I hear that having an active social life makes people live longer, healthier lives. I had a very active social life yesterday, though not what people usually think of as a social life:

I made an ophthalmologist appointment. This involved staying on hold while an automated system tried to persuade me to leave my phone number. Eventually, I talked to a human being, who made me give them my birthday and my health insurance information, and then gave me an appointment for two months from now. I was already in the doctor’s system, but there was a new portal I had to join. Setting up my account involved inputting all my information, including photos of my identification and health insurance cards, and receiving five automatically-generated emails. The appointment does not yet appear in my portal account, however.

I checked the bus schedule and ran for it, knowing I might not make the bus that was two minutes away. Indeed, it started soaring past as I got near the stop, but the driver saw me waving and let me on. He is my favorite bus driver. He has a bland, pleasant round face, though I suspect he is perennially irritated, but we always recognize one another and smile. As I got off, he said “Stay safe,” and I told him I would.

On the bus, a lady sitting opposite me who did not speak English gestured at my LL Bean tote bag, which was sitting on the floor. It’s new, because I wore out the old one, so it looks clean. I nodded and smiled, not understanding. “She’s saying you should take it off the floor, because the floor is dirty,” said another woman near me. “Oh,” I said, and put it in my lap, but confided to the second lady, “I grew up with these. They’re for carrying firewood and tools,” and she smiled tightly and looked out the window. The LL Bean tote bags are no longer utilitarian, you see; they have become briefly fashionable and will soon be unfashionable again. Also people are weird about floor dirt. I wish they were weird about masks instead.

I stopped by Trader Joe’s and got some tulips, because I was heading for my monthly visit to my husband’s grave. The cashier was an older man with a stone face who moved with glacial slowness, and he was having a hard time getting the plastic sleeve onto the bouquet. I didn’t rush him, because I recognized what was Parkinson’s or something like that, and I thanked him politely. He did not meet my eyes.

I sat by my husband’s grave later on and told him I was lonely and I missed him. He’s not there, of course. As my kid texted me later on when I told them I had made my monthly visit, “Visiting Daddy’s grave is excellent. Feels like a duty cleared when I can manage it. ‘Hello, father.'” And I replied to the text, “Oh, THERE you are. Still dead, I see.”

On the way home, I stopped at Trader Joe’s again, and waited to use the bathroom. A thin woman with a weatherbeaten face came up and stood beside me, also waiting for the bathroom. “How was your Mother’s Day?” she asked. I told her it was nice and asked how hers was, and she sort of didn’t answer that question, but we agreed it had been a nice day. I got some groceries after the bathroom, but my cashier and I didn’t chat any more than usual (they always ask if I found everything I was looking for, and I often don’t know how to answer that. It’s like the Mother’s Day question).

A friend called me at some point, and we chatted. They told me all the things that are hard, all the things they had done to cope with the hard things, and all the ways in which their partner still doesn’t appreciate them. I said they had done everything right, but they have no control over how other people behave, and they agreed. I did not tell them I had been visiting my husband’s grave, because it didn’t occur to me.

At the end of the day, I allowed myself to briefly look at Reddit, and came across a link to a temporary residential parking permit for when the FIFA World Cup comes to town. I live a block away from a part of Fairmount Park that is going to be used as a sort of festival grounds during the event. The City of Philadelphia thinks it’s going to be absolutely packed with people who refuse to take public transportation, and therefore our neighborhood will be a madhouse. I think the city is being optimistic about attendance, but you never know, and it’s already difficult to park around here. I do not own a car any more, but I sent the link to three neighbors, and two of them thanked me. The third probably didn’t know who I was and what I was sending her, because we never correspond.

Oh, and I texted with my friend Rebecca briefly, which we do most days. She sent me a photo of her flowerbeds. I told her I had visited my husband (they were friends) and told her I would send her a photo of my latest flowerpot when I had a chance. We usually exchange pictures of our pets, so that was a nice change.

I suppose I should count my cat Uncle Louie, because I do talk to him. He burbles, purrs, and occasionally yells in his little cat voice, but it is an interaction nonetheless, mostly him telling me he would like more food and me telling him “tough luck” and petting him.

That makes encounters with more than ten different people, one of whom didn’t speak my language, one of whom is a cat, and one of whom is dead. Some were by phone, some by text, and a handful were in person.

That is quite enough social life for me, thank you very much. I am an introvert, and it will take me all day to recover from yesterday’s whirlwind of interaction.