Homeownership, a.k.a. The existential fear of water penetration

I’ve never been so terrified of water

“Any more house pictures?!” my best friend texted me on a Wednesday, five days after my wife and I moved into our first house.

We — two women legally married in 2020 — are officially property owners. You could call us Landed Lesbians, if you’d like. (Actually, please don’t.)

On the night of our closing, we sat on the floor of our new bedroom eating burgers from the tavern next door and learned the history of our home. Almost 100 years ago, this neighborhood was built to house employees of the Oscar Mayer sausage factory, a half-mile to the north, then the fifth-largest packing plant in the country.

We wondered if any young queer women, toiling away making literal sausages all day, raging at speakeasy dance parties and stealing kisses in some squalid apartment at night, had ever dreamed of owning property together in this neighborhood. Of calling each other wife. Of sharing a name.

My wife and I don’t actually share a name. (Yet.) Nor a bank account.

But now, we share responsibility for a collection of wood, plaster, shingles, and Edison-style light bulbs that sit on a 97-year-old concrete foundation, sunk four feet below the frost line, and leveled…