Between $950,000 and $1 million can get you a pretty nice place in some of the tonier neighborhoods near where I live.
But if you’re willing to move to roughly the middle of nowhere in Colorado, you can get a house on a 300-acre ranch, three single-family cabins, a church and dance hall for $985,000.
And that gave Kelsey McKinney of Defector an idea.
“So here is what we are going to do: We are going to form a commune. Think about it. It makes perfect sense! We can gather up three or four other households and form one pod of people that goes West and moves into this former ghost town and fills it with life.”
For my (not nearly enough) money, I’d rather convert the hotel and cottages at Jekyll Island Club — where Suzi and I went for our honeymoon and 10th anniversary, and plan to spend our 20th in two years — into my own private sanctuary for family and friends.
But whether it’s a ranch in Colorado, a former rich-person winter hunting club off the Georgia coast or my old elementary school, how do you decide who’s going to join you?
Do you make it just family, only friends or a combination of both? (My brother and in-laws might go for it, but you’d need explosives to get my parents and grandmother out of their houses.)
And even though I get along well with Suzi’s family and friends, and she does with mine, we’d have to figure out how to split the spaces between us.
Do you ask people individually and privately, plaster it on the social media of your choice and invite people to bid or send out a raft of invitations and take people first-come, first-served?
No matter what you do, you know you’re going to make some people angry, and what would you think if the person you thought was your best pal turned you down?
Ugh … all this thinking about something that will never happen is making my head hurt, so here’s a scene from Jekyll Island in the evening.
WHAT I WROTE
When you don’t get to travel, you realize how meaningful little things on the journey are.
My buddy Renata and I each wrote lists of our favorite albums. Be sure to read hers, and here’s mine.
WHAT I TALKED ABOUT
Some things require a lot of optimism, which isn’t my nature.
PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTION
At 8 p.m. Eastern tomorrow (Monday … and adjust for your time zone accordingly), I’ll be part of a special project with a bunch of my favorite bloggers.
It’ll be a veritable feast … if you will.
STUFF I READ
Rachael writes about dreams becoming real, being the first and being the only.
JJ’s poem is about anger, and feelings you’re not “supposed to feel.”
Becky gets right to one of the questions dominating our lives.
If you ask Rosie what she has learned in the past five years, her answer may not be what you expect.
Pea Green’s son and husband do some proper male bonding.
Tilly explains why it’s not polite to ask a woman when she’s having kids.
Savannah looks back at her past.
Lindsay finally finds time to respond to my award nomination … with the third blog post in this week’s collection that mentions Billy Joel. That has to be some kind of record.
If you’re going to be a dodgy adviser for an awful government, James implores you to at least have some standards.
If dead people voted, Austin has some questions.
I’m not immune to conspiracy theories, but if someone in your life is hardcore about them, Michelle has some advice for dealing with them.
Vee had some trouble getting a package, although it eventually did arrive.
Zoe is trying to learn to take in instead of reaching out.
Young Alexis learns a lesson.
We’re all adjusting … even Santa.
TWEETS I LIKED (WELL, MOSTLY … YOU’LL KNOW THE ONE I DIDN’T)
I have heard that Banff is very nice, and I think Suzi would like to go there someday.
I’ve been friends with Gary and his wife Lisa for more than 30 years (eek!), so I’m happy to see they got to do this.
Savage … and no doubt she’d get it all in the divorce.
Whatever works, I always say.
If this hasn’t shown up on “Masterpiece Mystery!” yet, it probably will soon.
Sometimes, it’s good to not know what you don’t know.
It can be an annoying question, but just in case you want to know, I’m not interested. Nothing more than that.
If the check is large enough and it clears, I guess I’d live with it.
You couldn’t pay me enough to … OK, maybe if it was enough to buy my own compound for my family and friends, but otherwise, you couldn’t pay me enough to read this.
A Silly Place 
Always great doing a collab with you, Bill! Also there’s always a way to include Billy Joel 🤣
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Very thought-provoking. Much as I love my family and friends, I am not sure I would want to live in close quarters with most of them. 🤪
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Oh, I’m fairly sure this would fail, because I think most of them do. But it would be fun while it lasted.
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