I'm a little blue tonight, but I'm going to try to get past it and make some sense here. Because I really do have reasons to be cheerful. In four days I'm going to the first game at Pac Bell Park. In the next couple of weeks I'm seeing a play, and Fantasia 2000, and I also have the joy of jury duty. (Of course, I have a birthday in there somewhere, too, so it's not all cookies and milk.)

And I'm getting closer to moving. I looked at a place here in town today, not far from where I am now, but it didn't seem like much of a step up, size-wise. Dollar-wise, yes, but that's not really what I'm looking for. Thanks to Mom's vigilant perusal of the classifieds and dogged determination to keep phoning until someone answers, I've got a line on a better prospect that I'll be taking a look at this weekend. It's out in the country, with a fenced yard (pets OK), three bedrooms and a fireplace. I can't wait to see what's wrong with it, but it would be awesome if this turned out to be The Place.

For it to be The Place, it has to be better than the Home Office in which I sit right now. That's a low bar to get over. That would mean up-to-code electrical wiring - current currents as it were. That should be a given, but I didn't think this place would be rife with leaky outlets when I moved in.

It also means a furnace with a thermostat, or at least some controls other than freeze your ass off and fiery pits of hell. I want a setting that says tropical beach, or shady glade. Preferably both, even if they do sound like brands of air freshener.

And I must have a kitchen with enough space for a clumsy, befuddled beginner to perform culinary experiments in. Counter space! I never knew how important counter space would be, not to mention cabinet space. Space is undeniably a good thing; I understand Gene Roddenberry made a gazpacho that was out of this world.

How about a floor that isn't a slab of concrete a fraction of an inch under a threadbare carpet? Is that asking too much? I'd love to be able to lounge around on the floor reading the Sunday paper. I can do that here, but I can't get back up without feeling the way I did after camping out overnight on a Pasadena sidewalk on New Year's Eve, 1972. The parade was so not worth that.

I'm not going to demand a dishwasher or garbage disposal, although those would be lovely things to have. But I will insist on a kitchen sink that actually drains, instead of accumulating water and debris and forcing me to scrub it out every single time I use it. It seems such a small thing, but it gets incredibly irritating.

Mostly it comes down to room to move around. Room to store the files and equipment I need to keep the office running, and still have room to have a life of my own. When you work at home, you shouldn't have to feel that you're at work all the time. It would be better for both my efficiency on the job and my overall sanity if I didn't live in a place that feels more like an office than a home.

Anywhere I move also has to have some of the accommodations I do enjoy here at the Home Office. Plenty of hot water, for one thing, and a toilet that flushes most of the time.

Ummm . . .

I'm trying to think of something else I like about this place where I've lived for ten years. It's not as if I've made friends with all the neighbors, or used my proximity to town to take advantage of the night life. If it's that hard to come up with a reason to stay, I wonder why I've been here so long?

It's been only in the last two or three years, since I started working at home exclusively, that I've gradually become fed up with the way I'm living. Change isn't something I embrace enthusiastically, unless there's a reason. I'm getting excited about making this change, though, and I'm beginning to think it might happen. At last.