Chronicles Of The Isolated Introvert

Are you all losing it yet?  I am and I am not afraid to say that out loud. While I am fully cognitive of the need to stay put and to be a responsible member of society I have no issue with telling you that I am slowly losing my marbles. I expect that you are too so I am not going to wander off into the ether of love n light for this one but instead try to find the humor in this moment in time.  While this microscopic little SOB is wreaking havoc across nations we can do little but wait for the day that it chokes on itself.  In the interim we must do our best to sit still and ride this out so that we don’t put others at risk. This is our gift to each other so to say. I love and value you so I will wait it out with you and for you.

But it’s hard. We can be honest about that. This is hard. And it will get harder in the days and weeks to come.  We will eventually come to the realization that toilet paper is not our biggest loss but our sanity is.

I am sitting here at 2 am heading into day 4 of “social isolation”. Joining me in this new and unexpected adventure is my spouse, our two dogs and the cat.  The only one that might survive this is the cat because he’s small enough to slip through the bars on the balcony and run like hell.

If I could morph into a feline like slither I can assure you I’d follow him. Unfortunately, my soul is shoved into a rather curvaceous and mature human so my only means of escape would be to lunge one leg over the rail and we all know how that is going to end.  It would take time away from our emergency services that they can ill spare in this current climate, so, I am doing my best to behave in this imposed isolate state.

It’s not easy and I know you know that too.  I am an introvert but I am also a control freak and I prefer to choose my introversion, not be forced to it. The second someone tells me I must do something my immediate instinct is to do the opposite.  Hence my current struggle with being caught between four walls with the spouse, two dogs and the cat.

The spouse has ants up his underwear and has gotten up a dozen times in the last two hours in his curiosity over what I am furiously typing about.  With each meander he makes over my left shoulder my typing grows more aggressive. I live with the constant presence of someone’s loved one hovering nearby so this movement by this human is making me cranky and liable to snap at any moment. He knows this yet clearly he is bored and looking to fill his Virgo need to get his adrenaline going.  After 35 years in my oh so gentle presence one might think he would know better than to make me the object of that rush because the risk of getting stabbed by a fork is rather high at this point.

Molly our older dog is behaving like the Queen of The Nile right now. She is four or five days (or weeks..who knows..I have lost track of all time) post op from a surgical procedure.  If I whisper the word “cookie” she has the ability to drag herself from her horizontal position on her furry rug, get to the kitchen in no more than 3.5 seconds and produce a clear loud bark for her treat.  The minute I get into bed however she is suddenly in “drama dog” mode that sounds very like a coyote just got shot and is slowly dying in the field next door.  It is a godforsaken sound that she is clearly perfecting because she has learned that it does gain my attention.  The reason behind this satanic howl? The pillows are on her couch, the same way they have always been yet now she wishes to have her concierge remove them because suddenly she has forgotten how.  She hasn’t forgotten how to leap onto said couch however so I am catching on to this game.  Old dogs can learn new tricks folks.  I am rarely home so now I am trapped and she is enjoying this.

Our younger dog Scooby is on the fast track to a tranquilizer dart. Can we buy those over the counter?  If my other half so much as moves toward the door Scooby is in flight and lands like a 40 pound budgie on the back of the couch. This would be less of a problem if I wasn’t seated on that couch when he does it but he seems completely oblivious to that fact. I have had a leg shoved up my right nostril several times this week as he attempts and almost fails to sit his perch without tipping off of it backwards. Thank God my nose is there to avoid that tragedy.  He has taken to joining Molly in her 3 am singsong so now it sounds like one dying coyote and an off key soprano who has absolutely zero perception that he is tone deaf.

Our shared laundry facilities are in over time use this week so it’s taken me seven hours today to do three loads.  The woman stomping about ( I have no idea who she is, she doesn’t live here) has taken up every washer and is nattering on because someone hasn’t emptied their dryer in time for her to change hers out. I am leaning on the wall staring at her and in my mind I have grabbed her paper respiratory mask that she is wearing and snapped it back onto her face just to silence her.  I think I might actually have followed through on this impulse had it not been for the voice in my head reminding me of the 6 foot distance rule. Oh, and maybe I considered that arrest might follow.  Can they handcuff from 6 feet away?

Two of my adorable grandchildren went breaking bad tonight and showed up for ice cream and chocolate milk. I let them in only because I know their germs and I know their mother has recently annihilated a lice infestation (school gift) from every crevice of hair and home so anything that might have tried to live through that has failed. Other than the kids of course. And their mother. Barely, the poor girl.

My grandson all three feet of him, admonished me loudly for using the word “stupid” to describe my 40 pound budgie ( “You do not use that word around children!”). Well OK then. Clearly I need to get with the program.

As they were preparing to leave the building I ran ahead to ensure that no other human was present. No sooner had they stepped into the hall than the door to my left cracked open to reveal the sweet face of our senior neighbor peeking out.  She is out and about and talking to everyone constantly so I had no fear of her concern for her own safety with the two moppets that I was trying to usher down the hallway.  And then she started. She is Italian or Portuguese and heavily accented. I still don’t know which one and I have lived next door for five years.  Regardless, she speaks quickly and it can be difficult to hang onto each word.

Until tonight that was.

As she cooed and ooohed at the kids she glanced up at my daughter and said how nice it was to see the little ones and that it brought her such joy.  She then went into a slight vent about our microscopic little SOB and how it was making it so hard for everyone to be family.  Her final words with my grandkids hanging on to each one?

“Is bullchit you know. Is bullchit! But what can ya do. You can do nutting. But is bullchit”

My grandson said not a word.

But I can’t say stupid.

 

It is now 3:15 am. The song of the dying coyote is in full swing.  From the bathroom this time because I put the lid down on the ONLY existing fresh water supply in the world.

 

Laugh or you’ll cry as my grandmother would say…

Lets laugh.