The Perils Of Solitude

It pretty much goes without saying that one of the main perks of my job is my schedule, which gives me a four-day weekend.
However, there are some inherent problems that follow from condensing nearly a full five-day workweek into three days, most notable of which is that at the end of those three days you typically find yourself completely and utterly exhausted.
Granted, it’s not like I’m digging ditches for a living or doing anything physically demanding, or, honestly, even all that intellectually demanding, but work is work, and most jobs tend not to be especially relaxing and refreshing.
In particular, jobs that involve sitting in the cold and the dark for twelve hours staring at multiple computer screens, leave you feeling something other than relaxed, though they will definitely make you feel tired.
Of course, when you consider that, for me, the natural state of things tends to be staring at a computer screen for hours at a time, you’d think that it wouldn’t be much of a hardship.
But then, when I’m at home, the contents of the screen are entirely of my choosing, the light and temperature are both better, and beyond that, I’m at home, with all of the freedom that entails.
You also need to consider that another aspect of the natural state of things is for me to be completely and utterly alone. At home, I sit in silence, or, for the most part, amid sounds that are entirely of my choosing.
At work I’m surrounded by people. That alone can be irritating, but the level of discourse, as discussed in this previous Threshold entry, makes it so much worse.
Now, I get along with the people I actually work with, and we all tend to keep each other amused (which is easy to do, considering that being up so early and working such long days tends to make us kind of punch-drunk), so my complaints are mostly directed at the other people who share the space with us.
Even so, the fact of the matter is that I’m used to being alone, so having to be in the company of other people, even people I get along with, can be extremely draining, so by Sunday night I’m pretty much physically and emotionally drained when I walk through my apartment door.
So it’s probably just as well that when I get home there’s nobody here waiting for me, because all I really want is just to get back to my quiet, solitary existence.
I’m pretty sure that the fact I have gotten so accustomed to being alone, and, indeed, need to be alone, pretty much ensures that I will always be alone, despite the fact that, because I’m human, I do also feel a need to have some kind of meaningful interaction with another human being.
In any case, after waking up late I discovered that my Sunday night “blahs” had followed me straight through to Monday morning, which wasn’t that surprising, considering that lately I’ve been finding myself in an increasingly bad mood no matter what day of the week it is.
Why? I have my theories, but nothing I feel like getting into now.
Once I was up, I began to answer the call of nature, but had to cut it short in order to answer a call from my mother, a call which she eagerly cut short once I launched off into a black mood-inspired, bellicose rant about the random injustice of the world, man’s inhumanity to man, and the sheer, pig-ignorant stupidity that permeates every aspect of human life and is worn with unspeakable pride like some badge of stupid honor by so many people.
After that I reluctantly acknowledged that I needed to go out into the world and pick up some groceries, so it was time to shower and, presumably, shave.
However, despite the fact that my face and neck were covered with several days’ worth of the patchy growth of fine blonde hairs, thick brown hairs, and even thicker, coarser black hairs similar to those growing out of Jeff Goldblum’s back in “The Fly,” I just didn’t feel like shaving, and decided that it really doesn’t matter how crappy I look when I venture out into the world. I’m not going to impress anyone with my good looks, clean-shaven or not.
I also didn’t bother putting any gel in my hair, even though it’s gotten long enough that it either needs to be cut or gelled into submission, and when it hasn’t been gelled it makes me feel as though I look vaguely like Bruce Jenner, which, Olympic gold-medalist or not, I don’t view as a good thing.
Again, I decided that it didn’t matter, and I’m not so sure that I look any better with my hair gelled anyway, though I do feel as though I look less Jenner-ish.
In line at the grocery store I found myself behind a woman buying a box of wine. The fact that she was clearly already drunk, and was paying for a significant portion of her purchase with pennies and other small-denomination coins, indicated to me that she was a problem drinker.
She did, however, put more effort into not looking like a slob than I had, though, as in my case, I don’t think it really mattered.
Certainly, she was well past the point in her life, and weight, at which she could get away with wearing shorts that short, and her big, flashy costume jewelry added none of the elegance I can only assume she was hoping for, nor did it cover up the fact that she was a sad old drunk buying boxed wine with whatever loose change she was able to dig out of her couch.
What I found most odd was the fact that she smelled, very strongly, of gasoline.
Though I was never a morning (or wine) drinker, I did feel a kind of kinship with her, along with a certain amount of sympathy and the hope that it’s not too late for her to straighten out her life.
After all, there were plenty of times in my life when I found myself scrounging for every last penny I could find so that I could make a trip to the liquor store.
Though I did feel compassion, I was also repulsed by her physically, not simply because of how she looked but because she rather reminded me of someone I used to know whom I found endlessly repulsive both physically and personally, the mother of a kid who was my best (and often only) friend when I was growing up.
Once I got home I thought about just calling it a day and going to bed, but instead I did a little reading, went for the walk I didn’t go on in the morning, watched “Threshold,” and then did some more reading.
And that was my action-packed day.
While I was in the produce aisle at the grocery store I became just barely aware of the sound of my cell phone ringing.
It was Brian calling to ask for some advice on how to go about installing something on his computer.
That was probably the biggest excitement for the day, beyond the fact that my niece Jenni turned 8 today and she got a part in a production of “Snow White,” though those aren’t really exciting things that happened to me…
Next month will mark the start of “National Novel Writing Month,” which I participated in last year, and plan to participate in again.
It had been my hope to be better-prepared this year, having a stable of characters, settings, and a well-developed plot, as opposed to the making-it-up-as-I-go-along approach I took last year.
…
I have considerably more plot elements than I did last year, but I still haven’t got a concrete beginning-middle-end full-on plot.
Still, I am sort of looking forward to the process, even if I don’t churn out the Great American Novel. After all, I had fun last year, and if you read this, you’ll clearly see that I didn’t even churn out the Mediocre American Novel.
I’m not certain that I’m going to take the same approach I did last year, blogging it as I write it. Instead, I may simply work on it, make occasional entries here about my progress, and then post the completed work on November 30th.
Anyone out there have a preference?
In any case, I think that will do it for this entry, and it’s time for me to get back to my solitude…