The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Manda



For most of my life, I've had a plan of some kind. Most of the time those plans have been fairly normal-- e.g. I made it through college, got a good job, bought a house-- but have become ultimately dissatisfying. Sometimes those plans seemed insane on the face of it-- e.g. my first trip out of the U.S. had me landing in London with $300, a work permit and a dream-- but worked out well.

For the last few months I've been operating with no plan at all, and this scares me. Even a completely crazy plan (on the face of it) is better than feeling aimless.

And then, three days ago on craigslist, a plan began to take shape. I found a houseboat for sale near San Francisco for $3200. I thought to myself, "Manda, you HAVE $3200 saved. You were just going to waste it anyway. Why not waste it on something that only might be a disaster instead of something that certainly would have been?"

I sent the sellers an email after doing the math on what it would cost to keep the thing moored until I can get there. It was possible. It could be done! And it would give me a Plan.

The ad was a little sparse on details regarding plumbing for this rig. Or a refrigerator. Or the electrical supply. And I know next to nothing about boats.

So it's probably for the best that the sellers didn't write me back.

Still, I was disappointed. More like crushed, actually.

So now this is all I can think about. I looked at an ad for a lovely sailboat today. I know even less about sailboats than I do about houseboats.

So today, I think I want to spend next year living on a boat in California. Is that so wrong? Surely I can learn what I need to know. I'm smarter than the average bear.

So, yes, this idea is insane, but sometimes that's the best kind. It's almost sure to be a disaster, but not as potentially disastrous as some of the other ideas I've kicked around here. It would be unassailably cool. And the disaster is always so much more interesting than when things go according to plan.