Crap Fest 3000

Another work week is ending.  I'm not traveling anywhere this weekend, but I do have a friend coming up to visit.  My weekend is already jam-packed with plans. 

I'm a classic introvert.  I need my "me time."  I need space away to regroup or else I get completely frazzled.  Hanging out with people and making small talk drains me unless it's with a close group of friends. 

My apartment is a mess, I am a mess.  But all in all, it was actually a pretty decent week.  Boyfriend skipped his graduate school class on Monday evening, and for some reason that makes a huge difference.  Wii played a lot of wii (did you like my unoriginal and lame pun?), but we also got some work done.  I took a statistics quiz last night, now I just have to take the midterm by March 28 (I think?) or else I get dropped from the class. 

During the day I talk about weddings nonstop with one of my recently engaged friends.  In the evenings I play wii, watch American Idol, and observe the horrible stack of bills and miscellaneous papers that keeps piling up on my desk.  I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be an adult, wishing I hadn't stopped going to the gym, hoping that God will work some divine intervention and endow me with bigger breasts and a smaller behind, and all the while feeling both selfish and like some part of me is being neglected or ignored. 

I still haven't picked up a paint brush lately.  Last night I mentioned to boyfriend wanting to take a cake decorating class next time it's offered.  I haven't signed up for any kind of Yoga class.  I long to work with my hands... molding clay, designing cakes, standing on my head, picking up my flute again, hammering nails into the framework of a Habitat for Humanity house. 

This is probably tedious to read.  It's also probably hard to believe that I'm happy.  I like watching bad reality tv and eating dinner with my boyfriend after a few rounds of wii tennis.  I like helping my friend plan her wedding and having people come to visit.  I love indulging... It's just when I stop, when everything gets quiet and I look around and realize where I'm standing that I feel this ache.

I have a friend from high school whose name is still on my AIM Buddy List even though we really don't talk anymore.  She has recently started a blog; in high school and college she was always writing, and she majored in Creative Writing with high hopes for a career as a novelist.  She got married a few weeks after college (she had been engaged throughout) and now has a baby girl.  In her blog she relates everything back to God.  She talks about how she and her husband sponsor a child through Compassion.com and it shouldn't make us feel guilty, but grateful.  Recently she talked about a woman at church who wrote her a get well card when she missed her Sunday duties because of a stomach bug.  She felt disgusted with herself for not noticing this woman before and for not being kinder to her when the woman had had a heart attack a few months ago. 

This friend would probably say my ache is from my lack of God.  Sometimes I think about how nice it would be to belong to a church and have church friends doing church activities.  But after a life of doubting and challenging, I don't know if I could ever give myself over to it. 

All this reminds me of an ominous quote that shows up in a Sopranos episode (another selfish vice)...
Sometimes I go about in pity for myself , and all the while, a great wind carries me across the sky.
                        -- Ojibwe Saying

Another theory, though I'm hoping it's less popular, comes from a conversation I had with my brother yesterday. We were talking about his current girlfriend..

Brother: Yeah, we talk every night and she says she misses me. Her biggest problem will be if she can take it down a notch and play her role.

Me: what does that mean?

Brother: Here's the problem with society. Women are trying to act like men and taking mens roles. In the end, there's going to be a great awakening when they realized that they ruined their lives going after careers and other stupidity instead of taking on more traditional roles. [Insert girlfriend's nameh here] has that problem to a certain degree and I told her if she wants to have a chance with me, she's got to let me be the man. I'll compromise to some degree, but not too much and I sure as shit ain't leaving what I've got going on here as my success will soon be readily apparent to one and all.

So, maybe this is my "great awakening."  If I had just started making babies and knitting little booties for them once I hit 18, I would never have these feelings.  There are so many things wrong with what my brother said... where can I even start?  How do you argue with that insane troll logic?

So that's my little gripe in a nutshell.  Whewwwww.