A Night To Myself

In my younger days, I did a great deal alone.  I would go out and roam around the city alone.  I would go to the movies or to a show alone.  I went out to eat alone.  I would say that there wasn’t a problem with this, but to be fair I was spending a lot of that time looking for a girlfriend. 

I haven’t spent much time alone for a long, long time. 

After Leah left, I was dreading being alone.  To be fair, part of that was because Christmas and New Years were coming (for whatever her reason, Leah decided that she absolutely needed to leave right before the holidays).  I was under the impression that I wouldn’t have the kids for either of those occasions, but it turned out that I had them for New Years.

I haven’t spent that much time alone since Leah left.  The kids still live mostly with me.  Of course, a month after Leah moved out, I met Jen.  In the weeks since Jen and I met, we have only missed seeing each other for a grand total of one weekend.  If you add to that my activities – teaching, tap dance class in January, and rehearsals – I’m alone very rarely. 

So, last night, I realized: I had a night alone (the kids were with their mother), with nothing to do!  I was very much looking forward to this!

The evening started with a nap, but to be fair the cat had other opinions on the best use of this time.  In other words, I didn’t nap very long.  I made a quick dinner and started catching up on my DVR backlog.  I did dishes and started laundry.  After this, I decided I wanted to spend some time playing “Dance Central” on the Xbox 360 with the Kinect.  This led to me engineering a new optimal position for the Kinect camera.  Now, behind the TV, in the corner, I have a shelf, three old shoe boxes on top of them, and an old CD case on top of that.  On top of that is the Kinect camera, staring down at the rest of the room!

“Dance Central” works, I guess, with this setup.  Last night, I totally sucked, however.  The problem is that “Dance Central” doesn’t tell you what you are doing wrong, just that “this particular body part is wrong”.  It would highlight my arm, for example, indicating I was moving it wrong, but it couldn’t tell me what I was doing wrong.  Maybe I need a bit more practice. 

I had some time to watch my usual Thursday night TV shows, and then I was off to bed.  I had some time to chat with Jen, and then I read for a bit.  It was a good night alone, and something I appreciated.