All by myself, don't wanna be...*

*Do you have that song in your head now?  I do.  And it's accompanied by the mental image of Bridget Jones swigging directly out of a wine bottle while simultaneously smoking a cigarette and singing into a hairbrush in her pajamas. 

While Joel is away this week, I decided that I was actually going to cook for myself, instead of subsisting on frozen pizzas and Foreman Grilled sandwiches for 10 days. Not that there's anything wrong with that.  Not that I haven't done that before and been perfectly happy.  But I decided to use this week as a test in Living By Myself.

I have never lived by myself unless you count the 4 months I spent in Spain, where I lived in a single-person room in a dormitory of several hundred Spanish students.  I don't really consider that as having lived alone, because I really only went to my room (which was incredibly, unimaginably small) to sleep.  At all other times, I was in class or roving about Madrid with my friends.  Even while I was sleeping, the dorm was guarded by security guards and overseen by priests.  You know, so they could write up the kids coming home past curfew.  Yeah, I don't think any place that has an enforced curfew really counts as living by yourself.

I really have no desire to live by myself, except that I think it would be good Life Experience.  I feel like it should be one of those things that you can do and then say you've done.   Like "oh, I've climbed Mount Everest", or "I ran a marathon once".  What if I'm never able to say "One time, I lived by myself, and I didn't die or burn down the apartment."  WHAT THEN, INTERNET?  Will I have truly lived a successful life?

Sometimes I do fantasize about living alone.  Wouldn't it be great to not have anyone else's junk around?  Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to decorate any way I wanted without having to ask for anyone else's opinion or permission?  I could fill up the entire Tivo cache with Law and Order reruns and no one would make fun of me.  I could scrub the bathroom, and no one would mess it up.  I'd only have to do my own laundry and my own dishes.  I could re-organize my closet every day, and no one would be around to tell me that I was crazy with a capital COMPULSIVE.

But, ultimately, I think I would be horribly lonely.  And bored. And scared. I have these irrational fears about being murdered in my bed by a serial killer, and as stereotypical female as this is, I sleep better with a man in the house.  I also sleep better with my Fort Knox alarm system armed and a Lunesta and a few glasses of wine in my system, but that's neither here nor there.

I also think that my OCD tendencies would take over my body if I had total control over how the house was set up and organized, and I'd probably be spending my evenings cleaning out the seams in the kitchen countertop with a toothpick (whoops!  already did that!) and typing up color-coded, cross-referenced labels for the filing cabinet where I keep copies of my bills and credit card statements. 

Oh, and also, if I lived alone, I would officially be a Crazy Cat Lady.  So there's that.

Anyway, so I decided that this week I would cook real dinners for myself, because there is a chance that Joel will be going away for a longer period of time (actual length of time TBD, but I think it will be a minimum of 6 weeks) and I need to practice Living By Myself and Acting Like a Real Person. I decided it was a perfect opportunity to make all the things that Joel doesn't like.  Like eggplant.  And teriaki.   And... well, that's all I could think of.  Good thing he's only gone for a week this time.  Plus, it was one of my New Year's resolutions to practice cooking!  Oh, and it's probably healthier than eating Safeway 3-meat take-and-bake pizza every night, right?

But it sure is a whole lot of work to cook for only one person.  Good thing I like leftovers, because apparently the recipe I made last night, which called for an entire eggplant, a large chicken breast, a whole can of pasta sauce, and a whole bag of shredded mozzarella cheese is going to be lasting me quite awhile.   

(OK, fine, the recipe did not call for the entire bag of cheese.  It just tastes way better that way, and give me a freaking break!  It's mostly eggplant!  A girl can have some extra cheese with eggplant.)

I do have to say, my dinner last night was delicious.  And so was my lunch this afternoon.  And so will be my dinner tonight and my lunch tomorrow, although I don't think I'll want to see another eggplant for awhile at that point.

Comments

[angela]

Ha, too funny. As soon as the boy leaves, the eggplant shows up. And never ever leaves.

[Jemima]

Dude, I hear you on the easier. All the towels would stay hung. The bed would be made. I could watch Pride & Prejudice every damned day and not get a ration of snarky comments about Mr Darcy's hair. But then I'd be awake all night checking the locks, and the fridge would eventually fill up with leftovers that I wouldn't eat. And both the trashcan and the dog would explode, because I don't take one out ever, and the other I don't take out at night. So...the house would be cleaner but it would stink. I'm just sayin.