Sunday, September 30, 2012

28 hours of Alone Time

Jonathan was away on Friday night in Arizona visiting a friend.  Which left me on my own, with the cats.  Here's how I get Wild and Crazy on a Friday night when I'm by myself:

- Get my feminist rage on with Tori Amos.  I seriously love her.  Ever since my friend Nikki introduced me to Little Earthquakes my senior year in high school, I've been obsessed.  But I don't listen as much as I used to.  I've found that Tori Amos tends to give a lot of men migraines.  They can't handle all the feminist anger.  I had a boyfriend once who said my beloved Tori was like nails going down a chalk board.  He didn't last in my life, but she did.  So far J hasn't gone to that extreme, but I don't like to push the limits.

- Play a lot of Skyrim.  Here's how I do it when I'm by myself and I don't need to worry about someone coming in and taking the tv from me when I'm on a break.  I do some Skyrim, then I do a couple of work emails, then I walk around the house just to pet all the cats.  This is a cycle I enjoy.  But when J is home, and he sees me at my computer with Skyrim paused, he assumes I'm done, and switches the game to Modern Warfare, or whatever kind of violent war game he's into at the moment.  With him gone, I don't have to stay rooted to the couch.  I prefer it my way.

- Listen to Christmas music while I put out the fall decorations.  I have more autumn decorations than I do Christmas ones.  The oranges and browns really appeal to me, and I have boxes and boxes of plastic pumpkins, light up jack-o-lanterns, purple and orange lights, and orange garlands.  These make me very happy, and my favorite time of year is when I get to climb on the furniture to reach the ceiling to hang the garland.  When J is home he's worried I'll fall off my desk, or break something, so he invariably hovers and makes me nervous.  I like doing the decorating when I'm by myself.  I can arrange and rearrange all I want without him reminding me to be careful.  Of course, in fairness to him, I am a massive klutz, so he has reason to worry.  One time I walked right into the bookcase and hit my head really hard.  It was right in front of me.  I can't explain it.

- Watch Harry Potter movies on my computer *while* playing Skyrim.  This takes attention and multitasking skills that most men don't have.  Plus I've seen them all like 78 times, so if I watch them when J is home, he just rolls his eyes.  Sometimes as he's walking away I try a spell on him, but it never actually works.

- Listen to Peter Cetera music.  If it can be called music.  This is also something that makes J roll his eyes at me, and honestly, I don't blame him.  But in fairness to me, he doesn't have the same nostalgia with it as I do.  Let's go back 20 years, to 1992.  I had just bought a Sega Genesis from a guy I worked with, and was obsessed with Wonder Boy in Monster Land.  Peter Cetera came out with Restless Heart.  I had a drivers' license, and drove a Colt Vista, listening to the aforementioned Restless Heart.  I drove to Dairy Queen to flirt with Josh H., on whom I had a massive crush.  It remains one of the most embarrassing episodes of high school for me.  Josh was cool and distant, troubled, a kind of sickly puppy that I wanted to scoop up and fix.  He was also dark and brooding.  And he thought I was annoyingly happy.  Finally he asked me out, and I....freaked....out.... I told EVERYBODY at school, I even told teachers, I was just so freaking excited.  That was before I learned to play it cool.  Man, that did not go over well.  Josh cancelled our date, teaching me the lesson that it's always better to not show your cards, especially with boys.  I didn't always remember the lesson.  But I learned it then.  

Anyway, that fall I also had money from my job as a tour guide at Rock Ford Plantation, an 18th century home of an Adjutant General during the Revolution.  I was a super-cute and talkative tour guide, and I loved wearing my Regency outfits.  So I had money and went shopping at Express, and sometimes bought stuff before it even went on sale.  All of this to the soundtrack of Peter Cetera's silky voice singing about love and loss in such a poppy way that you couldn't help but dance along.  So Peter Cetera isn't about the music for me.  He's about being young and carefree and driving a kickass minivan.  (Oh, and I still think PC is super-hot; so much so that I put him on my List - ie people I get to make out with if I ever meet them.  I don't know who all is on J's list, but I don't care.  Other people on mine are Fernando Alonso, and really any Formula 1 driver.  Also Nick Clegg, the leader of the LibDems in the UK, because if I imagine him in a sweater, I am reminded of Colin Firth.  Colin Firth is also on my list, but only if he's in a sweater.  Or a suit.  I can't imagine him in jeans and a flannel shirt, for example.)  Oh, and to end the story about Josh, he never did ask me out again, but I ran into him when I was in college, and at my skinniest and most confident, and I felt really good about that.  Like I got to get the final word or something.  

- Sit in a bubblebath for three hours.  I reminded myself of that Seinfeld episode when Kramer was doing everything in the shower.  I drank wine, I read a book, I listened to music, I washed my hair, I had a snack, I read a magazine, I watched some tv on netflix on my laptop...  really, life would be better if we all spent more time in bathtubs.  Someday I'd like to try to do my job from the bathtub.   Set up a little desk right next to the tub, with my phone and laptop, and I would be good to go.  

- Play the piano.  We have a piano that we bought me back in LA, and I rarely play it, but I need to start again.  Right now I am learning Beethoven's Pathetique sonata.  It's broody and depressing and filled with angst.  And I'm learning it, literally, one measure at a time, very slowly.  But whatever.  It makes me happy.  I like looking at my old music books from when I was in junior high school.  I doodled all sorts of funny things all over them.  Like the names of boys I was in love with.  Then I'd cross them out when I was in love with someone new.  So there are crossed out names all over the front cover.  It's very comical.  Now I just print out public domain music from the internet, so my music is doodle free.  Which is kind of sad, really.

- Dress the cats up in Halloween costumes.  The rest of the house is getting decorated.  They should too.  Or so say I.  They would disagree.  Whatever.

So yep, that's how I spent my Alone Time on Friday night and Saturday.  I so totally know how to party.  I can't stand the excitement.  Honestly.  
 

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