Snow-ho-ho

A good day for an a-socialite.

The beauty of deep snowfall is the obligation to do absolutely nothing.

*

I mean, I could be shoveling a couple inches from the driveway, adding to the 2 or 3 I shoveled already. But why?

I’m not going anywhere.

I could be tapping some credible thoughts for The Morning Line. But I’m doing that later, after the game.

I could start the Great American Novel. Maybe tomorrow.

So for the moment, I’m going to sit right here and stare at the cat. Otis is great at doing nothing. He sleeps 18 hours a day. For Christmas, we gave him a set of Sheriff Andy Taylor’s keys.

It’s an existential retirement question.

WhatamIgonnado?

I played it out in my mind this time last year, six months before I actually retired. I’m not good at hangin’ out. Robert Earl Keen sang, “I kinda like just doin’ nothin’. It’s sumthin’ that I do.’’ Not me.

I’m not good at sitting around. I like to read, but I get squirmy after a couple pages. I like TV, but just for an hour or so. I like golf, but we don’t live in Arizona. I like yard work, but mainly as a concept. I like cooking, tangentially, ie when I feel guilty about reading and watching TV. I like sleeping, but I’m not very good at it.

I like working. My whole professional life has been lived in 700-word chunks. I didn’t become the job, at least not entirely, but the job became me. I’m solitary because writing doesn’t use partners. I’m not a talker. The job was best done observing.

I’m not social because I’d have to talk. I don’t like to talk. At least not much.

You’d never invite me to your cocktail party.

Sigh.

(A couple months ago, at my nephew’s wedding reception, I bolted halfway through the dancing to go upstairs to our hotel room, change into sweats and grab a cigar. I burned it outside the reception, sitting under a propane heater. It was glorious. All the guests saw me. I was told I was weird and rude. Sounds about right.)

I’m OK one-on-one because — all together now — that’s often how I worked. My old neighbor Rutkousky and I got along great. We shared a common driveway for 25 years, probably because in common, we had asocial tendencies. “I have one friend,’’ he said to me early on, perhaps laying our ground rules, “and that’s one too many.’’

Perfect.

Not that we didn’t get together. We did. Our mutual respect for Keystone Light led to many pleasant deck evenings. But we got each other. No “Hey, neighbor’’ junk for us.

But I digress.

This whole retirement thing boils down to this: I don’t do anything I don’t want to do. That’s liberating and energizing. It’s like a 5-year-old with nothing to do but slam chocolate ice cream.

I like golf and I’m cheap conservative with my money, so in the summer I work at a golf course, cleaning carts. Free golf, free range time and 10 bucks an hour.

I love my dog, the nutjob mini-goldendoodle Chester, so I take him for a woods-walk almost every day. I love my family, and now nothing interrupts that. I have time for my two good friends, even if they don’t always have time for me. (Being asocial does have its drawbacks.)

And I love to write. So here I am. Tapping, but still not so busy that I can’t spend all the time in the world, admiring the snow with Otis. Retirement is nothing more than making your own choices.