I can't understand why Bug runs away when I try to braid his hair

Yeah, so I'm pretty sure I have no idea how to spend down time. Most of my people were out of town for the past two days, otherwise occupied, or keeping a safe distance from Kris: Outbreak Monkey, so I was alone a good bit. And suffice it to say I was pretty gosh darn bored. Should I have had any visitors to the abode they would have noted that I accomplished a lot - read: the bathroom sink no longer bears those strange stains and the little ones' nails are clipped and quite possibly polished - but rather than pen a Pulitzer-worthy piece or a meh post for either Web site to which I'm hopelessly devoted, I engaged in, among other things, the following:

-- Spending a good amount of time trying to dislodge tuna from the no man's land between my throat and my nose, forced there by an unexpected cough;
-- Watching a ridiculous number of episodes of the Office and Arrested Development and Body of Evidence and House and I should probably stop there;
-- Sleeping;
-- Reading old issues of Wine Spectator and most chef bios on the Food Network Home Page;
-- Napping;
-- Avoiding Constitution Avenue due to my aversion to both traffic and dead old people;
-- Baking brownies and then actually cutting them into the shapes of cats and stars.

In the 7th grade, my mother working and me many moons from a valid New Jersey driver's license, I spent a summer at home with only sporadic play dates and trips to the town pool. I read almost a book a day for those few months. During that time the smut lover in me was a sponge for the Young and the Restless (a pasttime I apparently reacquired during the recent illness with no name). I also ate my weight in Ellio's pizza given my mother's absence from the house and my complete disinterest in firing up a pan to warm up Steak Ums. And I was perfectly content.

So I'm left wondering what could be so different at 33, with the clear exception of the valid driver's license and the use of tampons.

The irony is not lost on me. When I am running ragged I absolutely beg for time in the quiet. If I could just sit down for 20 minutes and watch a movie or the 80 things I have recorded. I haven't seen my parents in a week and haven't dusted the bedroom in at least 12. Do the cats even have any litter and when did Cricket start drinking wine?

But when all those things are taken care of, then what?