Open House Arrest

Welcome to the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

I'm Bailiff Jesse Thorne.

This week, open house arrest.

Eric files suit against his fiancé, Elena.

Elena has banned him from sharing online real estate listings with her.

Eric would like the ban to be lifted so they can be prepared to buy a house when the right one comes along.

Who's right?

Who's wrong?

Only one man can decide.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman enters the courtroom and presents an obscure cultural reference.

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And meanwhile, Bailiff Jesse Thorne, please swear them in.

Eric and Elena, please rise and raise your right hands.

Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

So help you, God, or whatever?

Yes, I do.

Yes, I do.

Do you swear to abide by Judge John Hodgman's ruling, despite the fact that he lives deep under the sea?

Yes.

Uh, yes.

Judge Hodgman, you may proceed.

Eric and Elena, you may be seated.

For an immediate summary judgment in one of yours favors, can either of you name the piece of culture, culture, piece of advertising, that I referenced as I entered this very courtroom.

Elena, why don't you go first?

I think it was from House Hunters International, Season 121, Episode 11, embracing Edinburgh, Scotland, featuring Josie and Brett.

House Hunters International, 121, episode 11.

You sure you want to say 11?

Nope, too late.

We put it in.

11.

11 it is.

Eric, what's your guess?

I think it's a line from the movie Betelgeuse.

Line from the movie Betelgeuse.

And you said episode 11, right?

Not 12, Elena?

Yep, episode 11.

Oh, well, too bad, because all guesses are wrong.

First of all, that Beetlejuice one, you were just fobbing that out.

You were fobbing it off.

No, that's not it either.

You were fobing it in.

Anyway, it was a lazy guess, Eric, and you have lost points as a result.

Yes.

Oh, did you know that I keep points?

For nine years, I've been keeping points on everyone.

Eventually, I'll give you the spreadsheet of all the points that all the litigants have gotten and had retracted for the final Judge John Hodgman Cup.

Is this like NASCAR?

No, it's like the Hogwarts Cup.

Oh, okay.

Every litigant gets a certain amount of points that I'm keeping secretly on my list.

And we're going to bring in the top points earners for a final try-judgy cup later on.

By the way, John, congratulations on finding a sporting competition I'm less familiar with than NASCAR.

Really?

You don't follow Quidditch?

No.

I guess I'm not a 19-year-old at a Northeastern liberal arts college.

Is that who does Quidditch?

No, everyone in the world does Quidditch.

Okay.

Quidditch is the wizarding sport from the Harry Potters.

Yeah, but don't 19-year-olds at like Bennington do that in real life with brooms or something?

Maybe 10 years ago.

Okay.

Now it's a, now

all kinds of adult human beings who have children of their own pretend to fly brooms.

Eric and Elena, you ever do real-life Quidditch?

I have seen it at my small liberal arts college in in Northeast.

Oh, really?

Where'd you go to college and how old were you at the time?

Juniata College.

I don't know that one at all.

Yeah, it's not a real college.

She made it up.

It's also not in the Northeast.

Where is it?

Central Pennsylvania.

Okay.

You could ballpark it for me, your age.

Are you in your 20s, your 30s?

In my 20s.

In your 20s.

All right.

Wait a minute.

Where were we?

Oh, yeah.

Eric, your lazy guess was wrong.

Elena, your guess was not lazy.

In fact, it showed great thought and, I dare say, say, heart.

Because you know, I am a fan of Househunters International.

So much better than House Hunters.

Because Househunters, those are just people who want to buy a house.

Househunters International are people who are looking to move countries, and there's always a subtext that they're running from something.

Like,

why do you need to move to Panama all of a sudden?

And I was trying to fake you out by making you think that maybe you were just one episode off.

A correct guess, but you were wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Didn't you recognize it?

When was the last time you were on Zillow, you guys?

The real estate website that does not at all sponsor this podcast.

So why did I say it?

Anyway, that is a paraphrasing of the listing of my house on Zillow.

Or I should say the house that my wife and I own and inherited from my mom in Western Massachusetts, which was featured prominently in my book Vacation Land, now available in paperback.

And now we have decided to put on the market for sale.

And before everyone starts dialing up Zillow, you can still look at it.

395 West Leiden Road, Leiden, Massachusetts.

If you can smell Leiden right, you have the right to look at my house.

So before you all get excited out there, we already have an offer on it, which is very exciting for me.

It seems like a very nice couple want to buy it.

Very adorable, older couple of dudes want to buy it.

I hope it works out.

And if you're mad at yourself because you're listening in Western Massachusetts thing, I wanted a chance to go look at that house and if not buy it, at least be a creepozoid and touch all the places where John Hodgman napped.

It's too late.

You ought to subscribe to my newsletter.

They've been talking about it for weeks on my newsletter, bit.ly slash H-O-D-G-M-A-I-L Hodgemail.

So moving on, neither of you got...

the cultural reference, so let us go forward to talk about Eric's obsession with real estate listings.

So it says here, you live in Boulder, Colorado, but you moved from Raleigh, North Carolina.

Eric, you're a design facilitator at a software company.

That's a job I do not know what it means.

And Elena, you're an ice skating coach, which is a job I completely understand.

And you just got your master's in food science.

Double understanding.

More points for Elena.

Yes, so many points.

Eric.

You bring the case against Elena because you have a habit of checking out real estate listings.

What is your habit and how is it destroying your life?

My habit is to look for listings both in places we live and places that we may want to live in the future.

Okay.

So you just moved from Raleigh, correct?

Yes, we moved in September.

September of last year.

So we're in like the sixth to seven month range.

Yeah, that's right.

And you're already looking to bounce.

Well, to be, I would love to stay in Boulder, maybe for the rest of my natural days.

Yeah.

My fiancé is less interested and maybe is interested in moving to

maybe further west out to California.

And this fiancé, is that Elena?

Or did this just get a lot more complicated than I realized?

I hope it's me still.

It is still Elena.

All right.

Elena, you want to bounce.

Well, yeah, I'm just, I don't think I want to make Boulder my permanent home.

I've driven through Boulder.

It's lovely.

Come on.

It's Mork and Mindy town.

It's one of the most livable places on earth.

It's true.

Why did you move there?

Well, I think for the last two and a half years, Eric has been talking about moving there because he loves to ski and we love to do outdoor things.

So when I finished school, he was like, all right, now we can move there.

All right, hang on a second.

Let me get a little background here.

You were in Raleigh, North Carolina.

A great town.

Home of the Carolina theater.

Home to John Darnell of the Mountain Goats.

But I'm not giving you his address because I don't want you to be weird about it.

And you moved to Boulder, Colorado, because you love the skiing and you love the outdoors.

Was there a professional component to this move?

No.

I'm lucky enough to work remotely for the software company that I work for.

And so we can choose to live wherever we want.

He said something about software company again, Jesse.

Did you understand any of that?

I'm not really sure.

I don't really use computers.

Okay.

No, that's very nice that your design facilitation allows you to live wherever you wish.

Yeah, I work with teams that are distributed around the United States and around the world.

And so the work I do with them is completely online.

Wait a minute.

Are you an international hacker?

I've been waiting for the moment when someone accuses me of that because I've been using this line for 10 years and everyone just seems to believe it.

I work with teams that are distributed around the world remotely.

Are you like Justin in a diehard movie ah

you operate the enhance button i'm like this guy is either a internet part of an international russian hacking team or he's gold mining on some online world of warcraft type game

you're you're so close john i work for a blockchain company so mining gold is is really close yeah wow You work for a blockchain company.

I don't even want to know which one.

I already feel like a SWAT team's about to jump into my house for just talking to you.

It's creepy blockchain mining squads that you're affiliated with on the dark web, moving from town to town, looking for new safe houses on the internet.

But good for you that you can work from home and drag your fiancé to places she doesn't want to live.

Thank you.

Okay, so

you kind of like living in Boulder forever is what I got from you, Eric.

But Elena, you're kind of feeling a little house hunters internationally, like you got to get out of town pretty quickly before the hippies in Boulder figure out your fiancé is a blockchain spy.

Yep.

It's just too cold here for me.

We're all in North Carolina.

It was so much warmer.

Yeah,

that's a difference for sure.

So you should be encouraging of Eric's looking up real estate listings and sharing them with you, but you don't like it.

Why?

I guess just because of the volume of listings he was sending me is why I needed to have that ban.

He made a separate

account where like on the messenger where he would just send me listings all the time and it was just like too many of them.

And then when we would go traveling somewhere, we would go and talk to realtors and look at houses.

Just for fun.

So it's just like too much.

Just for fun, yeah.

But we got as far as, you know, seeing the place, getting all the paperwork, meeting with a realtor,

and then nothing.

Where was this?

Oh, well, this happened multiple times.

So one time we were in France on vacation to ski.

Oh, to ski?

All right.

Yeah, to ski.

And Eric was ready to buy a house already there after being there for two days.

Yeah, well, France is nice.

Where were you in France?

It was called Marzine.

You know, Elena, I like you a lot.

You're really leading in points so far.

But there are a lot of words that you say that I've never heard before.

Names of colleges and towns in France that I really don't.

I'm pretty learned.

But I feel like

you might be gaslamping me with fake words.

But my guess is that if it's skiing country in France, it's got to be pretty nice.

I wouldn't be surprised if you were a young couple without permanent ties in the world and no kids, I presume.

No, just a dog.

Just a dog.

And you're sitting on a pile of blockchain coin that you might think about living in that place.

But still, you were only there for a couple of days, Eric.

How often would you say,

let me just get a sense of the scope of this, Elena, at the worst of his habits, because you established a ban on him sending you real estate listings, which is in effect, which Eric would like me to lift.

That is the request of this court.

At the height of his obsession,

how often or how many real estate listings would you receive, say, per week or a day if it were that frequently?

And how many times, separate question, how many times did you guys meet with a realtor

just on a lark while on vacation to look at a house in the same way that you might otherwise have just gone out to lunch or something?

So I think he would sometimes send me maybe five listings a day.

And then, like, well, he sends me a lot of emails.

So I think I would say like 50% of the emails that he was sending me were house listings.

And then for vacations, I think this happened like four or five times.

So in

the last two years.

In Bermude, France, and where else?

Bahala,

Tahiti.

Wahua.

Ontario.

No, where were the other places?

Portugal.

We were there.

What was the name of the town in Portugal?

Oh, it was Lisbon.

Yeah, all right.

I've heard that one.

Okay.

Then Winter Park in Colorado.

And then last year when we came to Boulder just to first try it out before we actually moved here, within two weeks, he already was sending me lots of listings and we went to see a house.

when we were just here for a month and a half.

And that's not the house you live in now.

That was a different house.

Yeah, that was before we even decided we were actually going to move here.

Eric, when you are on vacation and you're like, hmm, I could go for a ski or I could initiate a totally bogus real estate transaction that I'm not going to follow through on.

Do you truly want to see these houses or are you just curious about the market?

I think if Elena hadn't stopped me, we probably would own one of these houses now.

You're the House Hunters International person.

You're the one who wants to keep moving.

Keep your blockchain horde moving around the world.

Because I don't want the SWAT team coming for me, so you got to keep moving.

Right.

So you're not wasting, I'm trying to ascertain if your motives are sincere when you call up some poor realtor in Lisbon and like, hey, it's me, a blockchain millionaire.

I'd like to see an apartment, please.

And they're all excited because like, yay, I will be able to make a sale this month.

You're not just wasting their time.

You actually are curious and giving it some real thought.

My secret wish is that one of the times that i do this elena is going to say yes and then we're going to have an awesome house in lisbon

or any other place that you happen to travel to yes that's true

five real estate listings a day that's a lot do you dispute that number i would love to see elena's evidence about that it sounds a little high okay well you both sent in some evidence and all this evidence will be available on the judge john hodgman page at maximumfund.org and as well and on our instagram at instagram.com/slash judgejohnhodgman.

And well, I'm not going to say all this evidence is going to be available because I'm going to tell you, both of this evidence is boring.

Eric, you sent in a picture of your task lists from your smartphone.

You sent in a picture of an affidavit from Danny, your older brother.

saying I've recommended to Eric that it is important to pay attention to the real estate market.

And you sent an affidavit from Josie, a close friend.

She is saying something else in your support.

And then you sent in a picture just now, last minute edition,

a picture from your,

I don't know whether this is Slack or some other messaging service.

You have a hashtag which is Eric LovesZillow,

which is a two-bedroom, two-bath on the beach for $675,

presumably $1,000,

with Elena writing back, wow, dream come true.

This one time I approve of you sending me the listing.

So, okay, I got the affidavits from your friend saying you're a good person.

What are you trying to show me with this evidence?

What are you showing me with this garden?

I think that sharing links is part of how modern couples have discussions and that sharing ideas back and forth and places you want to travel, areas of the world you might want to live in, hiking shoes, gas grills, portable gas grills.

These are just part of the normal conversation that couples living in Boulder have.

And I think it's unreasonable to knock out one particular type of link.

I got you.

In other words,

your point is by showing me this picture of this garden that Elena sent you,

you're both sides in it, saying she's sending me pictures of gardens, and therefore I should send her pictures of houses, because that's how modern couples talk to each other.

They turn each other's phones into their respective Pinterest boards.

I'll accept that.

Is that what this list of lists is?

Shared grocery lists, shared ski packing, camping gear, movies.

These are all links to things that you want to share together at some point or another?

Yeah, I think we're, or especially me, I'm a very organized person.

I like to have all my plans in place and be really prepared.

Yeah.

And looking at house listings is how I do that so that we can be sort of having an ongoing conversation about what type of house we want to live in, what type of house we can afford, what part of the country or the world we might want to live in.

Right, because you need to be able to make a move at any time.

You never know.

You never know.

Right.

I got you.

That's why you have a first aid kit list here.

Here's the list I'm curious about.

Second to the bottom, 16 items.

Next protest, what's happening there?

So Elena and I, when we first started dating, went to Washington, D.C.

to have a protest about three years ago.

Okay.

And

while we were there, we were thinking, you know, we could really use those 16 items, but we don't have them.

so we made a list so the next time we go to a protest we can make sure to bring all the things that we want to have well that's a little bit more reassuring than the the 16 next protests you have planned

what was your protest of please do not tell me that you would like to retain confederate monuments anywhere in the world uh we are walking with the the million other people

after uh president trump's inauguration the women's march yes it's not the million other people march

it's just called a women's march i kind of forgot the name Okay.

All right.

You should work on that, for sure.

That was a big part of it.

Okay, cool.

So, number one on the list of 16 things you should have brought was the name.

What are some of the things

on the next protest list?

A clear backpack.

Warm shoes.

Wait, stop.

Lunch.

Okay.

Hold on.

Clear backpack.

How come?

Because the people at the march, the security people at the march said if you had a clear backpack, you could bring more stuff with you, but otherwise you were limited in the size of your backpack love it okay keep going so we said we should bring food because we ended up being there substantially longer than we had anticipated uh better signs yes when we saw instagram the day after we said wow we could have been much more clever with our signage sure

a way to hold a sign other than your hands

a selfie stick uh coordinated color clothing because there's so many people it's quite easy to lose track of your friends one clever group had a rope that they used to keep their group together, which we thought was very clever.

Like toddlers.

Yeah.

Like

a rope line of toddlers in Park Slope walking from their preschool to the train station or whatever.

Adorable.

That's the idea.

I'm giving, you know what, Eric?

I'm giving you some points.

Points.

Very organized.

Let's take a quick recess.

We'll be back in just a moment on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

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Court is back in session.

Let's return to the courtroom for more justice.

All right, that was fun talking about that, but let's get back to the case.

I'm not sure what the evidence supports that you are

that you are very organized, that you like keeping lists, that you're always on the move, on the prowl, looking for someplace new.

What's the end goal for you, Eric?

Why are you looking for these places?

Do you want to have more than one house?

Do you want to have a house in Boulder and then also in Mieumieux, France?

Or are you just waiting for the time that Elena turns to you and says, I can't take Boulder anymore.

It's too nice.

And you want to have something on the offering?

What is it you want?

What do you want at the end of this process?

I would like a place for Elena and I to live longer term and have some children and have our families be able to come visit us in a place that we both really like and enjoy.

And Elena, if Boulder is not your final stopping place, where would you like to stop?

I'm not sure yet.

Just somewhere where it's a bit warmer and my family will be willing to move to.

Okay.

The second one feels like a different scale of

criterion than a little bit warmer.

Like, I think there's a lot of places that are a little bit warmer than Boulder, Colorado.

But if you'd like your family to move to the place that you move to, that's a pretty big ask.

They just, for some reason, don't like Boulder.

So they're like, we're definitely never moving to Colorado.

That's only half true.

Well, what's going on?

Your family doesn't like Boulder, says Elena.

And Eric, you say that's only half true.

What's the truth?

So my understanding is that her dad loves it.

Her mom and dad came to visit us last summer.

Right.

And her dad, very similar to us, likes hiking, being outside, really enjoyed the experience.

And her mom didn't like it as much.

So I think it's they have a similar divide as we do, me and Elena.

Maybe you and her dad should become roomies.

And Elena can move back then with her mom and you can just visit each other once in a while.

It kind of sounds like the perfect marriage.

What's your stability situation now?

Do you rent or do you own in Boulder?

We are renting.

So you're rootless.

You currently could bop out of there at the end of your lease.

No big deal.

Do you want to buy a home, either of you, both of you?

I guess I'll speak for myself.

Yes, I would like to own a home.

I think Elena shares that as well.

But we've had lots of conversations about what that home would be.

Apartment, small house, garden, terrace, patio, what kind of kitchen.

And so that's kind of the underlying reason I'd like to look at all these houses is to get a better sense of what she wants and what she cares about for

our life together.

You're trying to get a sense of all the different qualities you might want in a home, like whether it has marble countertops or linoleum,

whether it's in Boulder, Colorado, or a town in France no one's ever heard of, the basic stuff.

That's right, Jesse.

So, Elena, you also sent in some evidence as well.

And the most pertinent piece of evidence, as far as I can tell here, is this nice picture of your dog,

who is named Noble.

Yes.

And Noble is a very handsome-looking golden retriever or yellow lab type dog.

Is that right, more or less?

He's a yellow lab.

Mm-hmm.

And he's sitting in his little doggy wagon behind your bicycle.

And your excuse for sending this photo is that he comes to look at houses with you.

Is that correct?

Yes.

Like when we were living in Raleigh, when Eric already said he wants to move to Boulder, he still sent me tons of listings on Zillow.

And we went to look at probably 15 houses in two years.

And we brought Noble with us everywhere.

And that picture is from a day that we went to look at a house.

All right.

Well, I'll allow this evidence of this cute animal because it's going to get clicks on our Instagram page for sure.

That dog is in a category of dog that's technically called a friend dog.

It's dogs that are big enough to hug and want to be your friend.

Yeah, that's true.

And he does not look put out to be in his little wheelie wagon going to look at another house.

I mean, there are a lot of smells for him in those houses that he's visiting.

But you mentioned 15 houses over a couple of years in Raleigh that you looked at when you were planning to move to Boulder.

That does feel a little bit like recreational house hunting.

Is it that the house hunting was directionless that bothers you, Elena, or that you just didn't see a house that you liked?

Yeah, I think it's more that, like, I don't mind when I open my phone and I have 15 messages about a camping shower because I know we'll actually get it at the end.

But when I get tons and tons of listings for houses and then we are not serious about actually buying them, that's what bothers me.

And then I'm like, oh, well, I don't want to waste my time looking at things that I'm not going to buy.

Elena, does this feel like a time burden or does it feel like an emotional burden or both?

Ooh, maybe it's both.

Well, I understand why it's a time burden.

Explain why it would be an emotional burden.

Well, I guess every time,

like for me, when at first we met and Eric was sending me all these listings, I thought it meant like, oh, yeah, we're going to really stay in Raleigh and we're going to buy a house here and stay here.

And then I realized, well, we were just looking at houses just to look at houses.

So now every time we go somewhere and he sends me listings, it still feels like that means we're committing to this place immediately.

I know, John, in my relationship with my wife, my wife sees

looking at real estate as a joyful expression of the possibilities that the world contains.

And I see it as

a burden of practical decision making

where I'm not sure whether I'm crushing my my wife's dreams if I don't like it.

And I'm not sure whether it's a problem that needs to be solved or a frivolity that can just pass through the sky like

a cloud shaped, like a bunny.

Hop-hop.

To me, it looks more like a smurf, but that's neither here nor there.

Well, I mean, this is interesting, Elena.

You know, you live in Boulder.

You don't particularly like it.

You kind of want to move someplace else.

And Eric is trying to find some possible places for you to move.

But when it comes down to it,

maybe you like just sort of being undecided in the world.

What about the idea of committing to buying a house makes you uncomfortable?

I guess maybe

with Boulder, it's that would mean to me that we're going to stay here for a while.

And I'm not sure I'm ready to stay here for a while.

Like when we were here, when we first got here, I think I mentioned this earlier,

last summer, Two weeks later, Eric already started sending me lots of Zillow listings and we went to look at a house.

It felt like we're staying here, but I didn't quite,

I wasn't ready to commit yet.

Right.

I find myself wondering if Eric is the one looking to commit, or if Eric is the one who wants to play in the emotional wonderland of imagining that he could live anywhere in the world, but actually,

you know, is sending all of these things to her because

he is not willing to, you know, take responsibility for staking an actual position.

Well, Eric's under fake internet oath.

Let's ask him.

Eric, are you throwing all these real estate listings at Elena because you know she'll never pull the trigger on any of them and therefore you get to live in fantasy land for the rest of your life?

I think that's the wonderful thing about real estate listings is they let you kind of imagine a life that you could have and be really realistic about the life you can have.

So you can both dream and be pragmatic at the same time.

That being said, I would buy a house in Boulder tomorrow if Elena was into it.

So I'm definitely ready to make that commitment.

But you also said that about Raleigh.

Well, and you looked at 15 houses in Raleigh that he initiated.

It's clear that he was willing to make that commitment.

And he sent me a listing like three weeks after we started dating.

That was our, that's like the first email he sent me was a house listing.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Yeah.

That's that's moving pretty fast, Eric.

Yep.

Elena did move in after we've been dating for two months.

So I think that's just

our jam.

Let me get some basic background here.

How long have you been dating?

Like three years and five months.

Right.

How long have you been engaged?

Five months.

Congratulations.

When are you going to get married?

Hopefully in the fall of 2020.

Band or a DJ?

Definitely a band.

Nice.

Where Where do your parents live, Elena?

They live in State College, Pennsylvania.

Oh, okay, sure.

Home of Penn State.

That's right.

Yeah, I've been there.

And you want your parents to, when you settle down,

where do you think your mom would be willing to move to if she were to leave State College?

I think she really likes the East Coast, so I know for sure she'll be willing to move either to North Carolina or Florida, or I know her dream is to live in New York City.

Okay, but you appreciate that it's not yours or Eric's job to fulfill her dream.

Yeah.

Okay, good.

When you say you're not really going to buy a house together, is that because there is a means issue?

It's going to be a little while before you think you can afford to buy a house together?

I think it's more of just deciding where we're going to stay

for the next, you know, 10 years.

Right.

Elena, when Eric sends you a house, are you confident in looking at the listing, how serious he is about the possibility of buying it?

Can you tell the difference between fantasy and reality and his text messages of Redfin listings?

I think I've gotten better at it now.

Because,

for example, the other day,

he was talking about some place in California.

And I was like, oh yeah, that sounds pretty nice.

And then he sent me like six listings.

Like, now I know that, even though he was not supposed to send me that many, but now I kind of know, like, okay, well, that's not too serious because that's in California.

We don't even live there right now.

But he also looked up all the bike routes and like schools and supermarkets nearby.

So then that's sort of confusing.

That's why I just said, please don't send me listings because I'm confused.

What was the specific place in California?

Was it this two-bedroom, two-bath on the beach, 30-minute ferry ride to San Francisco?

Is it that one?

It is that one.

Yeah.

So were you serious about moving to San Francisco or, you know, to the North Bay area?

Or were you just fantasizing?

I know it's Elena's dream to live in California.

I went to school in the Bay, and so I like living there.

And so it's, I think it's a possibility, a really good possibility that we'll spend a year or two in California.

And so this is my way of trying to...

figure out what part of California we might want to live in and what part would be really appealing to her.

Okay, and but you're saying like we'll spend a year or two there.

And Elena just said that when you buy a house together, you have to think about where you might spend 10 years.

I mean, there does seem to be a differential in terms of how itinerant you believe your lives are.

If I had to guess, we'll spend another year and a half here in Boulder and then go for a year or two to California and then move back to the East Coast someplace, likely North Carolina.

Well, you wouldn't be guessing.

This has not been written in a book by a weird god, a fate that you will have to follow no matter what.

You will be making these decisions together.

Elena, if you had to guess, is Eric guessing right about the year and a half from Boulder, two years in California, and then who knows where?

Yeah, I would just add in France as well for like a year.

Do you want to be moving around like this?

Because you can do it.

I go back and forth.

I think because I don't want to stay here for a long time, I like the idea of going to California and then France and then the East Coast.

Okay.

How is is the ban structured that Eric would like lifted?

It's a total ban.

No sharing of real estate listings.

No sharing of real estate listings.

Okay.

And that is forever, Elena, or for a cooling off period?

Just until we're more serious about moving somewhere.

Okay.

I think I've heard everything I need to in order to make my decision.

I just purchased, by the way, one of those tiny homes.

It's a 50 square foot home that I've turned into my tiny chambers.

So I'm going to walk into my garden, get into my tiny chambers, think it over.

I'll be back with you in a moment with my decision.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

Eric, how are you feeling about your chances?

I feel pretty good about my chances.

I think the judge understood some of my points, but I also think that Elena is very sympathetic, and so he may choose to maintain the ban.

Elena, how are you feeling about your chances?

Pretty good, but then I have some doubts because since Eric, a really long time ago, used to be a lawyer, I feel like he used some of that power to say things that would make the judge lift the ban because he really emphasized that it was for me and finding my dream place.

Elena, do you think blockchain is a real thing?

I kind of think it's like a trick, like a joke that certain nerds are playing on me.

Yeah, I'm still trying to understand what Eric does.

I don't really know.

We'll see what Judge Hodgman has to say about all this when we come back in just a second.

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Please rise as Judge John Hodgman re-enters the courtroom and presents his verdict.

So I grew up looking at houses.

My mom, who's no longer alive, was obsessed with real estate, loved thinking about different places to possibly live.

It's not like we moved around all the time.

We weren't house hunters internationals.

We stayed in Brookline, Massachusetts, in each of our houses for a really solid period of time, 10 to 15 years.

But she was always on the lookout because she loved the idea of of what a different life could be in a different part

of the world or even just a different part of our town.

And in particular, when my mom went out to Western Massachusetts, this part of Western Massachusetts, where her best friend lived and had grown up, and she decided she wanted to buy a little weekend home there, half of the pleasure of the experience was looking at home after home after home after home, looking for just the right one.

And she never found it.

I mean, ended up buying this home that was not on a river like she wanted, but instead on the damp hillside next to a mosquito bog in order to have a home base to look more efficiently at more homes out there.

And she never ended up finding the perfect place because she felt, and I think this is true, that looking was part of the pleasure.

For her, it was recreational.

And that's still true for me.

I don't bother real estate agents

and go see homes frivolously.

But every time I walk around my neighborhood in Park Slope, I was like, I would buy that house.

I like that one.

That one's on my list.

The same way my mom did when she found the third and final home in Brookline where we lived, where she decided this is the block I want to live on.

None of the houses were for sale.

So she handwrote a letter to everyone on the block.

saying if you ever consider selling your house, and she slipped it under the door to 15 houses on the block.

And one came through.

That was fun for her.

I still play that game.

I still think about putting letters under the doors of houses that I want to buy.

Creep people out.

Why not?

Who knows?

For me, it's fun.

As I say, I don't waste people's time with my fantasies.

Realtors, I mean.

But if there's an open house in our building, we can live in a condo here in Park Slope.

If there's an open house in that building, of course I'm going to go in there and look around.

Check those closets, see what kind of fixtures they have.

Get mad that their place is nicer than mine, get happy because it's worse.

It's fun.

I think that to a degree,

you know, Eric and I have this in common.

In the same way, I think we have it in common with Teresa, Jesse Thorne, but not with you.

Because it's not for everyone this kind of fantasy.

For other people,

it represents a perhaps intimidating change.

or a sort of uncomfortable thinking about money or an uncomfortable thinking about where we are in our lives and where we want to be.

Because houses are heavy, not merely because they weigh a lot, because they represent a lot.

They represent a lot of investment, both financial and emotional, that is a burden taken less lightly by some people than by others.

Now, I appreciate that Eric likes looking at real estate listings.

I do too.

So does my wife.

I also appreciate that Eric feels the need to set up a network of safe houses for himself so that he can stay one step ahead of Interpaul as he conducts whatever dark web business he's doing.

But as much as I appreciate what he's doing, I'm not sure I would want to receive as many real estate listings from him as you've been getting, Elena, or were before the ban.

I'm going to tell you this, Elena.

If you know what you want,

if you know where you want to be, geographically and where you want to be in a couple of years forward in your life, you're having a hard time expressing it.

you know?

Like you just kind of, like somewhere warmer?

There are a lot of question marks at the end of your sentences.

Somewhere, maybe the East Coast?

Maybe Fla Flaw, Florida?

Maybe Mythical Island?

I don't know.

It depends on my mom's dreams.

And I respect that there is something to,

I don't think it's purely legal machinations that Eric is trying to turn this on you and saying, I'm just trying to get a sense of what Elena, what would make Elena happy and what she would respond to, both in terms of style of house, price of house, and place of house.

And that's why I'm sending her these things to kind of spark this conversation.

I don't think he's being completely disingenuous because

at least in this conversation, you did have a hard time expressing that to me and maybe even to yourself.

And that is a conversation that you both need to have.

Because on the one hand, Eric is tossing off, we're going to spend two years in California.

And you're like, when we buy a place, it's going to be for 10 years.

There is a differential there that needs to be resolved.

But I also feel that

getting real estate listings within weeks of your first date, that's making your fantasy, Eric, a little bit her burden.

And getting up to five real estate listings a day is more than a spouse or soon-to-be spouse can really process and respond to, especially if the prospect of buying a home is, for whatever reason, more freighted than it is for you, Eric.

I understand why this ban was put in place.

However, I'm going to lift it because this conversation needs to happen.

I'm going to lift it, but I'm going to limit it.

Two per

week.

Two listings per week.

And Eric, you're going to curate these listings to be A-B comparisons of two different kinds of living.

One in Boulder or whatever, one in France, one house that's a bungalow, one house that's a tower, one house that's an apartment, one house that's a whatever.

It's going to be an A-B comparison, two houses per week.

You're going to have to winnow it down to present to her the two houses that she can hypothetically choose between, and it's clearly a hypothetical.

only to provoke a conversation between the two of you face to face on a weekend morning about which house she likes better and why.

That way you're going to get the data

that you both are going to start needing in order to plan where the next thing is.

But you have to give her time to get used to Boulder.

You have to give her time to get used to this new house that you've only been living in for a few months.

I think you have to allow for the possibility that you're not going to leave in 18 months like you say, but you actually might stay there for a little while.

Give her a chance to settle in.

She's not as restless as you are.

She's not a househunter international.

She's a househunter domestic.

She's looking for a place to nest.

But in the meantime, to assuage your hobby, Eric, and to help spark conversation and make Elena more comfortable with this idea of hypothetical thinking, two listings per week.

And don't go to see a house unless you're really looking to buy one.

This is the sound of a gabble.

Judge John Hodgman rules out as all.

Please rise as Judge John Hodgman exits the courtroom.

elena do you feel unburdened well two listings a week i guess is better

than

tons of listings that he used to send me so basically no no

eric how do you feel can you get as much fun out of choosing two listings a week as you could out of indiscriminately hosing your girlfriend down with

thousands of listings every hour?

I think it's very fair, and I think the added joy of winnowing down to two different listings will be quite fun.

Well, both of you, thank you for joining us on the Judge John Hodgman podcast.

Another Judge John Hodgman case in the books.

In a moment, we'll have Swift Justice.

First, we want to thank Mark W.

Gray for naming this week's episode Open House Arrest.

If you want to name a future episode, be sure to like Judge John Hodgman on Facebook.

You can follow John and myself on Twitter at Jesse Thorne and at Hodgman.

I am at Hodgman.

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Hashtag your judge John Hodgman tweets.

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I'll be racing over there to get a look at that nice friend dog.

This week's episode was recorded by Evan Perkins at KGNU, which I sure hope they call the GNU.

Community Radio in Boulder, Colorado.

Our producer is the ever-capable Ms.

Jennifer Marmer.

Now, Swift Justice, where we answer your small disputes with a quick judgment.

Judge Hodgman, is your justice locked and loaded?

I am ready to judge.

Jason says, where does the court draw the line between nostalgia is the most toxic impulse and people like what they like.

I enjoy wearing gene code jeans.

Famous rave pants.

My son says, I am being toxically nostalgic.

So this has come up a lot.

I actually got a couple of letters from people who are pushing back on my nostalgia is the most toxic impulse motto.

including a very inspiring letter from a listener named Aaron, who was suffering from agoraphobia for a long time and said, you know, look, memories of my life before agoraphobia were what motivated me to seek the help I needed to get out of my room.

And Aaron succeeded at that, and I'm very glad that happened.

But as I said to Aaron in the letter, when I say nostalgia is the most toxic impulse, nostalgia does not mean reminiscence or warm memories of the past.

I'm not talking about giving up memory as being a necessity of life.

Like, of course you remember the past, and I hope you have good memories from the past.

People who have subscribed to my newsletter know that I recently went through our basement in Western Massachusetts and cleared out a lot of stuff and found a bunch of old photos and drawings that I had made when I was 12, 13 years old of superheroes.

And the drawing of the superhero Puck from Alpha Flight in particular wasn't my best work.

Puck.

Puck from Alpha Flight.

That's who you were drawing as a 12-year-old.

Yeah, I was interested in the first Canadian superhero team.

Sure.

It ran consonant with your growing interest in parliamentary democracy.

Exactly so.

And Puck was my favorite.

I was a second favorite with Sasquatch.

But Puck was my favorite.

And it was not my best work

as a drawer at that time.

I was very into drawing superheroes, 11, 12, 13 years old, 12, I suppose, was I capped out there.

But the thing about this sheet of paper that made it so powerful when I held it in my hand just a couple of weeks ago was I remember distinctly the day I drew it.

I remember making those marks on the paper and drawing in those little bushy hair marks on Puck's arms because Puck has very hairy arms like Wolverine, but shorter.

And that, you know, Proustian thing of remember, like having that snapback to that very day

really was

it was an intense feeling.

And not a happy one, but not a sad one.

But that moment of recognizing the time is long and short.

The only thing I could describe it as in my newsletter was this shimmering, iridescent feeling of looking at one thing two different ways at the same time.

And I wouldn't give that up.

I wouldn't give up that memory, but nor do I long to be 12 years old again drawing puck.

I'm glad I am where I am today.

I'm also not deluded into thinking that time can go backwards.

Nostalgia, the toxic impulse, is the delusion that time can move backwards and that to go back would be better than to go forward.

And that is not true.

That's what I talk about.

Nostalgia is a toxic impulse.

Going forward is important.

I got rid of a lot.

When I cleaned out that basement, I threw a lot away.

The everyday magic of tidying up that I talk about, and I made up

what I call the man-hodger system.

But I kept a lot too.

I kept that picture of Puck.

It's now in a storage space.

So that I can revisit it in the future that I'm going to.

So that's the distinction that I'm trying to make here, everybody.

Nostalgia, the idea that the past was better, usually wrong, and we can get back to it, always wrong, is a politically toxic, regressive idea.

Now, to the point of Jason.

I did not know what gene code genes were.

I had to look them up.

Apparently, JNCO stands for Judge None, choose one.

And I will choose one, one to judge.

These jeans, they're dumb.

Nostalgic or not, these super wide jeans, these rave jeans, they're ugly.

And you should get rid of them, Jason.

Not because it's an expression of nostalgia, because it's just a really bad look for a middle-aged man.

That's it for this week's Judge John Hodgman episode.

Submit your cases at maximumfund.org/slash JJ H.O.

or email hodgman at maximumfund.org.

No case is too small.

We'll see see you next time on the Judge John Hodgman Podcast.

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