I’m a single guy, and while my apartment is comfortable, spacious, and clean, and I like it a lot, there’s not much conversation that floats around here. So I talk to my cat. “Hi, Ruthie,” I say. She stares at me. So much for that.
I also talk to stuff. My clothes, for instance, mostly in the morning. “Okay, time to put you on,” I inform my jeans. I never get a reply, for which I’m grateful. When my jeans start answering me, that’s when I’ll know that being by myself is more of a problem than I’ve realized.
“I think I’ll cook you up tonight,” I say to a package of brats in the freezer. They deserve a heads-up. We all appreciate a little advance notice when something demands our participation. It’s common courtesy, and I find that it gets buy-in. I’ve never known any of my brats not to cooperate when I show them a little respect, including the ones I’ve just put in the oven.
“Hmmm, guess I’ll play a little guitar,” I say to the air. And to my guitar: “Hullo, guitar. Ready to make some notes?” It is, as it turns out, and we make music together for fifteen, twenty minutes. “Wond’ring Aloud” by Ian Anderson, and an untitled tune of my own composition. I wrote it almost forty years ago; you’d think that by now I’d have a name for it, but no, no, sorry, no name. I talk to my musical instruments, but I don’t name my compositions. Or my instruments, for that matter. My alto sax is just my alto sax, not “Cherise” or “Stella,” though she’s definitely female, my lady.
Anyway, now you know. I’m a single guy who talks to things. I do have my limits. I don’t walk the sidewalks at night, shaking my fist and yelling at the moon. I just like a little conversation now and then, is all, even if it’s just me who’s doing the talking. And while a pair of boxer shorts may not have great active listening skills, at least they never interrupt.