Not a lot going on with me. Not like last week when there was a reality show and lunch with a cool journaller, and a trip to the Korean spa. This has, thus far, been a week where the cat scratched me really near the eyeball for trying to pet her, where I ate lots of mashed potatoes, and where I’ve been out doing extracurricular activities every night of the week and missing my friends calls. It’s been a week where I had to feel sad that I missed My Friend Manya’s baby shower in Miami (I mean, my mom got to go, but not me. How unfair is that?) and then felt sadder because I’m not going to be able to hang out with that baby boy as much as I want to when he gets here and be his Auntie Chiara that gives him cotton candy at the zoo and then gives him back to his parents all amped up on sugar. It’s been a week where I tried to do some good things for my boyfriend and had them blow up in my face. It’s been a week where I went to personal training with Ross and almost cried because my arms hurt so much after not working out last week. Oh, and of course it’s been a week where a space shuttle blew up and people died. And we’re going to war any day now. It’s only Wednesday.
I call these the Vaguely Dissatisfied Blues. I wrote a ridiculous song with that title when I was about a semester away from graduating, and I wish I could find it now. Nothing is wrong this week. Nothing bad has happened, by any stretch of the imagination, unless of course you count the space shuttle, which I kind of do because it’s sad when people die. In fact a lot of bad political things have happened lately, but I’m kind of used to that, although I wonder if I should stop listening to NPR on the way to the bus stop because it does tend to put a damper on the day, you know? But then I wonder if I should listen to the news, damper be damned, because I should know what’s going on in the world and I should write my piddly little letters to the president, right? Those kind of blues. You know? You don’t have warm enough socks. You had to sit facing the side inside of forward on the bus. You’re turning twenty-eight in six weeks and you don’t seem to have accomplished much in your life, and you remember that you used to be a gifted child, and that you recently scored really high on this cognitive skills test that your work was practicing giving, and you wonder why, if you’re so damn smart, you’re not doing something? Also, if you’re so damn smart, why did you just change the tense there in the middle of the paragraph?
And you know, the worst part is, that when you have the Vaguely Dissatisfied Blues, you’re keenly aware that you’re a whiner, and that most people in the world have it worse than you. Hell, even J.Lo has worse problems than me, because Matt Damon hasn’t gone on record saying that he doesn’t think my impending marriage to Ben Affleck will work out. And I guess even Ben Affleck has worse problems than me, because he has an impending marriage to J.Lo! Also, he probably doesn’t change his tense in the middle of the paragraph either. Damn!
I’ve borrowed this book from Carl and it’s kind of freaking me out. It’s a good book, it’s not all “See, kids, if you just follow your dreams, you can do anything you want, and get rich too!” It’s not all about people who gave up big fat money to run B&Bs in Vermont, or anything. It’s just stories of people who are trying to figure out what they want in their lives vis-