I can tell when I’m not being social enough when my cats glom onto visitors like they want to marry them. Little black furry creatures of attention velcro, trying to soak up as much affection as they can, they lay there, leaning on my friends, and look up at me as if to say, “See? This isn’t so bad.” The kitties know what’s up. I’ve only been outside twice since Monday. I’ve been too busy parked in front of my computer, wearing the letters off my keyboard, job hunting and freelance writing, registering with placement agencies and working for the price of a bag of cat food. (It’s not terribly fulfilling, no matter how much I might potentially be getting done.) Today let me realize that If I don’t go out more, if I don’t have company over, I’ll begin to go mad.
I suspect it’s possible to count the number of times I’ve left the house since coming back from Alberta on an incomplete set of fingers and toes. At first I welcomed the isolation, but now I feel I’m beginning to fragment and fray around the edges. There’s an entire world on the other side of my apartment walls, too precious to ignore, yet here I sit, growing dusty in my daily routine, not sleeping well, not eating enough, forgetting the sound of my name. Simply reading about life isn’t living.
That said, Howler has kindly volunteered me a ticket to tomorrow’s Workless Party Party, The Enchanted Forest. There promises to be many friends, (some of them performing), body-painting, electric violin, ridiculous costumes, and dancing until all our legs fall off, all of which sounds like just what I need.