When you work for long stretches at home, you take precautions against hacking through the front door with a pickaxe.

For instance, I call people that I don't necessarily like -- e.g., relatives -- and loiter around the mailbox until somebody, anybody, stops to chat. I not only talk to my plants but demand answers (and I have no problem withholding water until I get one).

I also play music around the clock. Actually, it's around the stereo, but the clock gets it too. The point is that it simulates human activity.

My favorite is the world music channel on XM radio. While I bang away at the keyboard, my home fills with the sound of Cherokee natives chanting for rain, Russian line dancers, geisha harps.

Even as we speak, African bushmen are in the other room becoming hostile. I think they are yelling at their plants.