My sister forwarded me this New York Times article: The Freedom, and Perils, of Living Alone. I’m guessing she found it amusing and relevant to me, and indeed I was struck by the eerie similarities between “secret single behavior” and my own daily patterns. For example:

• The “indulgent work style” of working 24/7, letting the entire house fall into domestic chaos. There’s no one there to see.

• My weird sleep cycle, which starts by going to sleep later and later until the day cycles around. I’ve written about this before, alternatively fighting it and giving in, depending on the nature of paying work I have on deck.

• My eating habits, which are irregularly based on whatever food whim has me in thrall at a given moment. One day, it’s exploring the mysteries of duck roasting so I can try making mashed potatoes with duck fat (allegedly amazing), while other days it’s testing the thermal conductivity of chicken to calculate the optimum cooking time and temperature.

• The tendency to get “quirkier and quirkier”, as evidenced by my indulgence in making printable productivity forms to stand-in for actual bosses. Would anyone who had a real boss even think of such a thing? Perhaps they are not talking to their cat enough.

Apparently I’m not alone in experiencing these behaviors, as the NYT article cites numerous examples from a variety of long-time “soloists”. The interesting thing is that until now, I’ve subconsciously felt that these behaviors were unique personal problems; for the first time, it seems possible that there’s just no one around to help me establish patterns. And since most people, myself included, have assumed that well-defined habits of eating and sleeping are prevalent, therefore normal, and by extension desirable…well, I’d assumed that I was just constantly screwing up. It may just be that there’s no one around to help me set patterns.

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