We are wheeling headlong into Hermit Season. It is my second or third favorite made-up season. Rewatching Buffy while frantically making Christmas gifts is probably my favorite.

Hermit Season usually starts around the first snowfall and lasts until all the ice has melted off the streets. It is the time of year when my winter driving anxiety combines with my introvertedness and I never leave the fucking house if I don’t have to.

I spend that time, housebound, making soup, wallowing in my own filth, writing, reading, binge-watching various TV shows, and occasionally whining about what a no-friend loser I am. Can you see why it’s my second or third favorite?

Now here’s the thing about being a hermit. People always assume you are lounging about in your underpants all the livelong day. That is a lie. Lounging around in your underpants is kind of impractical for many reasons.

1.) Naked lap + hot laptop = bad news
2.) The UPS Man
3.) Hot soup + naked lap = ouch
4.) MN in the winter is not so pantsless friendly

Why am I telling you this? Because, Darling Ones, you need to know the truth. The truth is that I am wearing some form of pants whenever I’m not sleeping. There have been, on particularly hot days in July, where I will lay on the couch and read comicbooks in my underpants. But those days are few and far between.

I might be a weirdo hermit but I am a practical weirdo hermit.

The real reason I am telling you this is because I am sitting on my couch right now typing in my underpants. This was poor planning on my part.

See, I made turkey burgers and brussels sprouts for dinner tonight. It involved my cast iron pan and bacon. Whenever I use those two things I end up feeling as though I have a thin film of grease clinging to my very soul. Of course I also couldn’t remember the last time I had bathed. And my hair hurt. And I’m kind of sad this week because Sister #2 & her family leave for Portland in seven days.

So I spent some quality time in a lavender-scented tub listening to Station Eleven. Upon leaving my watery sanctuary I headed to where I keep all my clean clothes: the dryer.

Have I mentioned my complicated system of laundry maintenance? It makes my hyper-organized, super clean BFK hyperventilate. It goes like this: dirty clothes in the washer, clean clothes in the dryer. I get dressed from the dryer. When the dryer is empty it’s time to do the laundry.

Through a strange quirk I am blaming on the warm/cold/warm weather, I ended up with a few pairs of clean underpants, but no pants. Or at least pants I’m going to wear around the house. Housepants = no zippers or structure and cannot be worn outside of the house or a gas station after 8:30 a.m. I’m a hermit, not an animal.

I didn’t think anything of it. I started the washing machine, grabbed some clean underpants, and made my way back to the closet where serial killer rapists are bound to lurk. But lo, there were no soft pants there. Not even my only-wear-on-special-occassion-superfuzzy-superman pants. All the soft pants were in the washer.

What madness!

So that’s why I’m sitting here typing in my underpants, hiding under a half-made blanket I’m crocheting for Jaycie for Christmas, and eating Dots.

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First, I had a rough crying jag kind of night last night brought on by something I read in Gina Frangello’s A Life in Men. This led to some bad dreams and a generally unpleasant night of sleep.

Second, because of all that I need to make myself some soup. This time it was broccoli cheese (made with a potato and carrot puree instead of a buttery, creamy roux).

Third, I’ve watched the Jason Isbell & Neko Case episode of “Austin City Limits” three times in the past twenty-four hours. I’ve come to two conclusions: 1.) Jason Isbell looks like a cross between a young Bill Clinton and an old Theodore “Beaver” Cleaver; 2.) I will jump into bed without a second though with any man that can sing this song. It makes me want to be the kind of woman who wears boots and/or dresses.

All these things have to do with what happened last night and I tried to get into it by typing and deleting and typing again, but it all came out poorly and made me frustrated. No worries, Darling Ones, I have mostly recovered from the horrible night thanks to liberal applications of soup and Jason Isbell.

Instead I will tell you that I am wearing the worst pair of underpants in the history of underpants. They are awful and I’ve been meaning to take them off and throw them away all day, but I keep forgetting. Also, that would involve doing laundry and clearly I have decided wearing the awful underpants is better than doing the laundry.

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that is all.

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