I admit it. I hoard small booze bottles...

…and they’re unopened.  I don’t think this qualifies for the traditional twelve-step program because I rarely drink them. It should qualify for something, like the hey-dumb-ass-you-need-to-drink-more program.

Seriously, who buys all these and never drinks them? I originally bought them for the RV, thinking they would save space. Instead they took up more space. I also discovered tiny bottles of booze are useless. Think about it. You’re relaxing in a camp chair, feet in the cool water of a clear mountain river, sun darkening your winter white skin, and in your hand a tall thermal mug filled with gin and tonic. (Mostly gin.) This kind of relaxation requires the super size bottles of liquor. Why bother opening twelve little bottles, when you can have one giant bottle.

I think the best use for these cute little squirts of alcohol is to dump them all in a pitcher, add some orange juice and call it breakfast around the campfire. I’ll let you know how that works out after I recover.

Somedays everyone turns their back on you!

This pretty fox didn't move a muscle as we drove by.  Even when we stopped the car he refused to look at us. Guess he decided we weren't paying him enough in mice or voles to pose for a picture.  I like his style though…if I ignore them, maybe they'll go away.

Call it whatever you like…I'm not a fan of people

One potentially bad thing about living in the mountains, away from a huge population center, is it has elevated my hermit tendencies to defcon one. I’ve never been a social butterfly, in fact most of the time I’m happy in my cocoon, however living in the city forces you to be around more people, more of the time.

Like when you need to renew your driver’s license in the big city. By the time you’ve waited in line for five hours, you and the people around you will either be on intimate terms or one-step from a brawl. Either way, you’re forced to interact. Last time I renewed my license in Wyoming there was only one other person waiting, and it took ten minutes. (Of course, it required five specific forms of I.D. I shit you not!) I could never move back to a city that felt my time wasn’t valuable…where a DMV that for “economic” reasons were short ten clerks and felt I should be okay with taking a day off work to wait. Screw that bullshit. We’ve become a society of excuses for inefficiency and bad service.

I think this is also the reason we have so much violence erupting. Everyone is tired of waiting, forced on edge, pissed off.  I’ve got better things to do than stand around waiting day after day on every little thing. Even with Tevo and Netflix, it’s hard to stay current on Swamp People and Party Down South if I’m constantly waiting in lines. All that waiting also cuts into my drinking time. So, until the DMV puts in a beer bar, fuck ‘em. I’m staying in Wyoming, where my time is treated with respect.

The other conundrum is you’d think it would be easier to “be invisible” in the middle of a city shoulder-to-shoulder with people. I discovered it’s not. The volume of people actually makes you more social. Your subconscious is registering all those people as interaction, and you actually are more interactive without even knowing it.

In the wilds of Wyoming when you go missing for months from the social scene people say, “she’s probably just holed-up for the winter.” They except your hermit status and don’t bug you. However, since the closest thing your subconscious has to interaction is the clerk at the grocery store asking if you want paper or plastic…it begins to register human interaction as abnormal and when a social event does arise it panics. Danger, Will Robinson!

Before you decide the hermit lifestyle is for you, consider stockpiling Xanax. Trust me, if everyone from New York City to Tiny Town was taking Xanax we’d all be having love fests, sipping a cocktail. Now isn’t that nice?