As I was trying (for four hours) to fall asleep last night, I realized that all the stories I write are basically set in my house. I’m not very good at visualizing things, and the house that is easiest for me to visualize is the one in which I am currently writing. I’m okay with that. My house is a good house. It is a house that can hold stories. It is light and open and comfortably furnished and clean and just generally all-American. I feel quite comfortable here, and I am sure that my fictional creations do as well.

I do not find most houses I visit to be that comfortable. Part of this is probably because they are not my house. My house is the pinnacle of all houses, because I am used to it, and no other house will be as well-worn with memories of myself as my own house. However, that is not the whole answer. Because there are houses in which I am more comfortable and houses in which I am less comfortable. As I pondered the conundrum of house comfortableness (for several hours), I developed a theory.

My postulation is: All the life of an American household takes place somewhere between the television and the refrigerator – I call this the Television/Refrigerator Axis. Either this strikes you as self-evident, or it does not. If it doesn’t, then you are a bad person.

This postulation gave rise to an epiphany that I call the Television/Refrigerator Axiom, which states: “I cannot feel comfortable in any home where the shortest path between the television and the refrigerator requires walking through a doorway.”*

Please keep this in mind when engaging in any future construction or renovation.

*Ideally I should be able to stand at the refrigerator, look over my shoulder, and see the television, but that is not required.