I have been in Charlotte, North Carolina for three weeks. I’ll be here for three more before I can go home. That’s a lot of solitude. It’s not been so bad.
When I was younger, I hated to be alone. I would rather chew my arm off rather than be alone for an extended period of time. It led to some really bad personal decisions, which I will NOT re-hash here.
Perhaps it’s part of the maturation process, but I have enjoyed the solitude. I love Robin, and really, really miss her, but I’ve been digging living like a bachelor, without the baggage of being a bachelor.
Take the simple act of going to the bathroom. I have Crohn’s Disease, which can generate some truly noxious side effects. Those escape me, because I have congenital anosmia, so I don’t have a sense of smell. Thus, when I leave the bathroom at home, I had gotten used to hearing Robin say, “SPRAY!” from across the house. Sometimes it’s bad enough that she say it while I’m still in the bathroom. I can’t describe the smell, but I did open the door to a UN team from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, in full chemical suits, trying to seal off my bathroom.
Here, in my AirBnB house, no spray. Nobody yelling at me to “SPRAY!”. No UN OPCW teams, just blissful silence. Sure, an errant spark may cause the house to explode, and yes, the paint seems to be peeling, and there’s a circle of dead birds around the house, but it is a nice vacation from spraying.
Another plus is the menu. My first week, I tried buying fresh veggies and cooking clean. But that takes so long, and I am needing all my time to work on these reports. Thus this week I bought frozen meals. Today I had Buffalo chicken Mac and cheese, with a couple of slices of cheesy Texas Toast. It took me 8 minutes to fix, and I had enough time to throw this blog together. Plus, it was sooooo good.
I have, at least, been keeping the house clean. I vacuum the carpet, I do my laundry, I clean the toilets, I wash the dishes. But I do them on my schedule. Robin’s schedule is logical. Her schedule makes sense. It’s just at a different tempo than my schedule. Having one schedule has been relaxing. I don’t want to say Robin is a harsh mistress, but she sometimes makes my Drill Sergeants from Basic Training seem like nice guys, and those guys called me every name in the book. Robin just has a different book. And she’s never a harsh in a good way.
Another plus, I get to have a beer a day. At home, a 12-pack of beer will often last over a year. Robin has this way of looking at me and saying, “Should you be drinking so much?” Try as I might, I can’t muster a counter-argument for that. Thus, minimal beer drinking. Here? I have a beer with every dinner. It’s amazing what the beer does to the taste of the food. I feel like I’ve awakened my adult taste buds. The Buffalo chicken Mac and cheese I had tonight was soooooo good with beer. It’s like they were made for each other. When I’m eating clean. Beer doesn’t awaken anything except for Robin’s disapproval. So much disapproval.
I could go on, but I really do love my wife, and am looking forward to getting back home and getting re-civilized. Spraying, clean-eating, tee-totaling re-alignment of my schedule to fit in with the woman of my dreams. Plus there’s the Devilish Duo. I miss those little scamps too. And my daughter Jessica. I haven’t been insulted, hassled, or disrespected in almost a month. Yeah, she’s a chip off the old block. I even miss my son-in-law.
But, that’s for three weeks from now. Right now, I have to usher the UN OPCW team out of my house. This is the US of A, dammit! GIT! And no, for the 400th time, I don’t need to spray!
Meditations of a Bald, Fat Guy 