Crazy Cat

We continue on our COVID odyssey and it’s been a year-and-a-half since I first set up shop in The Closet. I’ve lately fallen in love with Mr. Darcy twice more, if you can believe it. Miss Bingley will not quit, but that man is mine! And I was just blackmailed by my snake of an ex-husband into taking possession of a solid gold icon, a piece in a secret hoard of art treasures stolen by the Nazis that dangerous men are prepared to kill for. It really is crazy in that closet!

Sometimes the heat in there gets to be too much and escape is imperative. And then, a few months ago, things started getting crazy outside The Closet, too: in a dramatic departure from her historical MO, our demon of a cat started waiting for me outside the door as I recorded – and letting me pet her when I appeared. She didn’t even bite me. At least not immediately…

Our cat is a curious creature who has generally had very little in common with the classic affectionate cuddler. She literally lies in wait to snipe my husband as he walks through the house. I regularly hear masculine yelps followed immediately by several rapid footsteps, expletives, and admonitions. This brings no end of entertainment to my life. In her less humorous acts of self-expression, she makes free with both teeth and claws, and her humans’ self-preservation has required exhaustive examination of kitty body language.

Things reached a new level of crazy, then, when, starting about a week ago, apropos of absolutely nothing, she began to leap up onto our big, comfy chair to sit with me in classic cuddly cat fashion. She’s stretched out beside me even now. Will the crazy never end?!

The Closet

I have long wanted to narrate books and started to make good on a promise to myself at the beginning of 2020, only coincidentally at the beginning of a pandemic that would consign us all to our homes for still-untold months. Of course, none of us knew anything of a pandemic then, and I did what you do – learned the software, techniques and technicalities, bought myself the requisite equipment… I was good to go, but for one thing – a soundproof space. The Powers That Be in the audio book narration world are very particular on this score: a soundproof space is critical. We don’t want you listening to the neighbor’s lawnmower.

As it turns out, a soundproof space is not easy to come by, even as we stay at home. We, our devices and appliances, our HVAC systems, not to mention the world outside, make an impressive amount of noise. Hence, The Closet.

It turns out that a room-within-a-room is one of the best places to have a sound studio. And a closet, by nature of being a closet, provides the requisite soundproofing. In March of 2020, as the rest of the world was getting used to staying at home in order to keep each other safe, I retreated even further – to The Closet.

The Closet still houses my clothes. I can no longer access them; they serve strictly as insulation and soundproofing. As I now work from home and have no access to a gym, I have no need for them and couldn’t fit into them anyway – how awesome is it that they’re still being put to good use?!?

On a gorgeous, sunny day last summer, as I worked against a deadline, I took a moment to come out of The Closet and gaze at the rare, gorgeous blue sky (I live in Seattle, but hail from Colorado – the skies are very different). I bemoaned my lot (privilege) and my wonderful husband made a sun for me. You now see it tacked to my clothes. The Closet is now not only glamorous, but sunny!

As the world has necessarily contracted, mine has contracted even further, yet widened – even further. I’ve returned from a round-the-world cruise and solved a murder mystery in England, fallen in love with William Darcy – not once, but thrice! – fended off the Fae and fallen in love with a bear (like you do) in New Britannia, and fallen in love with a hot American military man (not so far removed from my actual life)… It’s crazy, what happens in The Closet!! Thanks for coming with me!