Slow Solo

This time they traveled, not me.

They went for a few weeks of lake and grandparents, cookouts and cousins. I stayed to work, traveling a bit, but it hardly seems to count if when you get home you are just alone as when you were on the road.

So I sink into the spasmodic routine of the unattached man: work, kick back, procure food, do what I want, check internet, snack, attend to some un-ignorable task, kick back,....ummmm.

You get enough of that, and time loses its grip. No enforcing the kids' bedtimes? You just stay up til whenever. No other mouths to feed? You eat what you want when you want it, which for me turns into a meandering series of fractional meals formed of leftovers, maybe something cooked, handfuls harvested, and snacks discovered. Omnivoristic biped loping through an empty abode, satisfying his various hungers as they occur to him. Too many days since and too many until living amongst the women again, and time slips off the horizon. 

This is maybe more true for me than most guys, since I don't have TV, and so there's no cast reeling me in, making me wonder what day and time it is so I can spend time with them. I see trashcans out by the road, so I know it is Tuesday, but by tomorrow evening again I'll be lapsing back into chronobliviousness.

Tonight I feel like maybe staying up late, maybe ridiculously late if I think of something fun to do. Other nights, the alone man can fall asleep before dark and jump awake before light, unleashing himself on an unsuspecting and groggy world. Freedom burgeons without the traditional daily cycle.

Alone means no distractions, too, if you can ignore the copper and fiberglass and radiated tendrils that beckon you to neglect your own helm and follow electric sirens to sweet shores. Phone off and computer dark, though, and you can focus not just on what you want, but as long as you want. You can immerse yourself in a moment for hours, losing time while finding comprehension. Maybe just basking in the warm waters of istigkeit. 

Eventually though, the slow solo must end, or else veer off past where anyone else can make any sense of it or even want to hear it. After too long in those waters, a fair number of the unattached start to think nothing of peeing to keep the warm warm, losing not just societal strictures, but that modicum of self control that separates wise from crazed, honored from outcast. Eventually things need cleaning and the house needs to be ready for the returning ones.

But for now, I drift on random autopilot.