It occurred to me the other day that perhaps I don’t get out enough. I realized this as I was sitting on my couch, wrapped in a blanket and staring out the window. I wasn’t unhappy- quite the contrary, I was enjoying just sitting there, looking at the trees and the sky and thinking my thinky thoughts. I knew there were things that needed to be done, like the laundry and the dishes and the grocery shopping, but I was so content that I didn’t want to move. So I gave myself a time limit. Fifteen more minutes of thinking, and then we get to work. Which is when I realized that there was, perhaps, an eensy little problem. I ask you, what kind of healthy, well-adjusted woman has to force herself to get up off the couch because she’s having too much fun thinking? I could see this for reading, or sleeping, or even taking a bath: “Fifteen more minutes in this lovely hot water before I have to get dressed and move on with my day.” But thinking? Spacing out? “Oh, I’m sorry Mom, I’d love to come over for dinner but the scene playing out in my head is just getting to the good part and I don’t think I’ll be able to tear myself away.” There must be something wrong with me.

I realize this makes me sound like a very ill, very boring societal outcast. I really don’t think I am that ill or that boring, although can I trust my own judgement on this? After all, doesn’t the most closed-minded person you know consider himself to be incredibly open-minded? But seriously, I don’t think I’m that bad. Last night, for instance, I went out to dinner with a group of people and chatted and laughed like a normal, grown-up twenty-something. Granted, the best part of the evening was at the end of the night when I was in the parking lot. I noticed that the woman who had followed me out the door was carrying three pizza boxes and NOT WEARING ANY SHOES. The thoughts that races through my mind were fantastic. Her feet must be cold, I thought. Where in the world are her shoes? Why is she still wearing nylons? Maybe she was on her way home from work and her feet were killing her and her husband was waiting for her to come home and make him dinner because all he does is drink beer and watch football and criticize her tuna casserole and she just couldn’t take it anymore so she rolled down her window on the highway and threw caution to the wind (and her shoes out the window) and decided she would never cook for that ungrateful bastard ever again so she picked up some pizzas instead. I mean, there had to be a good story behind that one, right? And if I didn’t try to figure it out, then the story of The Woman Without Any Shoes would have just been absorbed into the night and the moment would have been wasted.

Oh, dear. No wonder people tell me they have never met anyone quite like me. All this time I’ve been taking it as a compliment, when what they’re really trying to say is, “Karli, I’ve never met anyone who is more interested in silently crafting a narrative for the mole above my right eye than responding the question I just asked. I don’t think we should hang out anymore.”

This must be why my Facebook wall posts have been dwindling lately.