All By My Lonesome

"All by mah-sey-eeeelf, don't wanna be alllll by myyyyysaaaaalf, anymo'." -NOT Carly Simon, but Jamie O'Neil (covering an Eric Carmen original)

***Did I also forget to mention that I will be using this blog as a jumping-off point for my new one-line concert series: "The Classics, In Just One Line?"***

Editorial comment: A big shout-out to my mom for fact-checking me and pointing out that it was not, in fact, Carly Simon who ever even sang this song. O'Neil covered it in Bridget Jones' Diary (double shout-out to Steph for picking up on that). Needless to say, I will have to do some studying before going on tour...

OK, so, it has just been confirmed by sources closest to myself (me) that I will be all alone this whole weekend for the first time in many moons. Sure, I've spent the occasional night huddled in our big bed, surrounded by dogs and probably wide-eyed waiting for an intruder to break in, or maybe just spent the night dreaming about it, but I can't remember the last time I spent 2 1/2 days alone. Now, don't be silly, I will see people. I will most certainly pay a long-overdue ice cream visit to my main man down at the Shell station on the corner. He laughs at my Half-Baked ice cream, telling me Cherry Garcia is better, while trying to convince me to buy a lottery ticket. In addition, I will be helping some friends out on Saturday, and going to a wine festival on Sunday. OK, so...not really alone. But it sounds dramatic, and maybe makes you pity me about as much as you pity celebrities for being so rich that they can't, you know, like go out and "do stuff" like normal people, so I'll stick with it.

To recap: Me, bed full of dogs, being helpful, ice cream, creepy-yet-charming gas station attendant and wine will comprise my weekend.

Now, what else did I come here to say?

Oh. This sort-of-kind-of aloneness that will (not-really) plague me this weekend has spread to my work life. I am currently sitting in my teeny cubicle, and I don't hear anything. Not the annoying girl with the INSANELY pitchy laugh down the hall. Not my antagonistic coworker chiding the new guy. Not even the click of my boss shutting her door to shut the world out. Everyone is gone this week at the annual meeting of gunny minds of EPIC proportions in Pittsburgh, Pa. I won't go into it any further than that. So it's just me here holding down the E-Media fort with my black coffee and colored pens. Not only that, but the disturbing full-circle fact of it all is that, the reason I will be alone at home is because David will be in—that's right—Pittsburgh!!! this weekend, attending a funeral. (Tip-toeing away from sad/depressingness.)

Alternative tasks to keep me busy this lonely weekend include:

• Clean our despicably dirty carpets (Thanks to 3 pooches, and my unsteady pouring hand)
• Wash the car/vacuum out all of the dog hair and dirt (See above)
• Buy new bed sheets
• Paint a picture
• Re-mulch the backyard
• Start my novel
• Brush the dogs' teeth
• ...World peace?! (Miss. Congeniality, anyone?!)

In other news, I just got an email from a coworker with the subject line: "Breaking News." The body of the email reads: "A tornado watch has been issued for the region. ================." I imagine that the dashed lines that follow the brief, but important, sentence are like the typed version of those beeps that always follow a statement from the Emergency Broadcast System. (Nice touch, fella'.) So, after all, maybe I will be spending the weekend in a bathtub with the doggies, or maybe huddled in a bomb-shelter with strangers, or maybe I'll get lucky and spend it like this:

Please, GOD, let it be option #3!!!!!!!!!