Mmmm...lentils.

I didn't think I was going to be, but I ended up being amused by Sam MacDonald's book The Urban Hermit: A Memoir.

Finding himself overextended in debt and unhealthily drinking his way through every evening at his favorite neighborhood bar, MacDonald decided to save money by becoming an "Urban Hermit" and living on eight dollars a week eating lentils and tuna. He only means to do it for a month, but eventually ends up Hermiting for a full year, during which he goes to Bosnia and Montana on writing assignments, loses more than a hundred pounds, and meets and marries a woman he works with.

I'm not typically overfond of big drinking guys who are the life of the party (I ask you, who can drink twenty Rolling Rocks in one sitting?)--it's a whole culture I don't understand. But I did enjoy some of his stories, like when he and two friends, in a VW bus, are driving across country in a VW van to attend a hippy gathering in Montana. When they run out of gas, they coast into a gas station, where:

"A copper-colored Eagle Talon pulled up to the gas pump next to ours...It had Massachusetts plates. The backseat was full of junk, packed all the way to the ceiling. The driver and the passenger were both white guys, in their late teens or early twenties. Both were wearing sunglasses and long dreadlocks. The windows were shut tight, but we could hear Bob Marley playing at top volume until the driver turned off the ignition and stepped out into the late-night air.

He took one look at us and he smiled.

'You guys headed to the gathering?' he said.

No shit. That's exactly what he said. We were two thousand miles from Dillon, Montana, but this guy could tell. Maybe it was the Bus. Maybe it was the Slim Jims" (p. 147.)

I thought that was kind of funny, as is this memoir, in a strange kind of way. Although I don't know that anyone who travels to both Bosnia and Montana in on year can rightfully call themselves a "hermit." But I'll overlook it.

Comments

[Sarah]

I had exactly the same feeling - how could he be a hermit? Unless he ws totally distancing himself from anything and anyone familiar, and kept himself apart. But he still is being "bombarded" externally. As for lentils and tuna - yeah, I could lose weight easily that way, if I could stick to it.

[Citizen Reader]

Sarah-
Actually, now that you define "hermit" better, I think this guy is allowed its use in his title. He did keep himself apart from all of his friends at the neighborhood bar so he could avoid spending money, so I guess he was an urban hermit! I'm just such a homebody myself that my definition of hermit (don't leave the house, ever) might be a little too extreme. :)

[Sarah]

Word has it that you have been seen outside your house from time to time. If you're not careful, you'll end up on Flickr. That is, if someone could figure out how to do it.