Home Is Where the Hermit Is

As we prepare to sell our house and move to North Carolina, we’ve been watching a lot of HGTV. Like, a lot. Love It Or List It, Property Brothers, Renovation Raiders, shows about people looking for luxury rentals in Costa Rica or studio apartments in Stockholm, you name it.

Most of these people tell their real estate agents the top thing on their must-have list is space for entertaining. I had to go to dictionary.com to discover what this “entertaining” thing was. I was shocked and horrified to learn it involves inviting other humans to your home – on purpose – and entertaining them. I thought this sounded a bit dirty at first, but additional research indicates entertaining typically involves providing food and beverage, occasionally music or board games, and most likely not unconventional naughty-pants activities. At least not on HGTV. I think there’s a network for that sort of thing, but we don’t have it, because it costs extra.

What do we want for our new home? It’s important to consider, because we are in our late 40s and absolutely, positively, no-way-in-blue-hell are we moving again. This new house is where I’ll be found someday, hopefully many years from now, decomposing and surrounded by my dogs, who definitely are not feasting on my corpse because I was thoughtful enough to leave the fridge open and the toilet lid up before I shuffled off this mortal coil.

Number one on the list is privacy. Our current neighborhood has oversized acre-plus lots, so we’re not crammed up against the surrounding properties, but I want even more isolation. More trees to block the view of any houses which might be nearby, and I don’t want to hear the highway. Acreage would be great, but an acre-plus lot would be okay in the right situation. If Brody sees something, he will bark at it, so the less there is to see, the better.

Tom wants a nice, big, covered “rocking chair” porch. Yep, he’ll be that guy. Sitting on the porch, in his rocking chair, bourbon based beverage on the table at his elbow. And possibly whittling. I discourage bourbon and whittling as concurrent activities, but I try not to tell him what to do.

I want a nice bathroom with a jetted tub, since I finally got one in this house, and I refuse to take a step down the home-owner evolutionary ladder. I do want a big kitchen, since I’ve been cooking and baking more, and I’ll need lots of counter space to process the forty-two metric tons of pickles I’ll probably make each year due to the lengthy North Carolina growing season and my deep affection for pickles. I’d like my kitchen to be open to the living room, but not so I can socialize with my “guests.” (Shudder.) I just need to be able to see the TV, and I don’t want to take up any valuable pickle-making space with a kitchen-based TV.

Three bedrooms, a couple of bathrooms, nothing fancy. The target price is “insanely cheap,” because we don’t intend to spend our senior years house-poor, and I have no intention of getting a job. I do plan to get back on track with my writing, and for my ongoing royalties to provide the cushion we need without my having to leave the house and risk interaction with people.

Another thing these HGTV people seem to care about is their neighborhood. Poor David on Love It Or List It has a struggle every episode getting one of the homeowners to loosen their co-dependent death grip on their beloved neighborhood. I’d say I totally understand this, but their reasons are the exact opposite of mine. They wax poetic about the lovely, friendly people, the happy children who play with their kids, the wonderful sense of community, block parties, and a whole bunch of other social-type words I fail to understand.

I care about neighborhoods, too, but for different reasons. I’ve endured 17 years here because my neighbors are quiet and leave me alone. I don’t want neighbors who come over to borrow three eggs when they’re baking cookies, and then return to offer me a dozen of those cookies in gratitude. I don’t want them to come check on me when I’m sick, especially if it’s because they notice they haven’t seen me out and about lately. If that were the case, they’d be over here twice a week, as I do not go out and about.

Here’s the sum total of what I know about my neighbors. Of our four immediate neighbors, two have been here longer than we have, a third moved in shortly after we did, and the fourth are renters recently arrived on the scene.

Next Door Neighbors (West) are Clyde and Mrs. Clyde. I do not know their last name. He works for the electric company (or so Tom tells me), and tends to lurk in his yard watching Tom cut the lawn. He might cry when we leave.

Across the Street Neighbors (West) have several kids of indeterminate age, and a couple of dogs who regularly get loose and roam the neighborhood, driving Brody to a screen-damaging, barking frenzy. They have chickens. I was unaware of this, and have no actual visual evidence, but Tom told me a few days ago that he saw Mrs. Neighbor (nope, don’t know their names) chasing chickens in the front yard. One must assume the chickens live there, as I’m unaware of a feral chicken colony anywhere nearby.

Across the Street Neighbors (East) are Lee and Rita. I used to know their last name, but don’t anymore. They had a cool dog named Grizzly, but now they have something little. A Boston terrier or pug, maybe.

I’ve never spoken to any of these people more than a handful of times, and 90% of this involved dogs. Apologizing for my dogs, asking about theirs, or in one case telling the dog-roaming neighbors which direction the crazy white dog ran.

Next Door Neighbors (East) are the recently-arrived renters. We just ignore them, as long as they cut their grass.

That’s it, all we need. Small, inexpensive, nothing-fancy house with a porch, a decent bathroom and kitchen, on a private lot, and neighbors who will leave me alone.

Oddly, realtor.com doesn’t have a search function that quite meets my criteria, which makes my house-finding chore much harder. Somebody should…wait, brilliant idea! I need to start a property-finding site for people like me.

Off I go to buy a domain name: hermithousehunters.com.

What Are "Cleaning Supplies" And Why Are They In My House?

We are selling our house, and this has led to the one thing I hate more than anything in the entire world. Cleaning.

No, nothing like this. AT ALL.

It started a month or two ago with cleaning out closets. Oddly, I didn’t hate this part as much as I might have anticipated. Early on, I developed a strategy. Throw away almost everything. If I don’t use it, forgot I had it, and don’t want to move it halfway across the country, out it went. I did find some cool things I didn’t know I owned, which is almost like shopping without leaving the house, and now I have closets that aren’t potential death traps, waiting to bury me in an avalanche of mismatched shoes, boxes of craft junk, broken trophies from high school, receipts from the mid ‘90s, and old super-8 movies.

As much as I bitch, Tom had the hard part. He did all the interior painting, because by the time I located the paint, appropriate brushes, paint tray, stir sticks, and drop cloths, I was bored and never got to the actual painting part. Also, I am not good on ladders, in a "visit to the emergency room is likely" kind of way.

Yesterday was the worst. Cleaning Armageddon. Our Realtor emailed me Monday afternoon and said she had someone who would like to see the house. It’s not officially on the market yet, as we are still having work done on our shed and deck, so buyers using FHA financing won’t be rejected due to peeling paint and not-up-to-code deck rails. We also still need to have the upstairs carpet cleaned. She said this buyer really wanted to look at the house, and could “see past” those things.

My first instinct was to email back and say, “Uh-uh, nope, no freaking way, this place is absolutely not ready for showing, I can’t possibly have it ready for at least a week.” Or ever.

Then I remembered I do actually want to sell our house, which is difficult if I don’t clean it, and if I never allow other human beings to cross the threshold.

So I told her we could make it presentable by Tuesday evening, and she scheduled the appointment. And by some fantastic stroke of good fortune (for me), Tom decided he was off work Tuesday, since he needs to work on Saturday, meaning he was home to do the yard stuff, which totally would never have been done otherwise.

I had my hands full inside. I cleaned both bathrooms, all three bedrooms, the living room, dining room, and kitchen. The family room, being mostly empty, was already clean. And this wasn’t my usual half-assed, “the health department probably wouldn’t slap a big red sticker on the front door” cleaning. It involved Pine-Sol, Mr. Clean Magic Erasers, furniture polish, glass cleaner, pop-up cleaning wipes, the vacuum cleaner, sponges, and rags. I wasn’t previously aware I owned half these things.

I even washed the Sofur slipcover and throw pillows. It was a panic-filled frenzy. We put away dog toys, Darwin’s slumber ball, the baby gate, and Brody’s guard tower (also known as the step-thing in front of the bay window). I stashed small kitchen appliances in the entry closet to give the illusion of counter space. I washed the exterior of the kitchen trash can. I think. At this point, it’s all kind of a blur.

I deployed doilies, people. Doilies!

 By 5:30 p.m. yesterday, we were ready. We loaded the dogs into the Blazer and cruised over to Monticello and back, clammy canine breath on our necks the whole ride. When we returned at 6:30, we met briefly with the Realtor to finish some paperwork and learn the results of the showing (“He liked it.”) while her son ate bribery McDonald's fries in the car.

Then we were left alone with the dogs in a disturbingly clean house, which totally freaks me out. I don’t live like a frat boy – except maybe sometimes in the drinking department – but I am comfortable with clutter. After a while, you don’t really see it, anyway. And who notices food splatters on kitchen cabinets or a stray hair on the bathroom sink? Well, some of you probably do, but I don’t. It’s a skill finely honed through years of practice.

Now I’m afraid to move. My purse is hanging from a dining room chair. That can’t be there! There is a coffee drip on the kitchen counter. Quick, grab the sponge! Oh, great, now my sponge is dirty. Argh, a spot of toothpaste in the sink! What are we? Animals??? A stray fingernail shard flies from the clipper and goes rogue somewhere on the Sofur or carpet. An exhaustive search is launched until the offending bit of keratin overgrowth is located, captured, and disposed of in the mostly-clean trash can. I’m considering shrink-wrapping the dogs.

Just look at them. You can tell they're up to something.

 If I move from the Sofur – which is unlikely, since my back is all knotted and twitchy from yesterday’s housework marathon – there is a high probability I will move something, smudge something, or commit some sort of filthy felony requiring me to clean something else. It’s a vicious cycle.

So here I sit, somewhat nervously appreciating the clean, thinking I’d really like a sandwich, but sandwich-making might lead to crumbs, and I can’t even deal with the possibility right now.

Honestly, I don’t know how people live like this.

Scalped

I’ve always been a little vain about my hair.

Well, that’s not absolutely true. I was in high school in the early 80s before the “big hair” craze. The style then required extensive time every morning with a curling brush or hot rollers, brutalizing your hair into geometric precision, and then spritzing it into place with copious amounts of environmentally friendly pump-bottle hairspray. Forget carpal tunnel syndrome. Think about pump-spray finger syndrome. Lesser known, but twice as debilitating. There should be some sort of colored ribbon and a fundraising campaign.

My hair refused to comply. Inherited from my mother, it was very dark brown, thick, with a deep wave, moderate curl, and a mind of its own. It threatened me with social pariahship by failing to conform to acceptable social standards. It looked at all heat-based hair styling devices and laughed. But I taught it a lesson! I deployed the nuclear option and started getting big, loopy, poodle-curl perms. I totally won, because it looked good, Tom liked it (yes, we were dating then), and it saved me hours and hours every week. This left me much more time to plan important things like how to sneak out of the house, where to hide my cigarettes and birth control, and the best places to go parking where we were unlikely to be interrupted. Sadly, I was not very good at any of these.

Now in my late 40s, my hair and I were getting along pretty well – until recently. I took good care of it, hiding its gray, giving it spiffy highlights, not over-washing it, and no longer subjecting it to the horrors of giant perm rods. I guess my hair isn’t really the problem, though. In fact, we’re both suffering, lifelong companions now facing trauma together.

My scalp is trying to kill us. Prepare for a nauseating description of its tactics.

Several years ago, I began to notice the occasional sore spot on my scalp. Being a picker, I picked. Sometimes it got a little scabby, but I had no way to know whether it would have been scabby on its own, or if I made it that way. Fast-forward to now, when most of my scalp is itchy, oozy, flaky, crusty, pasty, and categorically disgusting.

I don’t know why. My father had psoriasis, so I considered this. But it affected his whole body, and I don’t recall any oozing. Other than a suspicious eczema-like patch on my hip and a general overall itchiness, I don’t see any psoriasis-like symptoms. I Googled “seborrheic dermatitis,” and this sounded like the winning condition. Except my scalp turned out to be as stubborn as my hair (long years of close association, I suppose) and refuses to respond to any over-the-counter medicated shampoo known to man. I even ordered a shampoo (available only by prescription in the U.S.) from New Zealand. Look away, FDA, I’m not talking to you. I might get half a day of partial relief, but I think I’d get the same from any shampoo, simply by scrubbing away the top layer of scalp-crud.

I guess it could also be my liver and other filtering-type organs sending out a distress signal. They are admittedly over-worked, as I seem to collect vices the same way some women my age collect Hummel figurines or anti-anxiety prescriptions. Maybe my inner HEPA filter has given up and is simply forcing toxins from my body via the scalp, like some desperately demented Play-Doh Fun Factory.

I feel like I’m going to wake up some morning resembling an over-ripe zombie from The Walking Dead, my decaying scalp and remaining hair sloughing off and draping my shoulders. My hair is worried, too. My constant digging breaks it off, leaving a stubbly undercoat beneath the visible long strands, like a disease-ridden terrier. I can feel smooth areas of probable scar tissue where hair might not even be able to grow. My hair’s texture is different, too. This might simply be a normal age-related change, but it’s a lot finer in texture, and I have to work more to encourage its natural curl. Or maybe it’s just giving up.

I know I probably should see a doctor, who would refer me to a dermatologist, who would then likely refer me to the nearest carnival freak show. They still have those. I saw it on TV. Actually, some of the freaks looked kind of fun, so maybe it wouldn’t be the worst outcome in the world. Plus, all the funnel cakes I could eat. But I don’t have a doctor, have marginal (at best) insurance, and plan to relocate in the next few months. Said relocation will be to a beach area, and Dad always said seawater cures everything. I love the ocean, and if I can swim and cure my scalp leprosy, win/win. Though our annual beach vacations didn’t cure Dad’s psoriasis, so he might’ve been full of shit.

At this point, I’m considering grabbing Tom’s beard trimmer, setting the guide to about a half inch, and going all Carol-Peletier-From-The-Walking-Dead. I’d hate to do that to my (semi-) faithful hair, but perhaps my scalp is jealous. Maybe if I make a grand gesture, it will forgive me and stop rotting off my head. Maybe it just wants to breathe, or see the sunshine, or get a sunburn which will lead to melanoma. Who knows? It’s a scalp. Scalps aren’t nearly as communicative as hair. Hair lets you know when it’s having a bad day, as evidenced by millions of women’s dramatic Facebook status updates and internet memes. Scalps keep it a secret, building up resentment, until it unleashes a blitzkrieg of pasty ooze and silvery flakes, causing you to scratch until the shoulders of your shirt look like someone dropped a bag of rice chaff on you from a fifth-story window.

I would look terrible with Carol’s hair. A gray buzz-cut would fail to cover my forehead wrinkles, badly-plucked eyebrows, and misshapen ears. My mangy scalp would be starkly visible. On the other hand, people might think I have some horrible (hopefully non-contagious) terminal disease. They would feel sorry for me, not comment on my wrinkles, eyebrows, or ears, let me go ahead of them in lines, and maybe even give me pity presents.

Carol: Radiation victim, or bold fashion statement?

I could always buy wigs. Wigs are fun, right? I could have short blonde ones, long red ones, purple and black punky ones, maybe even one made entirely of peacock feathers… But wigs are also sort of hot and itchy, and my scalp gets even more rebellions if it gets hot.

So I’m thinking hats. I’ve recently developed a powerful desire to buy a bunch of 1950s and 60s vintage dresses, the kind with full, swishy skirts. I think they would pair in a delightfully incongruous way with my tattoos, and would either impress people with my unconventional style or shock and horrify them. I’m fine with either reaction. Women back then did wear a lot of hats. Little pillbox hats, hats with wide brims, and the ones with a mysterious little wisp of net over the eyes (which, come to think of it, would also hide my forehead wrinkles).

Maybe I could become a gypsy fortuneteller. That way, my sparkly, vibrantly-printed head scarves would be tax deductible (IRS, go sit with the FDA; I’m not talking to you, either.), and people would pay me to sit in the dark and make shit up. Oh, yeah…I’m a writer. People already to pay me for that.

After further consideration, and the inclusion of The Daryl Dixon Factor, the Carol option is looking better and better. I might not like how it looks, but if Daryl approves, who am I to argue?

Ooh, baby. No head lice, and the hottest guy in Georgia. Gimme my clippers and a crossbow!

Days Like These

I haven't written about a lot of serious topics here, and I don't recall (without looking it up, and I'm too lazy) whether I've written much about anxiety. Today is that day.

I don't think about it often, truthfully, because it's usually fairly well-controlled. Sure, you all know about my aversion to venturing into the Out, where there are Others. It's a running joke. Most of the time. If I can find a reason to stay home, I will. I tend to cluster necessary errands into one or two days so I can string as many "don't have to leave the house" days together as possible.

It's been two years now since I've regularly attended a "day job." I managed, though sometimes I wonder how. Dealing with clients, co-workers, employees, vendors, and still finding time to cook, clean (shut up, I do it sometimes...a little), and write. But my days off were largely spent mentally checked out, because I simply could not engage in any way while my socially-anxious brain worked to recover enough equilibrium to go out and do it again.

Now, the daily pressure is less, and I normally manage to function when necessary. Once in a while, though, it sneaks up behind me and seizes me in its crushing grip. I don't know why, but this always surprises me. Yeah, I know, it was being sneaky, and sneaky leads to surprise. But the worst is usually in the fall. Every fall. Yet when it hits, I am always caught unaware.

I can understand why people would be unsympathetic. My "panic/anxiety/fall funk" looks suspiciously like my day-to-day "lazy-ass-ness." But, believe me, it's a whole different critter. It's nearly impossible to explain to someone who has never experienced it. Tom does a pretty good job of understanding, as much as anyone could, and helps in any way he can. But he has to go to work, and sometimes the hours waiting for him to come home again actually leave me trembling with anxiety. When he's here, I'm okay, regardless of what else is going on.

People might say, "What do you have to be afraid of? Jeez, it's just the grocery store!" But that's not it at all. I'm not "afraid," exactly. Anxiety is a kind of embryonic fear. Fear that something, something I can't anticipate, predict, or prevent, is about to happen. And that anxiety can spike to full-blown panic at any moment, and I don't want to be in the produce aisle when it happens.

Have you ever stood in the break room at work, your hands pressed tightly over your nose and mouth, screaming, while inside your head you're begging for this out-of-control feeling to just go away? I have. That was a Very Bad Day.

It makes no sense, though there are sometimes triggers. We're not afraid OF anything, or maybe we're afraid of everything, or nothing...it doesn't matter. These feelings come when they come, and you find a way to cope.

It's typical for me to resist any sort of social engagement. If we have a night out planned, or I've arranged to have lunch with a friend (yes, I do have a few), as the hour approaches I begin quietly looking for a reason (okay, an excuse) to cancel. Or I hope they have to cancel or reschedule. In the end, I usually have a good time, though I often have a drink or two more than I should, because that shuts up the "oh, shit, get home or you will DIE" part of my brain.

I know some of you have similar experiences, and these things will sound familiar. If you're at the store and need something in a particular aisle, but there are a few people already browsing that area, you'll bypass it, either coming back when the aisle is less populated...or skipping that item altogether, regardless of how badly you need it. Simply passing others in the aisle, that polite "hi, I'm walking by you right now" interaction, even if no words are spoken or direct eye contact made, is too much.

If you can't find something on your list, you do without it. Asking? Seriously? Ask a person? What if I say or do something stupid or embarrassing? It could happen.

I'm very upset if I can't park in the particular row or section I prefer. What if I park somewhere else and there's something (wrong? different? confusing?) about the new space or area? What if it impacts my routine, disrupts my thought process, causing me to do something wrong?

I know it often confuses Tom when he comes home, knowing I'd been out that day, but I hadn't brought in the mail. Know why? Because sometimes when I pull into the driveway I am so frantic to get back into the house that the additional twenty or thirty seconds necessary to retrieve the mail from the box at the end of the driveway feels like twenty or thirty days. All I can think about is getting those shopping bags inside. As long as I'm outside the house, there is the danger of seeing someone or being seen. (It occurs to me that I really need a cloak of invisibility, which would solve a lot of problems.) Sometimes I'll even leave a case of pop or bag of dog food out in the garage rather than carry it in - requiring another trip from the house to the garage. Not because I am physically incapable of lifting it. But it takes time. So I tell Tom I'd like him to carry this heavy thing in when he gets home, while I'm (finally) safe inside with the dogs.

I dread having work done in/on/near the house by contractors or service providers of any kind. It totally wrecks me, and the dogs, either because they're territorial, picking up on my stress, or both, are nearly as bad.

I had gastric bypass surgery eleven years ago, and am on some pretty high-dose supplements to compensate for the malabsorption caused by the reconfigured digestive tract. When those get out of balance (sometimes I'm not as careful about taking them every day as I should be), I get fuzzy, vague, and twitchy. And something about fall makes me morose, unmotivated, fearful, and depressed. When these hit at the same time, look out. It might look like I'm being an even bigger lazy-ass than usual, but I'm screaming inside my head. "I hate feeling like this! Someone please do something to make it better! Make me happy and productive!" But nobody, not even Tom, can do that.

Pharmaceuticals are not my solution. Personally, I don't take any prescription medication, and I don't plan to without a really overwhelming reason. My anxiety, as I said, is usually manageable. Occasional discomfort, moments of stabbing fear, but not full-blown, ongoing episodes. Thankfully, those are few and far between.

This doesn't mean they don't suck kangaroo balls when they happen, though. The past week has been one of those times. I've adjusted my supplement doses, especially the B12 which impacts neurological function, and now I'll wait it out. Or wait it IN, because I will keep trips into the Out to a bare minimum for a while. I don't enjoy being out in the best of times, and these ain't those times. It's like the survivors of a zombie apocalypse trying to slink silently through the streets of an overrun town, avoiding notice of the shambling undead and criminally-minded humans alike. But, sincerely, I sort of think I'd rather do that than have to try to function around regular people when the inside of my head feels like it's full of radioactive spiders.

I know there are plenty of people out there with anxiety disorders far worse than mine. I don't mean to belittle their suffering. But just because you have one broken leg, and someone else has two, doesn't mean your leg doesn't hurt. And anxiety hurts. It hurts your brain, your heart, your ability to catch your breath or sleep at night. It hurts your self-esteem, your productivity, your relationships, your ambition, and your hope for the future. While it's happening, it is suffocating and demoralizing.

The only good part is it ends. Eventually. Sometimes you can help it along, sometimes you just have to ride it out. If it doesn't go away, you have a bigger problem than anxiety or panic disorder, and should investigate further.

Right now, I'm riding it out. In coach. With my knees drawn up and a blanket over my head. But I know I'll see the light again soon.

Little Barefoot Girl

Sometimes the simplest little memory can sneak up on you, ambush you, and practically bring you to your knees. It can be hard to tell if the overwhelming emotion is a sense of loss, or the bittersweet joy of remembering a more innocent time.

I grew up on a rural hilltop in northern West Virginia. Our property adjoined my grandparents', and between Pap and Dad, they had well over a full acre in cultivation. Several enormous garden areas. Every night, Dad came home from work, ate dinner, then headed to the garden, usually with me right on his heels. I loved spending time with him in the garden, and today one of those memories was resurrected so vividly, I could almost close my eyes and relive it.

One of my favorite things was the spring tilling. Earlier, Dad would have used the tractor and plow to turn the earth, and that was entertaining in its own way, but I really loved when he got out the tiller to break up the soil into a finer texture in preparation for planting. Dad would maneuver the huge red tiller back and forth over the garden, followed closely by a skinny little girl with long, uncombed dark hair, skinned knees, and skin brown from the sun - and generous layers of dirt. I might have pokeberry juice on my fingers (they were so fun to pop!) and mosquito bites all over my arms and legs. I loved to dig my bare feet into the soft, damp, sun-warmed earth, wiggling my toes. Dad sometimes scolded me halfheartedly. "Here I am tilling this up all nice and loose, and you're right behind me packing it all down again." He didn't mean it, though, because he never made me stop.

Sometimes when darkness began to fall and we headed back to the trailer, the dew had already dampened the grass in the field. I was warm through and through, but the cool moisture on the grass chilled my toes, and washed away a bit of the garden dirt. The rest of the evening might be spent on the couch, curled up in a crook made by Dad's legs, watching Truth or Consequences, Wild Kingdom, Davy Crockett, or a football game. Yeah, I was a pretty major Daddy's Girl.

Tonight, Tom was tilling up our garden area, something we just started doing last year. I was "helping," because there are still quite a few roots and rocks in the soil, and I try to spot them and pick them out so they don't catch on the tiller's tines.

But there I was. Tom maneuvering the red tiller through our garden, and me behind him, barefoot, digging my dirty bare toes into the soft, damp, sun-warmed earth, wiggling my toes.

For a few minutes, it was forty years ago, and I was seven years old again, in the garden with my Dad.

In Or Out

Sometimes I hear people say things like, "I've been stuck in the house for two days, and I'm going crazy! I need to get out of here!" Though, technically, I don't hear people say it, because I do not interact with actual human beings, so I'm seeing this on their Facebook updates. But it seems strange to say, "I saw someone say this," even if it's technically true.

The only human I'm really comfortable with is Tom, but he's my husband, so he's in a separate category. Let's call him "super-human," because it's painfully accurate. Seriously, if you knew half the things he has to put up with. He has more patience than the Dalai Lama. (I'm assuming the Dalai Lama is patient. If he's not, he has an incredible public relations team.)

The point is, these people who claim cabin fever after a couple of days at home are nuts. Do you know what's out there? Have you been paying attention? There are Others. There are sales clerks and cashiers who insist on speaking to you, including the ones in the bank drive-through, which is infuriating because the whole reason I go to the drive-through is to avoid talking to people.

There are people who hold the door open at the convenience store and insist on making eye contact. Even in the safety of the car, one must deal with other vehicles, all of which seem to be driven by senile chimpanzees with cataracts.

I avoid the Out as much as possible. Normal humans might consider my reluctance to run errands a sign of laziness. Well, there's home-lazy and out-lazy, and (as is typical for me) I excel at both. Having to plan for every possible contingency before leaving the house is exhausting. What if I can't find the 40-watt light bulbs and have to ask someone where they are? What will I say? What will they say? What will I say back? Never mind, I'll just stay home. I know what the dogs will say. ("Bark!") I know what I will say back. ("Brody, shutthehellup!")

But occasionally something comes up, and I can no longer avoid putting on shoes and a bra and going out to pretend I'm a real person. Usually this involves cigarettes or chocolate. Stop judging me. Everybody eats chocolate.

Yesterday, we were out of both dishwasher detergent and trash bags. The dishwasher and the trash were both full. But we did have some heavy-duty 55-gallon construction grade trash bags. You know, the kind you can load with chunks of drywall. I transferred the contents of our last regular trash bag into one, then added the contents of the bathroom trash and some decomposing stuff from the refrigerator just so it wouldn't seem as wasteful. Problem solved. Empty (if slightly slimy and probably smelly) trash can in the kitchen closet. Win!

The dishwasher was still full, and this morning I considered taking some of the dishes out and hand washing them. Then I realized it would take about five times longer to wash these dishes by hand than it would take to simply go to the store and buy dishwasher detergent. Plus, I hate washing dishes.

And there was one more factor I had to consider...

Once every eight and a half days, the thing requiring my presence in the Out involves dropping our auto insurance payment off at the State Farm agency. Tom swears this is, in reality, only once a month, but I'm pretty sure he's lying. It certainly feels like every eight and a half days, or nine and a half if it happens to be leap year.

For some reason, he refuses to put a stamp on the envelope and mail it to the office, claiming it's only a mile away, it's really not a big deal, and why is it so damned hard to go hand someone a freaking envelope. Well, for one, the receptionist insists on asking me, every single time, if I want a receipt. I never do. We have this conversation every month. (Or every eight and a half days.) Can't she just assume it's the same as every other time, and spare me this unnecessary exchange? How inconsiderate. I need a new insurance agency.

I understand we can't put the payment out in our own mailbox, because several years ago we had some outgoing bills stolen. The thieves "washed" the checks and tried to cash them with different "payable to" information and amounts. Thankfully, they were unsuccessful - arrested! - but we now know we can't pay our bills using our own mailbox. Tom drives most of them to the public boxes near the location of the old post office. These boxes are, ironically, a block from the insurance office, but I'd totally drive there and stick the bill in the box rather than get out of the car and see that receptionist. Or receptionists. I'm not sure if it's always the same one, because I never look at her.

The alternative would be for Tom to take the bills to work with him and put them with his store's outgoing mail. The insurance bill would be driven 35 miles to be mailed, only to arrive at a destination one mile from where it was when we put it in the envelope. Tom thinks this is ridiculous. I think it makes perfect sense. That's what the USPS is for. If our mail carrier gets laid off and out of his mind with assault-rifle-toting rage, I'll explain to him that it's all Tom's fault.

Since I'm not looking at people, I tell myself in my head they're not looking at me, either. Still, I make some concessions to personal appearance when venturing into the Out. I change my furry sweats, shirt, and filthy socks for jeans, shoes, and a bra under my probably-fairly-clean shirt. I even brush my hair. I've pretty much stopped wearing makeup, but I wear glasses, and that's sort of like eye makeup. Plus, I'm probably going to Walmart, and I'm relatively sure if I showed up there stylishly dressed, with clean, well-groomed hair and impeccable makeup I would not be allowed inside.

It doesn't matter, really, since I'm wearing my "I'm not looking at you" cloak of invisibility. Logic would dictate that one of the three or four people I actually know could see me and assume I've fallen on hard times, might even be homeless, and am shuffling around Walmart pushing a cart full of things I can't actually afford to buy, but enjoying the fantasy that I can actually take these fabulous Ramen noodles back to my refrigerator box under the railroad bridge. But I refuse to subscribe to this logic, and choose instead to believe nobody can see me. Which is why it's incredibly rude for anyone to speak to me, because it sort of blows the whole theory.

We're all much better off if I just stay here and talk to the dogs. The people who like going out there are the crazy ones.

Never Is A Very Long Time

Today's words of wisdom: Never say "never" unless it's followed by something like "pour gasoline on a bonfire." Because, generally speaking, if you say you "never" do something, you'll eventually turn out to be a liar.

I've been known to say "never" a lot. Three examples:

1) While I have the TV on all the time, I never really watch it.
2) I never go to movies.
3) I will never, ever, neverever touch a gun because I'm not exactly stable and have poor impulse control, and I'd totally end up on CNN or featured in The Darwin Awards.

And, of course, I'm a big fat liar about two of those things. I still don't go to movies. (Too loud, too cold, too many people.)

Other than The Walking Dead, there has been nothing on television in the last, well, lifetime I couldn't live without seeing. Then Santa doomed me. And by Santa, I mean my son and daughter-in-law. Because I had zero knowledge of essentially every series and movie in the last twenty years (at least), they gifted us with a Roku device for our television. This miraculous (cursed) gadget allows me to have Netflix and Amazon Instant Video, among many other viewing options I have yet to explore fully.

My already infinitesimal productivity plummeted. It's a good thing I hadn't previously been more productive, or the fall would've killed me. However, I have produced seven afghans this winter, which I think counts for something.

So. Many. Things. To. Watch. And when you discover a series which ran for five or six seasons, it takes a while (like maybe two whole weeks) to cross even one item off your "must-see" list. Buffy, Angel, Dexter, True Blood, Jericho... just to name a few.

My current obsession is Leverage, thanks to a certain super-hot guy I first encountered on Angel. There seriously aren't enough hours in a day.

(Honestly. How could I not watch this???)

The dogs are starting to hate me. First, I sit on the leather couch - not the Sofur - while watching, because I'm always working on an afghan and there's less fur on the other couch. Also, barking is not permitted (certain low, husky, sexy voices are difficult to hear over Brody's territorial hysterics). Drooling and shedding in the vicinity of my lovely yarn is not allowed, either, and since they do both pretty much constantly, they feel skritch-deprived.

But I have a couple of decades of popular culture to catch up on, so they'll have to deal with it.

All this TV-watching indirectly led to breaking the other of my Never Commandments. It became obvious society is sure to fail, possibly because of zombies, and we were totally unprepared. And if books and television shows weren't enough, try watching the news. It's the scariest program of all. Actually, it was Tom watching Jericho that tipped the scales. He started to feel very anxious and vulnerable, and he has enough to worry about. So we got a gun and started learning to shoot.

The gun range is a strange and foreign place. I learned right away that hot shell casings down the shirt are not good, and those things fly everywhere. But as it turns out, I'm a pretty good shot. I'm not quite as good at putting on my ear protectors, though, and almost lost a fingernail when I got my finger stuck between the ear-muffy part and the thing that holds it to the head-bandy part.

But until I'm a whole lot better, we might have a gun...but no bullets at home.

So when you hear yourself saying "never," think about it. If you say it too often, about too many things, you might be missing out on some fun, interesting new experiences. Plus, when the zombies show up, your weapon choice will be limited to dog toys and sticks you pick up from the yard. Eliot on Leverage could totally bludgeon several dozen zombies to death with these objects, but odds are you can not.

Maybe I should find a way to incorporate a multi-tasking approach into these lifestyle changes. I bet I could crochet a holster. Or a gun cozy. There are free patterns online for everything.

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PS: Be sure to visit my author page for excerpts and links to buy my books, Make or Break and Monsters Unmasked!