Novelist, 50, seeking distance and retreat

About this sitter

Anthropologist, fifty, author of three book-length essays, now turning my attention to experimental fiction. Quiet, monkish habits, never drink or smoke, long-time vegan. For the next ten years, most of what I want to do is write, draw, and swim in the sea, and if I can spend time in new places, and care for animals along the way, so much the better. Happily espoused. Sometimes my brilliant partner Jessy and I travel together, sometimes I’ll be on in my own. Looking for longish (as long as six months? perhaps longer?) assignments near open water, in the mountains, deserts — edge places.

Why they want to house sit

I do my best work in borrowed places. And I’ve been known to profess strong views on our responsibilities to other animals.

https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/meat-question

Their experience

Substantial experience sitting for cats and dogs, not to say wwoofing with goats and alpacas.

Among the photos you’ll see drawings of the shorthair Beckett (mid 2024) and the poodle Rainy (early 2025), two recent charges.

In the more remote past I’ve spent time with chickens, and I’d be glad to do that again, not to say care for parrots and cockatoos.

I also love caring for plants. Among the photos you’ll see the aloe and cider gum from our container garden in Berlin.

I’ll gladly entertain assignments in remote and meteorologically challenging places (that’s the ferry to the Isle of Mull in the photos … Jessy and I had a cold-swimming dare …).

What can they bring to the assignment

Maturity, attentiveness, a penchant for keeping kitchen surfaces clean.