I'm a quarter of the way through Eiger Dreams by Jon Krakauer, and in the chapter titled 'tentbound', I read something that sounded my internal alarm. Krakauer quotes Blaine Harden of The Washingon Post: "Boredom kills, and those it does not kill, it cripples, and those it does not cripple, it bleeds like a leech, leaving its victim's pale, insipid, and brooding. Examples abound. . . Rats kept in comfortable isolation quickly become jumpy, irritable, and aggressive. Their bodies twitch, their tales grow scaly. "For the past three months I have lived in comfortable (mostly) isolation. And although boredom's never been a hot issue for me (easily entertained), I am feeling it starting to chew at the periphery of my brain. I like to shuffle around outside, but it's too effing (yes YM, I said it) cold to stay out for long. I'm good at inventing indoor tasks but I'm running out of them. I'm driving the cats crazy, conversing to my dog like as if she were of superior intellect. (Not that I'm ruling that out). I find myself wistfully envisioning a world wherin the chickens have not all been slaughtered, that I might enjoy their company. I try and stay sharp by reading, and putting the brain to work solving such household mysteries as 'who left the freezer door open overnight and ruined all the hamburger' and 'who ate the all the skin off of the roasted chicken'. But such things are generally solved without too much mental strain, owing to the fact that I've been alone in the house for the past three days.
What I'm trying to say is that, if I don't leave for New River right now I run the serious risk of showing up a twitchy, brooding, pale, insipid and scaley-taled creature by the time I do arrive.
