But I have to make a post! Why? Because I realize that I’m totally isolated, I don’t go outside, I don’t talk to anyone, so if I were to drop dead, it might be days or weeks before anyone noticed…except that there’s this outside world that reads my blog, and would wonder what’s happening if I went silent.
So you know if I stopped posting for significantly more than 24 hours, you should immediately call our local mortuary in Morris and ask them to swing by to pick up my corpse. Before the evil cat eats my eyes. I know she’s thinking about it.
(You might be wondering why my students wouldn’t notice — I’m contacting them every weekday. It’s because I fear my sudden disappearance might translate into “HOLIDAY!” in their minds.)
Now back to the prep work. I have to explain imprinting to my genetics students, and that’s not an easy concept for most of them.
I had to go get gas for our outdoor devices yesterday. I paid at the pump but I did get to see another human being, other than my own family. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be living alone through this.
Maybe another online meet-up of some sort would be a good idea PZ, it’s hard being on your own in such weird circumstances.
This is not going to be reassuring, but … back when I was a student our department used to have the occsonal wine and cheese do with some prominent person doing a job we might aspire to doing a talk that gave us an idea of what the job involved. One time we got the Yorkshire pathologist who at the time was getting all of the Yorkshire Rippers victims, he obviously couldn’t talk about his victims as they hadn’t caught the fucker at the time, but he did talk about the importance of ascertaining whether a death was murder when it looked like it might be accidental – fire victim – and accidental when it looked like it was murder – natural death with crime scene complicated by cats interacting with both the body and a bird so there was what looked to the inexperienced eye blood spray every where. It was all quite fascinating and I am reminded of it whenever you refer to your cat’s evil intentions.
Don’t give the cat ideas! She’s probably scheming already about how to make my murder look accidental.
You’ll be ok. Keep your cat well fed, and air out the house periodically to clear the toxins exuded by furniture etc.
Also practice putting on your pants. Routine is key to preserving both sanity and civilization.
@ PZ, # 3: Years ago a friend persuaded me to adopt a couple of cats from a shelter. She assured me the cats would start plotting against me sooner or later. Interestingly, this friend was also a Lizzie Borden scholar. She traveled all over giving talks on the subject.
Nonsense. T am sure most are bored enough a genetics class is greeted with shouts of joy.
Hang in there PZ. You have a huge world-wide network of friends, and not many of us can say that. And, yes, I know it’s is not the same as personal contact, but it’s a hell of a lot better than nothing.