My New House

I have a Victorian mansion. A dollhouse, said a crackhead who walked by on the sidewalk as I stood outside looking at the house.

No, not a dollhouse, I replied. A human house.

He wanted to tell me all about his own house. He was moving it "out of the ghetto" because his father-in-law was giving him trouble. Move it all the way out in the country.

Right now I'm sitting upstairs, tilting like the house. An ice-cream truck is jingle-jangling its song down the street.

The reason I'm quitting dolls is that I'm sick of having to deal with children. And the worst part are the other doll-makers with their Napoleon complexes and Melville complexes and oral fixations.