Until a
couple of days ago I was confined to the house for over a week because of bad
weather, and I discovered something about myself—enforced idleness makes me go
bat shit. Three cold weather fronts bringing snow and ice swept through our
region. The last one dumped five inches of snow on us. That’s not a lot by New
England or Midwestern standards, but around here it is sufficient to bring civilization
to an end. The problem is road ice, roads that twist and turn and southern
drivers who have no idea how to handle a skid. It doesn’t help the situation that
a certain percentage of people in these parts drive on bald tires. It wouldn’t
be Appalachia otherwise.
It was like being
on house arrest. I could not go anywhere because my light pickup truck cannot
make it up the dirt road leading from my property when it is covered in snow
and ice. I could not work outside because was too cold. My only option was to
stay in the cabin for over a week, and I soon ran out of things to do. I wrote
all I could write, read until my eyes bled, watched as much TV as I could take,
and took enough naps to last until September. I was so fucking bored that I
cannot even think of a suitable superlative to tell you how fucking bored I was
other than to say I was F-U-C-K-I-N-G bored.
Let me give
you an example. I do publicity for an organization by the name of Feed Fannin that
raises money and vegetables to feed the hungry in the community. To keep myself
occupied I wrote all the press releases needed for a major fundraising event
that Feed Fannin is holding at the end of March. I was so bored I rewrote them and
then rewrote them and then rewrote them again. I don’t think there has been
anything written in the history of man that has received such attention. I
spent enough time rewriting those press releases that I could have chiseled
them in stone. After I ran out of legitimate things to write about, I started
to make stuff up. I’ve got press releases with headlines like “George Washington
Was a Feed Fannin Volunteer,” “Feed Fannin Grows Plant That Cures Restless Leg
Syndrome” and “Sex with Vegetables.”
It did not
help that Meredith sailed through the experience without any problem. While I was
going crazy with cabin fever, she calmly and quietly waited the weather out.
Maybe there is a fundamental difference between men and women. Maybe it’s
related to that whole Gaea, Earth Mother, fecund giver of life, slow cycle of
the seasons, Princess Winter Summer Spring Fall thing that the ancients
ascribed to the female deity. I can hear her now: “The weather will change,
dear. It’s just a matter of time.” That’s a great attitude when your actuarial
life expectancy is 10 years longer than mine, but I’m reaching the age when the
statistical probabilities of major body parts failing are not in my favor. I
could stroke out tomorrow. I need to get out of this house now! (At least that
was what I was screaming in my head.)
I can’t
imagine how people on the frontier in the old days handled being snowed in before
there were computers, satellite TV, DVDs, and library books. Imagine being
isolated in a log cabin when the only entertainment is a worn copy of the
family Bible that you’ve read all the way through 18 times. In some of the old
photos the people have this vacant look in their eyes. It’s because they are
catatonic from having nothing to do over a harsh winter. It’s the look you get
when your main intellectual enjoyment is whittling a stick into wood shavings.
I think it’s related to brain death.
I’m sorry if
this post is not all that scintillating. The point of this blog is to write
about my experiences moving from crowded Pinellas County to rural North
Georgia. Before I can write about an experience, I have to have one. I don’t
think staring out a window and wishing the ice would melt constitutes an
experience, at least not one that would be of interest to anyone.
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