. Then I drove from Rogers Park to the university where I work in the South Loop. I had time to kill and thought I might take the long way and see some landmarks of the north side, a sort of goodbye to whatever is up there that retains some value in my wayward head. Midway through the commute, dealing with asshole drivers and aching to be done with the drive, I realized that nostalgia is treacly syrup and, when possible, best left unswilled.]
3
The experience of buying property is as dispiriting as expected. Forget that my wife and I have looked at more condos than I can recall over the last three years, few of them worth considering, two of them we dithered over, one we took a shot at before finally landing our big fish. Three years, give or take a few months in each when we decided that looking at uninspiring condos, and truly gorgeous places reserved for the highest paid doctors and runners of Ponzi schemes, was depressing. On more than one occasion I declared home ownership out of reach and likely overrated. Why not rent forever? I have no children to leave my home to. Maybe it’s right to exit this world the way I entered it: naked, screaming, with zero possessions.
But then the apartment would frustrate me. Drafty in winter, costly to cool in summer, creaky floors, a sink prone to clogs, faucet fixtures refusing stasis, poor light, a few electrical issues and a moment or two I’d do well not describing or remembering, thank you very much. That stated, the place is also lovely. Spacious. More than capable of housing books and paintings and other life-affirming artifacts of time well spent. And the rent has been consistently reasonable. My landlady, God bless her, apologized once for having to raise my monthly payment by fifty dollars. In short: were I a single man, like the guy who lives on the top floor of the building, this would be a perfect bachelor pad. Affordable, owned by an accommodating woman (who also owns the local tavern), and while on the wrong side of “vintage,” a charming and mostly comfortable space.
Then again, when my landlady babysits her grandkids, and I hear not the pitter-patter but rolling thunder of little feet above me, I very much want to sign my life away and double my monthly nut.
I thought searching for the ideal home was bad, but once we found ours, the real business of acquiring property hit us. Those who have endured this process even once (and I can’t believe anyone would go through this again) know what I speak of. Banks and lenders and lawyers and inspectors and title companies all needing their pounds of flesh, not to mention the city (Chicago takes a larger bite than most). I’m sure it’s more or less on the up and up, but fuck me if it all doesn’t render a person numb. I was stressed and worried about things until yesterday when we closed and I was too exhausted to care about what I was signing. Now I just feel even and content. It’s done. The many papers are signed and the place is ours. The move it still a week away, but I’m done feeling anything. Which is a relief?
4
Speaking of relief, the month of gathering financials, packing, and simmering stress has sent me to the bottle. One a week, on average. Not a level so bad I worry, but that much intake at my age does have its effects, the worst being in the morning. I don’t experience hangovers so much as poor sleep, a direct result of boozing. Not to the mention a puffy face and fuzzy head.
But then, a quick stretch of the muscles, a jog in the neighborhood, a snack, a shower, and I’m right as fucking rain. Which is when the FEAR returns. I make it to dinner time before breaking my morning vow to abstain. A beer, a coupla whiskies, some cheap relief from the swelling anxieties, a precious reprieve. Begin again tomorrow.
I had this idea that I could make the last month in RP a proper spree and then put the plug in the jug for a bit. Might still, but I’m sure a few lovely pals will help christen my new domain. Not to mention I hear no end of praise for a few of the microbreweries in the vicinity of my digs. Shall I amend the vow so that my sobriety is reserved for the weekdays? Ideally, and really I’m not worried. I don’t feel any crushing dependency, don’t have any shaky hands or DTs when I give it a rest. I only mention this bout of boozing to further illustrate the ways acquiring property can send one around the bend and into the bender.
4
Anyone who stumbles on these ramblings in search of the promised socialist screed has likely fucked off by now. We’re 1,800 words deep and not a Marxist moment to be had. Let’s amend that.
All property is theft, to be sure. I buy that in my bones. Sadly, I have also bought a lot of things that I don’t, in theory, think should be for sale. Specifically: health care, education, healthy food, and, now, property. It’s enough to make a person say, “Fuck you, capitalism.”
“Fuck you, capitalism” has been a recurring cry lately. The securing of a loan and gathering of downpayment monies, not to mention the assessing of finances and budgeting and planning that has been omnipresent well outside the scope of this recent purchase, has me drifting toward Marxist ideas of the sin of property. Not that my ideas align with pure Marxism so much as what reductively is called “Marxist” by those who’ve never picked up Das Kapital.
While I worry that the purest of commies who might call for the dissolving of all private property don’t have perfect plans in place for how exactly that would work, and the state seems pretty bad at managing a lot of things, the government can’t do much worse than the private sector. Were I to adopt an ideology, it would be something close to socialist, but I am loath to ever throw my hat into any one ring. But damn if the DSA isn’t singing a song close to my heart. Today, after signing all those docs and doing all that math, I am singing along at full volume.
I was told that once I bought a place of my own and built equity and saw property values rise I would abandon any pretense of socialism. I was told that a young person could afford to be a liberal and that a wise person swings right when they figure out that the world is the world. Hogwash. I’m a bigger, dirtier leftie now than ever. Because capitalism is so dirty I could never compete. Unfettered and deregulated, the beast is too far off the chain. The agencies have ceded much of their oversight—marvel at the predatory price-gouging and (to borrow a phrase from Cory Doctorow) enshittification. Growth at all costs, even if it costs more. Higher prices for lousier products. Corners cut, earth scorched, slaves enslaved, consumers left feeling empty, looking for the next thing. The void is the end. Let’s jump.
Maybe when I move next week, when I have my stuff freshly arranged, when I spend that first night in my old bed in a new space, I’ll feel a rush of joy and know that I am happy and deep in the capitalist system with a place of my own worth all the cost and concern. Maybe I’ll swear allegiance to the free market. My inner Milton Friedman will emerge and I will see all that is right and good under American skies.
But at the moment, that seems impossible.
