The weirdest house in the world

I'm in San Francisco at the RWA National Conference (Romance Writers of America). I'm trying to soak up all the craft workshops I can so that next week (fingers crossed) when I begin editing my completed (fingers crossed) manuscript, I might have half an idea of what I'm doing (fingers crossed). I would rate myself as an excellent editor for other people's stuff. Then I lose my mind, objectivity, and basic working knowledge of grammar when it comes to my own work.

You'd think with all the rubbing of published authors' shoulders I've been doing (and I mean that in the metaphorical sense, not the creepy sense in which I would randomly offer published authors shoulder massages or brush up against them in the confines of an elevator), that's what I'd be blogging about.

You'd think so. But you'd be wrong.

Nope, today I'm thinking about what is currently one of the stranger houses I know of, elevated to a new height of strangeness by the arrival of me, Kenny, and the baby. It is my ex's house, and his wife's and their son's.

It's pretty cool as houses go. It's packed neatly in between Victorian revivals and less ambitious homes that have so far escaped regentrification. But this house, this very cool house, is regentrified right down to it's newly reinforced joists. It sits in the Mission district, just up the street from Emmy's Spaghetti Shack where up-and-coming chefs drop in to try out new stuff but meatballs as big your head are a menu constant. My ex, referred to from here on out as BJO, is a contractor and they recently remodeled this place. Cool custom concrete countertops, funky bathroom tiles, original abstract art on the walls, gorgeous oak floors. A pretty cool San Fran hang out.

So, it's not weird because of how it looks, or because I can't figure out if the picture in the foyer is popped balloons or just red blobs at the end of black squiggles. It's weird because I'm here with my ex, his wife, their son, our son, my husband and our baby. And it doesn't feel uncomfortable at all. BJO is playing with my baby on the floor; his wife is roasting an incredible smelling chicken upstairs, the son we share is regaling us with accounts from horse camp this week (there's a chicken named Barbecue which seems funny and sad), and BJO's son is climbing all over my lap and chattering gamely.

And it's strange that it's all so comfortable.

This is a weird house.

But I'm glad.