I Vant to be Alone...

On the sidewalk the people are hustling and bustling,
They ain't got no time so they think on the thing
That will fill in the space in between birth and death
Who're they kidding ?
lyrics from The Observation, by Donovan


I’ve been thinking about Greta Garbo these days, and the famous quote attributed to her: "I vant to be alone." Actually, that’s apparently a misquote. She is reported to have told friends, "I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be left alone.' There is a world of difference."

There is, indeed, a world of difference, and I’m not sure which I want: to be alone or to be left alone, but both sound delicious to me, a lot of the time, these days. I have a small but solid network of good friends and family whose company I enjoy and with whom I'm in regular contact, but I'm a woman who has always enjoyed and required a certain amount of solitude, and apparently, I'm not alone (sorry, couldn't resist) in that requirement.


And speaking of Being Alone...this device is from the Hammacher-Schlemmer catalog, and when I first saw it, I thought it was a device to...ahem...well, to enhance being alone, so I thought it was a...um....wellllllll...a high tech...uh...nevermind.

Suffice it to say, I had no idea of the size of the thing, or the function, for that matter. What do YOU think it is?

Ha! You can read all about it, here.

And as if that weren't enough...well, maybe Timothy Leary had it right after all, with his Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out philosophy...or maybe all I need is a metro nap...