*open house.

So I need to tell you something, and I need you to suspend your disbelief. What I am about to say is absolutely true, but it won't be easy for you to understand or accept. You may feel yourself growing agitated, incredulous, and perhaps even sputtery when I say what I'm about to say, but I swear on Jake, French fries, and the wrath of trees that I am not lying:

This person is my twin.



OK, that's hard even for me to believe, but my mother assures me that this is the case. I've been tempted to question her further, but she's all, "LABOR PAINS!" and according to recorded history we were ridiculously massive, hungry, greedy little fetuses taking up all her inside space, so I've decided to let her have this one.

Still it's a little unbelievable.

To make matters even more ridiculous, this person (let's see him again for comparison, shall we?)



is building a house. A whole residential structure, with a solid roof and reliable plumbing and electrical wiring he installed himself that meets something they apparently call "code."

I bought the Woodside ready-made and it doesn't have any of those things.

He traipses about this house—a building that wasn't even meant to be a house, something he just put together out of an old Water Works tank-storage midcentury lean-to mishmash with some tools I can't identify and more sweat than can be measured and something he has in his head called "imagination."

I know, it baffles me. I'm like a dog faced with unfamiliar stairs.



I visited this little weekend project, TwinFin having put "erecting a house" where his "drinking margaritas" should be, and noted that this particular talent—being able to craft a functioning homestead out of an empty brick shell—is rather popular with the ladies. They were stunned by his prowess.



I, on the other hand, did my usual utterly concrete and incomprehending wanderings throughout the newly sheetrocked space, pretending I understand in any way how the floor plan will ultimately pan out. Luckily he's added some helpful labels for the spatially impaired such as myself.



That's where the cows will roam, I think.

Everything is very bright and light-flooded and filled with the soothing sense that just because it's raining outside does not mean it will feel damp inside.



A girl could get used to that.

I think we'd all like to tell TwinFin how amazed we are at his dedication and energy, how awed we are by his enormous talent, but mostly we're sort of stunned into silence, listening to him mutter about inspections while he walks around ON THE ROOF LIKE A CRAZY PERSON IT IS VERY HIGH COME DOWN FROM THERE.

So in case I forgot to mention it, we're all very proud of him.



But I get to be proudest. He's my twin.