I am a Rock, I am an Island...

So, Brian and his parents left to go travel and I am here to continue working on the house but its raining. It's a good thing I put up the gutters yesterday. I was sort of in a blue funk the whole day yesterday, sort of doing work, sort of stoking the fire, sort of cleaning up in general. Finally I gave up and decided to indulge me solitary mood and stoked the fire quite large and simply sat in front of it listening to music. Then it began to rain. Perfect. I actually fell asleep, mainly because I was hungry and didn't have any food in the house and didn't feel like walking to get some. It was a strange mood, I didn't feel like working, sleeping, cleaning, walking, sitting, listening to all the different music I tried listening to...i simply didn't want to do anything. And yet, deep down, I know I was enjoying it, somehow. Then since I hadn't moved in forever, the rats began to snoop around the place. One large one came in through the window and nonchalantly went about a search for food, only stopping seldom to sniff the air and throw a glance in my direction. He knew I posed no threat, and I'm pretty sure I didn't either. I didn't feel like harrassing a rat.

Then somewhere, the squeaks of the rats insisted on disturbing the rhythm of the music and the crackle of the fire. I was envious that they had someone to talk to, not that I felt like talking to anyone. Stupid rats.

I finally gave up and decided to walk into town. I had been haphazardly watching the clock, waiting for it to get late enough to justify cracking a beer. I know, I know, I don't need any excuse, it's 5 o'clock somewhere, but I was also alone. So the two cancel each other out and I was justified in drinking a beer, as long as it was an appropriate time. So I drank a beer and walked into town for some food. I brought my book. Hegel. But since it was a lecture series, it didn't have that conversational type dynamic like literature...I should have brought a novel. You can't talk to someone lecturing you about Art, Philosophy of Religion, and the History of Philosophy. So I put him down and just focused on my sandwich.

Not feeling like walking home yet, I walked next door to the bar and stepped in to watch some TV. To my disappointment the bar was practically empty, I guess I shouldn't have expected more from a bar at 7 oclock on a Monday. "You must be bored stupid," remarked the bartender. And indeed I am I thought to myself. So I lingered, dragging out two drinks until they were exhausted before frowning at the growing downpour and walking home in the dark and the rain.

I was bored, walking between the streetlights, but when I walked under them and through the night seemed perfect. Walking home in the dark and with the rain. alone. now that seemed fitting. alone in a bar or at a worksite or any other place actually just seemed pathetic and disorienting. I felt right, walking home in the night.

I went to bed around 10:30 and woke up periodically to the gnawing of rats on something plastic. I would struggle out of bed, wearily and drearily survey our 'kitchen table' for the poor victim of the rats to find nothing and get back in bed. Just as I was falling asleep again, the gnawing would commence. Getting back up I put everything that had plastic on it in our cast iron pot. Still, I heard scratching. Can't these rats go to bed! So I stoked the fire, turned on some music to drown out the rats and fell asleep, trying to shake the image of the two gigantic spiders mating by the salt and pepper out of my mind.

Waking up to rain on a tin roof (as Norah Jones' song goes) is not as romantic without the second half of that lyric (while I'm safe there in your arms). In fact, it means I have to put off work, the one thing that can give me some alternative to moping.

So here I am in the library, recounting the past day to anonymous (I guess not entirely) readers and waiting for the sky to clear. Somebody's got a case of the Monday's....on a Tuesday.