June 22, 2011

Home Alone

What do you do when you have the house to yourself?

When Sam and I moved in together I was a little worried about not having space and time to myself. But our schedules are not very congruent, and I end up having several evenings throughout the week all to myself. They're nice. I make plans with friends a lot of the time, but sometimes I just go home so I can hang out and do nothing. At least, my version of nothing:

Gardening: I use this term loosely. We have a couple garden boxes planted with tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, carrots, and peas. "Gardening" involves watering these plants and then looking at them. Seriously. I just kind of stare at them with this immense feeling of satisfaction. Sometimes I pick at a stray weed. Attempt to thin the carrots or lettuce out (My thinning attempts are pathetic because I feel bad about pulling them out). Redirect the pea plant tendrils. Mostly, I just stare at the plants. Also, I get the potting soil out and start repotting plants. Sam comes home to find random piles of dirt scattered around the garage.

Accordion: I feel like there are only certain hours in the day that I can play. Too late and your neighbors will be bummed. If I come home within the acceptable window, I play the accordion. The neighbors have been subjected to "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" lately. Lucky them.

Cook: Rare. Quite rare. But it's usually an all-evening affair and then requires an extensive amount of follow-up kitchen cleaning. I feel like cooking usually pushes the other activities to the wayside (yet another reason to avoid it), I'm all about free-time maximization.

Dance Aerobics: Sam will never see this in action. I put music on, pull my hand weights out, and I do random movements, off-the-cuff routines, various calisthenics, and muscle-building exercises. Not for the eyes of others. Sometimes I wonder if the neighbors can see me. I like to think that they can't.

Artistic Forays: Writing, drawing, painting. These things don't happen enough. I think I allocate too much time to gardening.

I'm interested. What do other people do? Is this pretty on par? I know Kyle Arthur likes to drink beer and work on websites to all hours of the night. I don't think I've ever done that.

4 comments:

Elizabeth said...

Top 3:

1.) Imagining I'm a professional dancer/choreographer and creating routines. Usually to Scissor Sisters, but I will do some ballets on occasion as well.

2.) Trying on random pieces of clothing that may be on my floor while cleaning, including, but not limited to; leg warmers, wigs, boas, sparkle pants.

3.)Smoking in the bath while reading teen reading level fiction.

Kyle said...

Besides what you have accurately already mentioned, I will add a few more:

1) Love to turn on some music, make some coffee, and then just read on the couch.

2) Cleaning to music. Call me weird but when I clean I do it best to music and when Emily is not at home and in the middle of the day. I move all around the apartment doing various little things and never focus just on one room. I make the perfect kept man.

3) Experimental cooking (this does not happen often but when it does sometimes magic happens).

There are tons of other things I do but those are some of my favorites (besides the drinking and web stuffs).

Charisstopher said...

Though living alone means EVERY night is a night to myself, I definitely have favorite things:

(1) Lately as soon as I get home I rip off my professional clothes and do lots of air punches in my underwear to loud music. I don't know why with the air punches, that's just what happens. It's been a lot of Pit Bull this week - my neighbors hate me.

(2) I wait until I have a huge pile of ironing, turn on He-Man episodes, make a cocktail and iron some shit out of some shit.

(3) Crafts. I made a big paper lamp! And a crochet bath mat! I also sometimes just stand there and stare at these, feeling proud and accomplished.

alexis said...

1. I take cooking very seriously. Sometimes I will search for recipes that take longer than 2 hours to complete and will whisk my night away baking and trying new culinary creations. I will also sometimes watch documentaries in my kitchen alongside the cooking fiascos. This can be dangerous.
2. The dancing also takes up a lot of my time. There is a large mirror in the living area of my new apt (the doors to my closet) and I shuffle back and forth picking up things pretending I'm cleaning, but usually I'm just dancing.
3. You're on par with gardening. I'm excited to get some window boxes and see what I can grow in this heat.
4. Refurbish/clean/paint wooden things I have found in the trash/purchased from estate sales/craigslist including but not limited to: chairs, lamps, glass items, bingo wheels.
5. I'm a sucker for the internet. Perusing for modern furniture, new designers and interior goods occupies another large chunk of my time.