Diaries I Read:
So, I was thinking, after I wrote my last entry, how self-centered this whole online journaling thing is. I mean, here are all these people writing about themselves, hoping other people will read it and find them and their lives fascinating. Because everyone IS hoping people will read their entries; otherwise they wouldn�t put them online. I think it�s a pretty good commentary about our society these days�everyone�s so concerned with themselves; everyone thinks their problems are so much bigger, their lives are so much more dramatic. When really, we�re all going through pretty much the same things, just different circumstances, different names to the faces, different shades of color in our worlds. It�s very silly if you think about it. But then again, maybe we can learn something from each other since we�re all in different stages of the game.
I went to my ornament exchange on Friday. And believe it or not, I didn�t get screwed. I made a note of the wrapping on the box that the girl, whose crappy ornament I got last year, brought with her. I was going to make sure not to choose that one this year. Actually, though, she brought a decent one this year. What�s funny is that SHE got the crappy one this time. (I didn�t think it was as crappy as she thought it was. I guess that goes to show how different our tastes are.) Anyways, I lucked out because my name was drawn last, so I got to steal any of the ornaments that had other people had opened. So basically I got to choose whichever one I wanted. Now THAT�S high drama.
After the girls had the ornament exchange, we met up with the guys and went out to a bar. It was actually fun. B got pretty drunk, though. I�d actually never seen him like that. I�ve seen him drunk, of course, but not like this. He was slurring his words and kind of stumbling around, and when we got in bed he was asking me random questions regarding his work, like he was talking to a client or something. It was fairly humorous. He didn�t feel so funny the next morning, though.
There was some drama with our friends, though. We have two friends who should not be dating each other. She�s needy and low self-esteem and jealous (like most women our age who are still single and have dated enough to get screwed over a few times too many). He�s newly divorced. She�s looking for a long-time, serious, heading-toward-marriage relationship. He most certainly is not. She knows this on some level but I think she�d rather be in a going-nowhere relationship than no relationship at all. He pissed her off by whispering in our other friend�s ear (who has fake boobs and is a big flirt) � we�ll call her Boobs � knowing that she (his girlfriend) is ultra-sensitive about Boobs. (Which makes me wonder if there�s some history there that gives her cause to be jealous.) Anyways, they got into it at the bar and on the way home (I was the lucky driver). It was pretty embarrassing for us�and them, too, I guess. I wish they�d just go ahead and break up. She can save herself a bit of heartbreak that way.
But more important than the details of this fight is the fact that I realized how lucky B and I are to have found each other � two people with relatively little baggage. He had no serious relationships before me; I had one. Neither of us ever lived with a boyfriend or girlfriend. More importantly, neither of us has been married or has kids. At this point, we have three good friends who are dating people who have been divorced. That seems crazy to me, but I guess we�re at that age when all those people who got married fairly young are splitting up. And there are only so many people in the dating pool. So you get what you get. I think it would be really hard to be with someone who had been married. I don�t even like to think of B having dated other people, let alone being married to someone else.
The other topic of interest (well, maybe it�s not all that interesting) I have regards a discussion I had about how we grow out of our space so quickly. I was talking with one girl who bought a house a few months ago. She�s single but has one roommate. I�m not sure exactly how big the house is, but it�s a HOUSE. And now she says she thinks it�s too small. And another girl lives in a very nice, 2-bedroom condo by herself and says she can�t imagine having a roommate or a smaller place. Now, of course all of us who say our places are too small have lived and functioned in smaller places. But everyone says they�re outgrowing their homes. I even feel it. Before I moved in with B I thought his place would be plenty big enough for the two of us. And it is. But we do feel like we�re growing out of it. So here�s my theory. I think we just grow to the size of our containers. We�re like goldfish. Unfortunately, we�re not as smart as goldfish because we keep growing even without getting a new, bigger bowl. And then when we get our bigger bowls we grow out of those, too. It�s really silly. And it�s another commentary on our society. Our American society at least. Or the upper middle-class American society if you want to get particular. I once heard a comedian talking about how we accumulate all of this STUFF. And most of it is really trivial STUFF, when you really think about it, like 20 pairs of shoes and coasters and books you�ve already read and the newest Gripper Zipper Ziploc bags. But anyways, we have all this STUFF, so we have to buy a BOX to put it in. And of course, we have to make our BOXES really pretty. So we buy more STUFF to decorate our BOX. So we have our BOX, and then we get more STUFF, so we buy a bigger BOX, or build onto the BOX we have. Some people even buy additional BOXES. When you look at it that way � that our homes are just these boxes we have to throw all our crap in � it all starts to seem really stupid.
So that�s my lesson for the day. Don�t get me wrong, right now I�m obsessed with my BOX. I want it to look really pretty and stylish and everything. I guess that�s what being newly married does to you. Right now there are so many different things I want to buy for our home and we can�t afford to get much of it. And I�m so impatient; I want it all RIGHT NOW. And when I get one thing, it automatically makes me want to get something else. And the more I improve a particular room or something, the more ideas I get to improve it more, or improve another room. It�s very exhausting.
The major dilemma we have right now is that we need new bedroom furniture but we can�t afford to buy it. And I really want my own desk. B works from home, so our second bedroom is his office. So he gets a whole room just to himself. I don�t begrudge him that room; he needs the space and he should have it. But that means I don�t have any space in the whole house that�s just mine. Not even one little corner. So all I want is my own desk and my own bookshelf. We have room for it in our bedroom. The problem is, the desk that I used to have (that�s at my parents� house) does not match the furniture in our bedroom at all. But since we can�t buy new furniture right now, we can�t buy a new desk either because we want everything to match eventually. I�m at the point where I don�t care if it matches or not, I want to bring my desk over so I�ll have at least a little space until all this money starts rolling in (yeah, right) so we can buy new furniture. But B doesn�t seem to agree. I think the real issue is that he doesn�t understand my need for my own space. Since he has a whole room to himself, he doesn�t see the problem. Or maybe he�s just being difficult to be difficult. I don�t know.
Well, that�s it. Chew on that. Bzzzzzzzzz.
Working at home - Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2004
Toronto - Tuesday, Nov. 16, 2004
On the way to Toronto... - Tuesday, Nov. 09, 2004
A Good Day - Monday, Nov. 08, 2004
Another letter - Thursday, Nov. 04, 2004