Today the power went out.

We lost electricity for about four hours. There were a couple of “pops” this morning where the power would intermittently blink out (for a few seconds or a few minutes). Finally around 11:30, it just gave up the ghost and everything went blink.

It’s not a big deal in the summer when it happens but, in the winter it means losing heat which is never fun. Living out in the ’burbs, you get used to things like losing power on a semi-regular basis. We have bad weather (rain usually) and a tree or line will go down and that’s it, you lose power.

Today, I was working on the computer when it happened but, since I was working on the laptop, I didn’t experience the sudden catastrophic loss of work that normally accompanies the power outage event. It did manage to put a monkey wrench in my plans for the day though.

I’ve been playing hermit lately, to use the dumbass Godfather analogy - going to the mattresses, so to speak. It’s the combination of not having a lot of cash (since I’m waiting to be paid) and not wanting to spend anything. I can be amazingly frugal by locking myself in the house. The days go by with amazing speed anyway and believe me there’s an abundance of things for me to do around here.

I’ve spent a lot of time avoiding dealing with certain things (cleaning up, sorting out papers, throwing stuff out) and when I lock myself in what a friend once referred to as “PJ’s Fortress of Solitude” the piles slowly get smaller and things get crossed off the big to do list.

Right now, I’m doing my best to make the house less of a haven for dust that it has managed to become — it doesn’t bother me so much but if your susceptible to allergies don’t ever visit. Also, the incredible volume of paper I’ve managed to avoid confronts me daily forcing me to make inroads to diminishing it’s size.

Trips into the city take about 2 hours each way door to door (never mind train fare and parking) so, if you’re one of those many people I’ve put off over the last week or so, please don’t be offended. Poverty makes me into a recluse.

Also today, I got off my lazy ass and finished working on the GIF logo for my ebay auctions. I’m pretty pleased with it although I know I have to make the damn thing smaller (file size wise that is). Part of the whole clearing out the house means making money off the electronic flea market that is ebay. I’ve done it before and done pretty well, I just want it to be a little bit less labor intensive than it’s been in the past.