So Kir’s in Tashkent and I’m still here. Yesterday I went the productive method of dealing with loneliness. To follow up on the success of the bulletin board I made for my office, I began work on a French message board to go in the kitchen. If that works, I’ll make a bigger one for the guest room. I also played with a little piece of foam board I have had for at least a year. I finally cut into it with a cheap blade cutter that came from my office in Tashkent. I matted and mounted a little drawing I had done on card stock, and also used the cut out piece of foam board to make two tiny matted hearts. It all looks fairly homemade, but in a charming way, I think. I am going to see if I can get a frame made for the drawing – there is a frame shop near our house. The tiny ones will just have to stand on their own. I am looking for a good place to just tape them to the wall, but it has to be an area small enough that they look right. I also washed half the car and put a bunch of stuff down the basement for storage. Dealing with the basement was a bitch and a half on my own, though – moving the table off the hatch was nearly impossible.

Tonight I go to the gym and then to my writing group, where I haven’t been since the first two classes. I am a little worried about the dog being alone for so long, but I should be home a 9:30 and she really likes the yard. She has plenty of food and water out there. Besides, in my mad fit of productivity yesterday, I also made her a pillow and set up a little bed for her under the picnic table in our yard so she has someplace comfortable to lie. (I made the pillow in the easiest way possible. Yesterday morning, my flannel pajama pants tore for no reason on the left thigh. Nowhere near the seam or anything, just one of those fabric getting old tears. (as I recall, my mom bought me those pajama pants in Egypt in 1998, so they have every right to get old) I patched the tear with packing tape, and tied each leg in a knot. I stuffed the pants with disgusting smelly stuffing we have had since Tashkent. Then I cut a slit in the waistband of the pants and pulled out the ends of the elastic, which I pulled tight enough to close the top of the pants and tied in a knot. Voila! A U-shaped pillow the puppy can cuddle with.)

I am not entirely sure I want to go to the writing group, but Jeni assures me that all of the boring people have now dropped out. And if I am going to have friends besides Jeni and Dorothy, I have to find them somehow. Besides, when I’m home, all I want to do is eat. It’s a combination of being lonely and bored, I think.

The compensation for being lonely and bored is having the house to myself. I can wear clothes that Kir finds unattractive, and set things up exactly how I like them. I put the trampoline in our bedroom, in easy reach for spontaneous bouncing. I can eat pasta with cheese on it every single day for a week and no one will comment. I can keep things very tidy or very messy depending on my mood.

I plan to enjoy the freedom.

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USAID is one of many donors for the project I work for. The views expressed herein are the author’s own views and do not necessarily reflect those of the author’s employer or especially those of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government. And I mean it. I probably give the US government heart attacks.