What will you do when you are all alone?

My daughter asked me this question the other day. She’d heard us talking about how Paulie will be out of town this weekend and, knowing that she and her brother would be with their father, she was concerned.

“Don’t worry,” I assured her. “I’ll be working most of the time. I’ll be fine.”

The truth is, I love a little alone time now and then. But her question did make me think about ways to fill my non-working hours, and I came up with some ideas. In no particular order, there’s a good chance I’ll be:

1. Masturbating

2. Listening to Maxwell really loudly

3. Reading

4. Drinking prosecco and eating sourdough toast

5. Writing

6. Watching romantic comedies

7. Perhaps attending a birthday extravaganza for a local Party Boy who is turning 30 (which, surprisingly, makes me feel old for the first time ever in my not-terribly-old life), at which I will very likely be offered any number of drugs I’ve never tried before – the list of those being long, as I’ve only ever tried 2, and both of those were of a botanical nature. This will perhaps give me an opportunity to resurrect my old “no thanks, I’m high on life!” catch phrase. Teenage-me used to enthusiastically proclaim this whenever presented with contraband. More likely however, I’ll be:

8. Spending a lot of time in front of the mirror – first hunting down, then plucking, the white hairs I find on my head

9. Making sheet angels in the bed

10. Taking selfies during any/all of the above activities and sending them to Paulie.

Realistically, I will probably find myself shuffling around and doing much, much more cleaning that I’d care to be doing, thus cancelling out several of the above fun-filled activities.

Regardless of what I do, my children and my boyfriend need not worry about the state of my loneliness while they’re away.

I think I’ll manage.