Yeah, though I walk through the Silicon Valley, I shall fear no evil.

Listen, the best thing I ever did in my life was isolate myself. I know what you're thinking. How can I live year after year, day after day, minute after minute alone? Well, I'm not technically alone. I mean, I have friends. It just so happens that the only people that I choose to let into my life are people who can't really come in. I think it works best this way. Keeping people at arms distance is a fail-safe way to make sure that nobody really gets to know me. I ensures that the Trish you think you know is just that: a girl you think you know. This really is a win-win situation because it allows you (the person who thinks you know me) to invent in your mind the girl you think you know while allowing me to remain a vacant shell. You see, it is much easier for me to just be who I think you want me to be. Oh, yes. It is far easier to do that than to actually be myself. The fact is, I have no personality. I don't have an anti-social personality, just a lack thereof. This handicap makes it difficult for me to do things that normal people such as yourself find common place. For me it is more soothing to stay at home on this Friday night, watching what I want to watch on TV, eating what I feel like eating and not worrying whether someone else is full or enjoys my cooking. It all becomes so taxing. I don't have the capacity to care about anyone except me.
My father had a friend, an old man named Brody who lived as a hermit in the hills above Silicon Valley (before it was Silicon Valley). We visited him once, his body was visibly stiff at the presence of people. He lived a very simple life, even washed his own handmade clothes with water he drew from a well. I wondered at the time why he chose to live alone and whether he got lonely. I used to imagine that he was immensely intelligent and that he chose to live apart from a society so obviously not as progressive as he. I imagined he was alone by choice. I now know that it is some sort of virus, this need to isolate. It starts out as a tiny seed of insecurity and grows into the full blown wall of a hermit in the hills or the characteristic lady with cats and a cardigan. I guess we can all see which one I'll end up being. My only request is that we all stop keeping up appearances and get on with the inevitability of it.