Tag Archives: hermit life

The joy of nothing…

Posted on by

It’s rare to get through from the time I post Friday night’s blog all the way to a Monday evening without having at least one idea jump out at me as being at least nominally worthy of writing up a few lines. It does happen, of course, but it’s rare enough to be noticeable – or at least it is for me. 

I’m going to attribute this weekend’s lack of anything particularly interesting to a combination of reasons. The first of them being that the only time I Ieft the house between 5PM last Tuesday and now, was for about 45 minutes on Saturday. That’s just long enough to get out for the weekly supply run and get home. It generally happens before most people have even properly started their Saturday – and that’s absolutely done with intention. 

It might have started as a pandemic-induced way to avoid standing in line and needlessly exposing myself to whatever bugs people are toting around in their respiratory system, but it turns out even absent a plague, it’s just a great way to avoid people, their small talk, their general bad behavior, and any need to interact with them en mass. Plus, two and a half years in and I’ve still managed to avoid COVID, so that’s a perk. I thought maybe I’d miss restaurants or going places, but it turns out I really don’t. The incentive to leave the house has to be pretty overwhelming. It happens, but it’s a rarity. 

Another reason there doesn’t feel like much to report is, I expect, due to having dialed back a lot of unnecessary spending. Between continuing inflationary pressure, general economic uncertainly, and home maintenance projects both scheduled and unscheduled, a lot of “fun” spending got either reallocated either directly towards covering other expenses or into various holding accounts to be banked against further unexpected requirements. Between shepherding cash, avoiding people/plague carriers, and generally being content to hang out at home with the animals, the number of things worth writing about – or at least the number that anyone other than me might be interested in, sometimes gets a bit limited.

I have no doubt I could gin up a few attention-grabbing posts if I went over and wandering around the local Walmart for an hour or two. You can understand, I hope, why that doesn’t sound like a particularly worthwhile trade off. Much as I enjoy writing, I’m not in any rush to put myself back in a position of having unlimited topics presenting themselves on any given day. 

For today at least, I’ll luxuriate in the joy of having nothing to say.

Listening to the television…

Posted on by

I’m not old enough to remember the days when, if you were lucky, television came into your home as three channels over the air. I am, however, old enough to remember a time before what we think of as cable TV was wide spread. Until quite late in my youth, TV consisted of 12 stations – at least eight of which were duplicates because due to quirks of geography, we got at least some of the “big three” broadcast network stations that served the Baltimore, DC, and Pittsburgh markets. You don’t really need three flavors of ABC, but we had it. 

Back in those olden days, you watched whatever happened to be on when you sat down in the living room. If you missed a favorite show, maybe you’d catch it in reruns, maybe you wouldn’t. At least in our house, having a VCR was no guarantee that what you thought would end up on tape would actually be there when you went looking for it. If there was something you really, truly wanted to watch, you needed to make the time for it. It was, indeed, a simpler age.

Just like those golden days of yore, I can still tell the day of the week by what’s on my television in the evenings. The biggest difference is that instead of being a destination, the shows mostly run as background noise while I’ve got my nose stuck in a book. 

What does my evening TV consumption look like? Probably nothing surprising here, but since I’m fond of lists, here’s what makes up the preponderance of what runs in the background while I’m doing other stuff.

  • Monday – American Pickers
  • Tuesday – The Curse of Oak Island, Maryland Farm and Harvest, and Outdoors Maryland
  • Wednesday – North Woods Law
  • Thursday – Lone Star Law 
  • Saturday – This Old House and whatever flavor of veterinary medicine programming National Geographic or Animal Planet is showing
  • Sunday – North Woods Law / Lone Star Law

I still miss regular doses of Live PD… sort of like having the scanner running in the background of the weekend… but I don’t suppose we’ll ever see that back given what passes for contemporary sensibilities.

In any case, it’s Friday evening now, and that means it’s time to settle in with a good book, and listen to a couple of episodes of Gold Rush while I lose myself in Elizabeth I’s England.

Ground beef…

Posted on by

Thanks to being back in the office for the last couple of days I’ve discovered that a day’s worth of talking at regular human volumes is enough to turn my throat to ground beef. Apparently my random muttering to the cat and dogs isn’t doing enough to keep my vocal chords in readiness for actual human interaction.

I’d like to think the solution would be to minimize future conversations. Surely there’s some medical reason I can find a doctor to sign off on contact by text or email only for the next fifteen years. A stretch? Maybe. But it’s not the most ridiculous thing I heard today so anything is possible.