Somehow It's Sunday Again

Sigh.

I made a batch of oatmeal cookies today, to take to work. And a pan of shortbread, which I took to my aunt. Who needs me to take her grocery shopping next weekend despite the fact that we have two unemployed people in our immediate family. I'm not sure of the logic there, but I have given up trying to figure it out.

The baked goods do seem to have all turned out well, though, which is gratifying. I hate it when I screw stuff like that up.

So last night I went out with my friend from out of town and one other friend... or, more precisely, I met them at a bar. It sucked a bit, since I knew only them and one other person, and ended up mostly watching sports TV I couldn't hear. I only stayed a couple of hours and came on home. Eh. I'd wanted to stay home and I should have.

I'm just not a social butterfly. I can only relax in certain milieux -- I need to know and like a very large proportion of the people. I don't like it when it's crowded (I got woozily claustrophobic at my family's Easter gathering this year) and I hate it when I feel old, huge, and/or wildly out of place.

These parameters make socializing difficult. Yet, in my Walter Mitty dreams, I am always having wonderful, cozy, intellectual evenings with a great group of smart, educated, interesting, funny, kind, like-minded comrades, with whom I am completely comfortable.

These people don't exist.

Well, they do, sort of. I have a very small handful of friends I feel comfortable with, and they are all indeed smart, educated, funny, and kind. The problems are these: They're almost all partnered, so it's not like we can just gather all together whenever. We're not exactly like-minded -- my religious friends are more politically conservative than I am (not hard to do) and the friends with whom I agree politically range from the apathetically agnostic to the atheist, with some vague "everyone is going to heaven and your religion doesn't matter" sort of things thrown in occasionally. This also means that mixing them up together might not be a good idea, except on the "let's blow up the chemistry lab" principle. And although I feel as comfortable with them as I am likely to feel with anyone, since I've been divorced there's no one I feel completely comfortable with.

And look what happened when I did feel completely comfortable with someone!

Of course in my Walter Mitty dreams we also don't seem to be in the US, but in a beautiful high-ceilinged ancient apartment somewhere in Europe. We're certainly not crammed into my ugly 1970 apartment. I guess that's why they call them fantasies.

It's a full moon, which means work tomorrow will undoubtedly dish up a rich assortment of craziness. Must sleep now.