Shhh 21 August 1998

Oh, hello. Be very quiet - no, I'm not hunting wabbits. I'm hiding.

From all of them, of course. Those people and their cars. Boyfriends and girlfriends. Noises and lights and expectations. People making lists, hah. Hiding from doing and acting and being. Even from you, I've had to drag myself out here every day this week and it gets progressively harder. Don't want to read email, don't want to go hang out with friends from out of town, nothing.

And I know it's not a good thing, really I do. (Who is the old film actress Bugs imitates when he says that? So many things.) But I like it. Sometimes I look up at the walls of my cage and giggle.

I mean, you should see this place. I crack wise about it, but it's a pigsty. The paths leading from room to room look like animal trails, because that's what they are. It's not just that it would look bad to other people, it gets in my way too. Mostly I never watch TV or rent movies anymore because there's nowhere to sit.

But the permission to not do anything about it means more to me than the discomfort that results. Plus, it makes it safe. Nobody can come over here when it's like this. Can't come in, go away. (Anna, on the other hand, just invited herself right over and wouldn't take no for an answer. Should have warned me.)

I don't think it's just laziness. That goes a long way, I know. But the aversion to touching the outside world is much, much stronger than that. I really do have friends in from out of town, and I know that they're probably down at the bar right now. I see them maybe a couple of times a year at most. And the thought of going down there tonight and hanging out was paralyzing. I'll go tomorrow, honest I will, just let me have this one night, OK? Bargaining with I can't imagine who, the Great Ward Nurse in the Sky.

"There's no such thing as one human." Read that somewhere, forget now. Sure it's true. We're social, we like to pick nits out of each others' hair, we coo and bob and play softball. Except, I don't know. I try. From time to time, just for a time, I've succeeded, too, sort of. But it's draining. I don't know if that's getting worse with time. I think maybe I'm just more tired every year. Not quite shyness, or not just at least. Selfishness in a way, maybe. If you think about experiencing being with people as personally draining, I must feel like I'm putting out more than I get back. Concern for others comes in bursts. When I find myself moving to be with someone or help them against great resistance, the thoughts that prod me are always along the lines of, "I would hate it if someone let me down like that, I would like it if someone helped me." And there's a kind of self-centeredness in that.

But I think about people who are really self-centered, and we seem very different. They've seen me as different, too, so I don't think it's entirely a mirage. They can act without regard for other people. I can't. I can't block them out. Like the babbling boys at Bauhaus the other night. Most people I know would hardly have noticed them. I don't know how not to. Is that excess sensitivity? Am I just a controlling little bastard who wants everyone to shut up so I can enjoy things just the way I want them? Don't know, really don't know. (This is kind of what The Gun Thing is all about. Like LeVar says, Read All About It!)

Everything just drives me nuts sometimes. But here in the gerbil cage, late at night when everyone's asleep it's warm and quiet, and it all leaves me alone.

I suppose that's like a vacation, huh?

Willfully blind self-indulgent nebbish or amusingly quirky old coot? And how bout that local sports team? Discuss among yourselves.

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