Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Home Again

Written 1 December, 2010

Home Again

I'm home again, after a month and a half away. For some strange reason (probably the rain up north) it's 25 degrees warmer in New York than in Georgia. I'm upstairs shivering as the furnace heats the house.

The house looks good after so long away. Outside everything is covered with six inches of leaves, but inside, I have to cope only with a couple of burned out light bulbs and a refrigerator that smells musty.

This summer my home was invaded by creepy little slow-moving insects-- pantry beetles, the guy at the do-it-yourself pest control place said. I noticed them just before I left for a summer visit with Sweetie; when I got back, they had gotten into the rice, a package of egg noodles, and some boxed mixes that were in the cupboard. I didn't have time to move everything out of the cabinets and spray before I left, but I tossed the infested products and made sure everything left had an air-tight seal. Upon my return today I found several of the little bastards on the counter, dead apparently from starvation. All my grains are find. Still, I'm going to have a kitchen cleaning next week and treat for them.

I'm having horrible problems trying to type on my trusty clackety IBM keyboard. Sweetie has one of those curving split IBM monstrosities hooked up to her desktop. To make matters worse, the lettering is rubbed off half the keys. To be considerate, Sweetie tried to paint on new letters with White-Out, but the little stubby brush in the bottle doesn't lend itself to fine motor movements. I keep accidentally erasing entire lines as I type. Maybe next time I'll take the keyboard with me.

Staying with Sweetie for months at a time is great, but being at home takes some getting used to. There's no one to snuggle with in the evenings and on weekends, no one to cook breakfast for, no one to look over my shoulder when I'm in world.

This parting was particularly rough. It will be months before we can see one another again, and yet we are for all practical purposes inseparable. We need to figure out a way to be together all the time-- and I'm certain we will.

I find it remarkable that I met my Sweetie in Second Life and yet she is my real life Sweetie as well. This month marks four years since we met in world; March will mark four years since our first face-to-face meeting. How wonderful those four years have been.

Anyway, I'm glad to be home with my dual monitor computer, and sad to be away from the one, the only, Sweetie.

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