This bachelorette lifestyle isn't quite as exciting as I envisioned.

Don't get me wrong: I am not unhappy (though I think I might be experiencing a minor bout of depression).

I love my apartment and my neighbors (though one of them is making me a wee bit uncomfortable because I think he likes me in a way I don't want him to).

I love my TVs and my digital cable and my new black leather couch (though I don't sit on it too much since Sasha seems to want my attention more when I'm up there instead of down on the floor).

I even love my bed now that I have managed to make it a cozy haven (though it will never live up to that heated waterbed).

But I seem to go round and round in my head, torn over creating this life built with only me in mind, and wondering if I'll ever have a partner again.

It's an incredibly odd conundrum I seem to have wrapped myself up in. I want someone to spend time with, yet I do not want someone to interfere with my solitude. I want a social life, yet I do not want to change the routine I have established for myself.

I question why I do all these things to make myself attractive, yet I don't seem to be using them to attract the opposite sex.

Maybe I'm struggling with this because it is the first time ever in my life that I have lived alone. (Okay, having Sasha here means I'm not really alone, but you know what I mean.) I cannot emphasize how much I love living alone either. To be in total control of everything within these walls is empowering in a way that I never could have imagined.

After eighteen years of being an adult, I finally feel like one.

I've been given a chance to start over again, and maybe that opportunity to do things differently is what is keeping me from seeking out a relationship - why go down a path I've already been down too many times with nothing but failure at the end?

So why this nagging sensation that some key element is missing? That time is slipping by and I will regret that I never made room for love and companionship?

I don't think of this constantly, it just pops up occasionally: What am I doing? Where am I going? Where will I end up? What will life be like in a year, ten years, twenty, if I am still living it alone?

I'm not unhappy, but neither am I completely satisfied with the status quo.

The depression: just a few things that hint of the possibility.

I am awake early every morning, sometimes by 4 a.m., but always well before the alarm goes off. (I still get up at the same time I did when I lived 40 miles from work - I like getting to work early because that means an early departure as well.)

I still can't get that weight going back in the upward direction. I am down to 94 pounds and it's pissing me off. (For heaven's sake, I'm eating a high-fat breakfast every morning, I'm eating steak almost every time I go out for lunch, eating PB&J toast every night before bed, and yet no change at all.)

I ignore my journal and my blog, even though I now have plenty of time to attend to each of them on a regular basis. My other website hasn't been touched since February (haven't even bothered to upgrade the version of MT I'm using on it).

I'm snappish and angry at work most of the time, and not really able to focus too much on what I should be doing.

I'm smoking too much.

This could just be a mini-depression after the big move. Kind of like post-Christmas letdown, I suppose.

But nevertheless, I asked my new gynecologist who I saw on Friday for a prescription of Elavil. A low dose, but Elavil does have the side effect of stimulating my appetite and adding some weight to me (at least, it has in the past - we'll see this time).

She recommended a thyroid check, but I have had that done many times in the past without result. Things could be different now, but I'll have to get pretty frustrated before I'll voluntarily have a needle stuck in my arm to run a blood test.

I finally got a couch, so that's progress. Black leather, plus a matching loveseat and ottoman. Added eggplant chenille throws and pillows (the same ones as those on my bed). Now I just need an area rug and tables to tie it all together.

For the bedroom, I still need a headboard, nightstand and lamp. But I've pretty much put a halt to my big spending spree. I have the money, but I don't want to spend it now. Considering that I am the kind of person whose money has always gone out as quickly as it comes in, holding on to some is new to me.

Yet, there are lots of little things still left to pull this all together into a home instead of a hotel room. Artwork, for example. Maybe some artificial plants (I kill the live ones every time). Big things I have no trouble with, but little things are where I fall apart. I'm no Martha Stewart by any stretch of the imagination.

But I'll try to add those things gradually, out of choice rather than anxiety over trying to get everything together too quickly.

I had to replace another bathrug - the second one. Sasha has been a bad little dog. I can't entirely blame her: it has to suck being cooped up in the bathroom all day, even if it is fairly large for a bathroom. I keep reminding myself that she is still technically a puppy, but it's been frustrating.

She loves paper - more specifically, tearing it to shreds. Kleenex, toilet paper, cotton balls, paper towels, newspaper. I made the mistake one day of leaving the toilet paper within her reach, and came home to find a cloud covering the floor. So now it lives up on the counter instead of on the roller. The trashcan is also up high, but I keep forgetting about the one in my vanity, so every morning I'm down on my hands and knees picking up scraps scattered all over.

She chewed up one of my favorite shoes early on, and I've yet to find another pair like it. But overall, the destruction has been minimal; it's really the bathrugs that annoy me. She chewed just enough in each to make them useless. The first one is now on the balcony (hard to make myself throw it away) and the second one I just tossed in the closet. I think perhaps I'll have to get some glue and figure out how to patch them if this happens again. Those damn rugs aren't cheap!

I came home Friday - and early at that since I had my gyno exam - to find the contour rug with its gaping hole. I had covered the other two rugs in the bathroom with her bed and blanket, but this one was an exposed target.

When I found it, I smacked her a little bit with it and said "NO!" in the sternest voice I could muster. If you'd ever met Sasha, you'd know how hard it is to be mean to her. But at some point, I have to trust her in more areas of the house unattended. As it is, we now sleep with the bedroom door closed, because I'm afraid I'll wake up to find a corner of the couch chewed. (Hell, the leather smells so good it almost makes me want to chew on it!)

Having a dog is close enough to having a kid, let me tell you.

Speaking of kids, last weekend when mine were here, Justin apparently managed to pick up a virus - on my computer, that is. I blame it on the porn sites, oh yes I do.

Justin, being nearly fifteen and male and therefore full of raging hormones, of course seeks out the bad stuff on the Internet. Guess it's time to install some type of parental control software on the PC.

But considering what happened when I attempted to install McAfee ViruScan on my PC after discovering the problem, I don't know if I'll be inclined to install anything else for a while!

You see, when I installed the virus protection software and went to reboot the computer as instructed, well...it wouldn't. The Windows splashscreen just froze on my computer and stayed that way. I tried repeatedly with no results.

I was literally down on the floor next to my computer in near panic mode. The thought that I had not only lost my computer but everything on it was about as close to devastating as things could get for me right now. (Yes, there are other things far worse, I know - let's not think about those things.)

Finally, I got the recovery CD that came with my PC, and reinstalled everything back to the original settings. Most fortunately for me, there was an option which would not reformat the hard drive or cause data files to be lost.

But it did set me back a bit in terms of losing settings and having to download a more current version of Internet Explorer; plus I had to (ahem) acquire another installation of FrontPage.

On the positive side? My computer's performance seems to have improved considerably. So maybe it wasn't such a bad thing after all.

Doesn't mean I won't yell at Justin anyway next time I see him. =)

So how to sum up the life of a bachelorette - or at least, this bachelorette?

I could focus on the quietness. I come home each day to a serene neighborhood where the loudest noise comes from the squirrels scampering up the drainpipe and over my bedroom windowsill to get to the roof. I can't help but grin each time I see their little shadows running across.

I could mention my neighbors, each who has a little dog to keep Sasha company, and who I sit outside with each evening, laughing at the antics of those same dogs.

I could point out that I haven't seen F-B since who knows how many weeks ago when he helped me buy my TV, even though I could call him any time and take care of whatever sexual urges spring up in me.

I could confess that I paid for an account on Matchmaker, only to end up so annoyed and disgusted with the goofballs who send me mail that I'm wondering if Matchmaker should pay me for putting up with them.

I could gloat about how the most pressing decisions I experience involve determining whether it's going to be a Brad Pitt or Mark Wahlberg weekend when I'm cruising down the aisles at Blockbuster.

I could tell you that dinner is most often whatever is left over from the day's lunch, or Chinese takeout, or pizza delivery, or a microwaved meal in a box. (Or, as it was Friday, tacos and wine.)

Hmmm, yes, I think that says it all: tacos and wine on a Friday night.

Aren't you pea-green with envy?