Okay, I’m exaggerating. It’s not quite that bad. It’s just that I’ve grown unaccustomed to living without all my distracting entertainment – internet, music, DVD player, cell phone signal, and cable. Plus, I have a gnawing need for freedom – even if it’s only as an escape plan.

It used to happen to me all the time when I traveled on business and wasn’t the one who rented the car or (even worse) wasn’t allowed to rent a car. I felt like someone on house arrest. I would climb the walls, driven to madness by the captivity of it all.

It’s not even that I have anywhere to go. I just like to know that if I WANTED to drive somewhere at 3am, I can. As you’ve probably surmised, I’m staying way out in the boonies and without a car of my own. More or less, I’m a prisoner, except when I go for my daily run.

Speaking of which, this morning it was unbelievably humid as I set out on the little five mile loop we found for me. Thus, in keeping with the mood and the cuisine of the last few days (anything and everything fried. No item is too sacred to escape the hot, greasy depths of the deep fat fryer), I listened to my blues mix on my iPod – Howlin’ Wolf, Taj Mahal, Bo Diddly, John Lee Hooker…you get the idea.

And about halfway through, the following song came on and made me nostalgic for more than just electronic pleasures.

Nope, I don’t only want to zone out on a little Family Guy, I’d like to do it not sober.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not endorsing illegal ‘gateway’ drugs, I’m just saying that a week alone with your mother is a long time. It’s like six months at sea. Clinging to an empty ice cooler. And fighting off sharks. And buzzards. And hallucinating about watching her try on no less than 100 outfits and voting them keepers or crap. Oh wait, that part happened. And is still ongoing…

But I embellish. The sun has come out and the weather is in the high 70′s and my efforts have single-handedly prevented a few color combinations straight out of Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey Circus. (Unrelated: But when I was a little girl my mother did the taxes for a Bailey heir and he had a stuffed puma in his living room, and it used to scare the crap out of my brother and me. And one time he made us Jiffy Pop, and I had never seen anything so magical in all my life. At least at that point.)

So anyway, back to the point, if I can’t have champagne and reefer and cable TV and unlimited internet access, at least I have all that (see above about weather and fashion intervention services) going for me.

p.s.

Yes, I realize this is the worst YouTube ‘video’ ever, but at least you get to enjoy the song. I looked and looked and couldn’t find any footage of Muddy singing this live.

p.p.s.

Does Facebook have a ‘What’s your Blues name’ quiz? If so, send me the link, because I want to know. Unfortunately, Howlin’ Wolf is already taken. How’s Whinin’ Wolf? Bitchin’ and a’Moanin’ Wolf?

p.p.p.s.

My mafia name, as it so happens, is Paulie The Gut Gambino.

And my porn name (culled from the first pet/first street methodology) is Goldie St. John, which you must admit is a pretty damn good one!