Bryan is somewhere on I-85 at this moment, headed north in a rented van full of his belongings.

Usually I'd come home and he'd either be asleep - which would allow me to annoy him with loud obnoxious music - or sitting at his computer, which would allow us to complain about our shitty DSL connection (thanks, Earthlink).

It was strange coming home today, to a place that seems really empty suddenly. Standing in the living room, the only evidence of his departure is the lack of DVD racks on either side of the fireplace - the wall behind them looks barren. There is definitely something missing there.

Also absent is the eternal humming of hyperion, the machine we used as a router, cables running all over the floor on the living room, from his room to the switch to the kitchen table I have my laptop on.

Come home and Molly is sitting in the middle of his now-empty and freezing room, and she asks, "purrrreoew?" So I explain to her that the hairless punk who used to pet her and chase her around with a feather duster isn't coming back because people organize themselves around small green pieces of paper, and there wasn't any to be found here, so he went back to whence he came.

I don't know if she understood.

Normally I'd sit here for a few idle hours and read, maybe sleep, or screw around online. Bryan would wake up eventually and we'd bicker with each other about taking the trash out, what we're going to do about food, whether or not Molly has a face, the stupidity of the Internet, the insanity of females, and every what and wherefore. Maybe we'd go find food and watch a movie, or just sit at our computers and see who can annoy the other more by blaring music across the hallway. And instead of bellowing down the hall and over the music, we'd get on IRC to bitch at each other. The whole #mirrorshades crew was privvy to our goings-on around here.

To be honest I don't know what we did to fill the time, but we always managed to somehow.

I have no idea what I'm going to do tonight. Sit here in front of the computer, I guess. Maybe watch TV. Haven't done that in a year or so, out of choice - but I can't think of much else.

It's too quiet around here.