$10 of Solitude

Is Friday, October 3 as I type this. The sun is setting, and my wife has asked me to get a suitcase down. Tomorrow, will begin the worst weekend I'll have to experience in a while. I spent the day cleaning the house, knowing that with her leaving for the weekend, I'll be able to keep it that way. Don't tell her that, though. I was preparing.

What makes this a potentially great weekend is the fact that I'll be home alone, and I'll be doing as little as possible. Cooking for one, instead of two, and freezing the left overs, because I don't know how to cook for one.

I'll be alone, and while I'm doing as little as possible, I am having a great time. Until my idle thoughts take over.

I can't help but feel a certain sense of guilt (and pre-emptive revenge on her part) about this - because I am the one that has to wake up early and be functional to drive her to the country link bus stop.

That bus stop is on the Port Wakefield Highway, and whoever decided to put a bus stop for a coach service on an unsealed highway shoulder should be fired out of a cannon, into the barrel of another cannon.

Anyway, that bus stop will enable my wife to fuck off some six or seven hundred kilometres North to a town called Kimba in South Australia's remote North-over-there. She's visiting her friend for the long weekend, and I hope the traffic won't be horrific. She can sleep on the bus. I'll drive home, missing her.

At least my car will see some highway kilometres on the journey to drop her off. She won't be back until the Thursday that follows, so I'll have a house and the cat all to myself. At the same time, my friend who I would otherwise spend time with is travelling for work, so I won't be able to catch up with them.

^{Recent new shoes on my car. They're good. The car is much cleaner now.}

So I have to find something to pass the time. Maybe I could go outside, and touch grass? No thank you. Tomorrow, it will be 29 degrees. Far too warm for my bearded, covered in hair, caveman style. I won't be visiting a hair dresser, but it if I did, it would quickly escalate into the worst weekend of my life - as my identity would be snipped to pieces and lie on commercial lino flooring.

I won't be going to the beach either. I have no desire to fling myself into the sea.

I'll be watching the Singapore F1 sessions with anxiety, hoping that my fellow citizen, Oscar Piastri can extend his lead in the Formula 1 championship. But I'll also be waiting. Waiting for the time between sessions to tick down. And, I'll be waiting the urgency and anxiety of my first solo Art show in years to dawn on me. The art work is stacked in boxes in my office, ready to go, and four hang from the wall in my corridor. I'll spend some time looking at my own Art work.

I am lucky enough, though, to have $10 in my wallet. This is something I could spend, and there's only one way that is responsible to spend it. Go to the library. Get two $5 boxes of mystery books, and see what I find. The last mystery box I purchased (which I'll post about on the Hive book club when I get around to inventorying it) was amazing.

^{All my favourite genres! About 20c a book!}