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Candyce finally finished her semester from hell. Its understood that long hours are required in to studio-based majors like graphic design, industrial design, and architecture. I put in those ridiculously long hours as an industrial design student. And then I gave more. But Candyce has worked like it was the week of finals for the last three and half months. The only day she did no work at all was Thanksgiving day. That means she worked every day of September, October, November, and now December. It’s absolutely insane.

Candyce called me yesterday at three in the morning. She was in an tear-soaked panic because she had to present her semester’s final portfolio in seven hours. I was dead asleep and I could hardly understand what she was saying in her panic.

Twenty minutes later, I was over at her house cutting Fomecore with an Exacto knife. For the next six hours, I took flat panels of Foamcore I cut, scored, and folded flat panels of Foamcore into fist-sized cubes. Then I used spray adhesive to stick graphics onto the cubes. It’s boring to write about, and even more boring to do. I just can’t believe with all the other “real work” she was expected to complete that her professors would steel yet another day of her life so she can fold boxes. What the hell?

Truthfully, I was happy to come over in the middle of the night. I’ve hardly seen her at all in the last three and a half months. If it takes getting up in the middle of the night to see here, then that is what I had to do. In all reality, I spent more time with her last summer when she lived in San Diego and I lived in Phoenix.

The night was entirely random. Her Dad was in town, sleeping on the floor of her brother’s room. We carried on like it was any other afternoon, talking loud, listening to music, and yelling back and forth in between rooms.

She was ragged after sleeping only 10 hours in the last seven days. I hated to see her so broken like that. But she was still beautiful. That might have been the first time we watched the sun rise together.

She presented her portfolio and wowed her professors. I met her for an excessive celebration lunch at a gourmet pizza place. We ordered everything we could possibly eat or drink. In between bites of pizza and sips of Bailey’s we shared the most incoherent conversation in four years. But I didn’t care. I was just happy that Candyce could start to pull her life back together again.

Tonight I rode Candyce’s bike around South Tempe, which is only a few miles west of my house. Sometime last week I dropped by a friend’s new house to see how their remodeling was coming along. I love to do this because I feel like I’m on “This Old House.” I’m the host, walking from room to room, asking just the right questions to get the remodelers to brag about their knowledge and craftsmanship. Honestly, I could do this all day…just going from one house to the next asking people about their plans.

I was blown away by the neighborhood. It was so close to my church, but so much more appealing than my own neighborhood. I just felt like people cared more about their houses on this street, and that means something to me because I care a lot about my own home. My insides sparkled with dreams of a new house. After finding out that tear-down homes in this new neighborhood would cost me a million dollars, I knew it wasn’t meant to be.

After seeing this neighborhood, I couldn’t believe that the coffee shop that Candyce works at down the street does not do better business. I mean, this is the perfect demographic. What’s wrong here? Sometimes Candyce and I flirt with the idea of buying the coffee shop and starting all over. I know we’re not the only hip couple in their 20s to have this discussion, but I am curious about how the whole business comes together. So to unofficially begin our imaginary buy-out of the coffee shop, I started to research the surrounding neighborhoods.

After exploring the several subdivisions, I come to find out that the average starting home price is $500,000, which is well above the Arizona average. Then there are miles and miles of multimillion dollar ranches with palatial homes. As a coffee shop owner, how can you not take advantage of your market? A coffee shop is a social place, a place to be and be seen. And you have endless rich people around you, and it’s like you didn’t even notice they might want a place to hang out with their yuppy friends.

Since Candyce went into school to work tonight, I decided to take her bicycle and ride around these neighborhoods for a closer look. I felt a little dorky on a girl’s bicycle, but the ride was so nice I didn’t care. I was blown away by some of these homes. I never knew there were at least twenty modern houses tucked into these neighborhoods. Modern!

The ride got even better as I drove by people’s Christmas parties. I could hear the laughter and music from every other backyard. I felt like I was in some Christmas movie. That is until I saw a car wreck. I was just humming along on the sidewalk of a busy street when a truck pulled out and was T-boned by a car in oncoming traffic. I didn’t see it happen, but I heard it happen. Then I looked up to see the steam billowing out of the hood of one car. I said a quick prayer and rode fast to see if everyone was okay. In the twenty seconds that it took to get there, both drivers got out from behind the airbag and called the police. They both seemed okay, but certainly startled. I stayed on the scene just in case I was needed for something.

First came the police, then the firetrucks. Although I feel bad that the wreck happened, I can’t deny how exciting it was to be there. In the hour that I stood there, I saw at least three Christmas parties leave somebody’s house and walk down the street to see what all the commotion was about. I became one of those bystanders who resented the others for coming to help too late. “Nothing to see here folks. It’s all taken care of.”

I would like to think I had something better to do on a Saturday night than wait for fire trucks by two smashed cars. But I didn’t have anything better to do. I’m so tired of doing everything that I do that the only place I wanted to be was where nobody expected to be.

I just got back from a walk around my neighborhood comparing my house with my neighbors. I bought in this neighborhood a few years ago because it was well-planned, clean, and had modest but distinct homes. Plus, it was anchored by a golf course and several lakes. Although most of the home buyers had moved further out into the suburbs, I knew this neighborhood was ripe for a revival, and I wanted to lead the way.

This is the pipe dream of any creative intown hipster, I know. Take an older, maybe misunderstood neighborhood. Give it paint, time, passion, and charm, and before you know it, you live in the hottest neighborhood in town. I lived to see it happen over and over in Atlanta.

My plans to save the neighborhood were postponed by the demands at work. For the first year or so of owning the house, I could barely find the time to keep the front of my house tidy. I’m sure some of my neighbors were surprised to find my routinely trimmed my bushes with a flashlight in between my teeth.

Three years after I moved in, and after a solid month of intense landscaping, the front of my house looks terrific. It’s not finished, but it looks twice as nice as it did before. Everyone who comes by comments on how big and pretty it looks. They usually stammer over their words, first embarrassed that they never noticed before. Then a few moments later, they realize the house HAS changed since their last visit, and that’s when they give me a compliment. This happens every time someone comes over my house. My landscaping is a regular topic of conversation. I love it!

The revitalization has begun! Actually, no, it hasn’t. The only signs that I have sparked “revitalization” is one neighbor around the corner asked me where I got the metal arch that stretches up and over the gate to my backyard. “My wife likes it and wants me to get one.” Cool. My other neighbor, a professional landscape designer, commented that, “It might be time for me to get goin’ on my own house.” I don’t know if they both said that because that’s what you are supposed to say, or if they really meant it.

I understand that revitalization won’t start the day after I finished my own home. But in the time that I’ve been working on the front of the house, several people on my block have started and finished their own projects. And it’s more of the same poorly-planned crap. It might look fresh right now, but in a few months it will look messy and uninviting. And these are the houses that have NEW landscaping. The rest? They just look like the owners inside just don’t care.

This lack of enthusiasm for the neighborhood makes me want to move and find a better neighborhood. I’m not trying to “buy up” into a new social class. I prefer the romantic idea of living amongst simple, hardworking family people. Together, we’ll be unimpressed with the arrogant snobs who live on the streets lined with starter-castles. What, them and polished children and their BMWs, their chariots of debt. We understand what it means to give a hard day’s work and know what really matters.

But I’m beginning to wonder if this ideal neighborhood of hardworking people doesn’t exist, at least not at least not if it working hard includes laboring in your front yard. I’m beginning to believe that the social and economic structure we have in America makes it so that hardworking people end up living in big houses in nice neighborhoods. The untidy neighborhoods are left to people who could care less.