If It Was You..................

Peacefully reading this morning when I heard a loud crash.

From the spare room. Or whatever the hell it is. This is a weird house; don't know what name to give to rooms.

We used to call the room I'm in the computer room, now we call it my office.

It's not my fucking office. It's just a place I escape to. And hide.

If you want to shorten your life, interrupt me when I am reading. Although I realized this morning our precious cats are exempt from that dictum.

Reading is the only peace I ever get. Ever. And I revere it.

I am always up 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours before Carol. When I hear her begin to move around in the morning, I know my day is over.

I don't mean that in the harsh way that it sounds. If it's a work day I know the day will be a spiralling pit of torture and I will be miserable. Soon I will leave the house with my head down and eventually crawl home on my hands and knees.

If it's a day off I know I will spend the majority of it cloistered in this room. Because Carol and I have diametrically opposed addictions.

She's addicted to TV, I am addicted to silence. I flee here to find some peace. But I fail.

Because the fucking room is not soundproof. Carol is considerate and keeps the TV volume down, but I can still hear it. Annoyingly. During the 5 month New England winter I keep the space heater going and that drowns out the TV. Almost. It's running right now. No idea what I will do when summer comes around.

We are in a diffferent place now that Carol is retired. She is never not here. So I never get peace.

I am out of the house 25 to 30 hours a week or more. Pursuing the american dream. 30 hours when Carol can do anything she wants to, listen to anything she wants, watch anything she wants, think about anything she wants, move about freely and pursue her happiness.

I get none of that. I have to fight for whatever personal enjoyment I require. Like a junkie jonesing for the next fix.

Back to the cats. They have been here 7 months and they are still finding shit to explore. Amazing.

I knew both cats were in the spare room. After the crash, Emmy Lou came flying out of there. Patsy did not. I'm thinking "Oh Shit, Patsy is buried under something."

Nothing on the floor was disturbed. I was confused. I looked towards the closet, one of the sliding doors is open 6 inches and I see Patsy sitting on a little corner shelf in there innocently watching me. I slide the door back and a whole bunch of shit falls out. I slide the other door open and a whole bunch of shit falls out.

Somehow they had gotten up on the shelf that sits like a cliff way up high and knocked everything off of it. I kicked a lot of shit out of the way, affectionately asked Patsy "What did you do?" and sat down to continue reading.

If it was you, I would have killed you.