Nobody's house is plumb on our block. They were all built on-site, including windows and doors and everything. Add that to the fact that time wears everything away, and the houses settle down into a cozy winter's nap year after year. Porches heave a few centimeters in this direction and the house moves in another direction. Single-pane glass, wavy with age, cracks on the diagonal. Basement floors buckle. Doors stick and the occupants shave off the tops to make them wonkier than before. Things twist and creak and sigh. Don't put a marble on my front hall floor or it'll roll away. Nothing is fun-house style, none of our houses rivals the old Leaner on Lafayette Square. But our houses were built by hand and it shows, good and bad.
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