A House Can Be Too Quiet

I have recently discovered that silence is not actually silent. It has appliances.

The Refrigerator Has Become Very Confident

There is a particular kind of quiet that only exists when somebody who is normally in a house is suddenly not in the house. This is different from being home alone. Being home alone is normal. Being home alone has snacks. Being home alone means putting on something terrible and not having to defend it when somebody walks past the television and says, "You're actually watching this?" This is not that. This is when the refrigerator suddenly becomes the loudest object ever manufactured. I did not previously know our refrigerator made this many sounds. It hums. It clicks. Something inside it occasionally shifts with enough authority that I assume we have acquired a second, smaller refrigerator living behind the first one. The furnace also has opinions. The pipes have opinions. The house settles approximately every four minutes, which is a phrase people use to make it sound charming instead of admitting that buildings spend the night making unexplained cracking noises around you. I have lived here for a while. Apparently I have never actually heard any of it. There was always something else. Footsteps upstairs. A cabinet opening. A guitar being played badly on purpose because someone had learned exactly how long it took before I complained. Somebody asking if I wanted coffee even though the answer has been the same every morning for years. Now the furnace turns on and I hear the entire process. I don't recommend it.

Coffee For One Is a Bad System

Making one cup of coffee should be easier than making two. This is objectively true. There are fewer mugs involved. Less coffee. Less water. One person. The mathematics are flawless. And yet making coffee has somehow become significantly more complicated because I keep measuring enough for two. I did this three mornings in a row. The first time, fine. Habit. The second time was irritating. The third time began to feel personal. There is also apparently a specific place where another mug usually sits while mine is being made. I know this because the counter looks wrong without it. Nothing is actually wrong with the counter. It's a counter. It has survived. I have not contacted a structural engineer. But every morning I put my mug down and there is too much space beside it. I resent this. I resent even more that I noticed.

The Cat Has Launched an Investigation

The cat does not understand temporary changes in domestic arrangements. To be fair, the cat does not understand most things. He understands food. He understands doors exclusively as objects designed to prevent him from being where he deserves to be. He understands that 4:52 a.m. is an excellent time to stand directly on my ribs. Everything else remains speculative. For several days, he kept checking the front door. Not sitting dramatically in front of it. That would almost be touching. He would just wander over, inspect it, wander away, then return twenty minutes later as though maybe he'd missed something the first time. He has also started looking into rooms before entering them. This sounds normal until you know him. He has never checked anything before entering in his life. This is an animal who once jumped into an empty bathtub and then looked at me like I'd arranged it personally. Now he walks into the bedroom, looks at the other side of the bed, and leaves. I told him to stop making it weird. He did not. Then yesterday he climbed onto a hoodie that had been left on the bed and slept there for three hours. I moved him. He came back. I moved the hoodie. He found it. I have apparently lost control of both the house and its smallest resident.

Objects Are Snitches

You don't realize how much of another person exists in objects until you're trying very hard not to think about another person. There are shoes by the door. A charger plugged into the wall. A jacket I keep almost moving and then deciding is perfectly fine where it is. A bottle in the shower that I do not use. A particular mug. Guitar picks in places guitar picks have no defensible reason to be. There was one beside the kitchen sink...why? Was there a performance scheduled near the dish soap? Was someone expecting an emergency solo between rinsing a plate and putting it in the drying rack? I threw it into the junk drawer. Then I took it back out because guitar picks do not belong in the junk drawer. I put it on the counter. Then the counter annoyed me. It is now on a shelf. This has solved nothing. There are also shoes. I moved the shoes. This was reasonable because they were in the way. An hour later I moved them back. I don't have an explanation for that one. Maybe they looked lonely. Maybe I need hobbies.

I Have Been Informed That Dinner Requires Planning

There are foods you apparently stop buying when there is nobody else in the house. Not consciously. I did not stand in a grocery store and declare that yogurt had become emotionally inaccessible. I simply reached for something and thought, he likes that. Then stood there holding it. I put it back. Then I became annoyed because putting yogurt back should not contain narrative weight. It is yogurt. People have survived entire civilizations without assigning emotional significance to dairy products. I bought it anyway. It is still in the refrigerator. This is beginning to feel like a standoff. Cooking is also strange. Cooking for one has made me understand why people eat crackers over the sink. There is no accountability. Nobody knows. You can eat cereal at ten at night and there is no witness available to ask if that is dinner. The answer is yes. Legally. I assume.

Apparently I Say Things Out Loud

This may be the most concerning discovery. I talk to someone who isn't currently here. Not in a haunted way. Probably. I'll see something on my phone and think, You have to see this. I'll hear a song and immediately know whether someone would like it. Yesterday a man nearly backed into me in a parking lot, and by the time I got home I had mentally constructed the entire version of the story I was going to tell. I opened the door, walked inside, put my keys down and said, out loud, "You would not believe this asshole." The cat looked at me. I looked at the cat. Neither of us was equipped to continue the conversation. So apparently that's where I am. Talking to empty kitchens. Good. Excellent. Very normal.

There Are Some Benefits

I would like the record to reflect that there are advantages. The bed is enormous. I can sleep diagonally. Nobody steals blankets. Nobody tells me my feet are unnaturally cold. Nobody moves the thermostat after I adjust it to the correct temperature. Nobody asks why every light downstairs is currently on when I am upstairs. Freedom. Absolute freedom. I tried sleeping diagonally the first night. I lasted maybe thirty seconds. Then I moved back. Apparently my body has assigned me a specific section of mattress and is unwilling to renegotiate the property line. This feels like something I should be able to overcome through force of personality. So far, no.

Nobody Tells You About the Boring Part

When something changes between two people, you assume the difficult part will be the important stuff. The conversation. The reason. Whatever was said. Whatever wasn't. All the big dramatic nouns. Turns out those parts are almost easier because at least you know when they're happening. The weird part is Tuesday. The weird part is realizing you haven't told someone about the stupid thing that happened at the grocery store. It's reaching for two mugs. It's seeing something funny and discovering that the first person you want to send it to is currently the one person you're trying not to bother. It's noticing there is enough hot water now. It's nobody asking where the scissors went. It's finding the scissors and realizing you were the one who lost them. Which is humiliating for separate reasons. The difficult part is apparently not always the absence itself. Sometimes it's discovering how much of your normal life had another person built into it. Not loudly. Not romantically. Just everywhere.

This Is Not a Metaphor

The peanut butter is on the wrong shelf. I should explain that there is technically no wrong shelf. I apparently live with someone who believes there is, but from a scientific standpoint, peanut butter can survive at multiple elevations. I moved it up one shelf a while ago. It kept moving back. I moved it up again. It moved back again. This continued long enough that it became a silent disagreement neither of us admitted we were having. It has now been on the higher shelf for almost two weeks. Nobody has moved it. I won. Apparently. This is what victory looks like. Every morning I open the cabinet and there it is, exactly where I put it. Untouched. Unchallenged. Completely obedient. I hate it. I'm thinking about moving it back.