Cliches

At some point I will remember that going to Kansas to visit anyone for any reason whatsoever inevitably ends up being something along the lines of $600 once I get out there. Always. This time I went out for a wedding of a good friend. The wedding was great, the reception moreso: it basically functioned like a giant reunion for my old college crowd (the pictures of which are now on facebook). We're seriously getting old here - while I managed somehow to stay out on Friday night until 2 for the first time in so long I seriously can't remember, the reception went until about 10:30, a few of us went out and grabbed a quick snack after, and I was back at my parents by midnight. People, I am not even thirty yet. Sometimes I really miss college.

The oddest thing about the trip was Friday before I went out - everyone was in town by Friday dinnertime, so I was expecting a giant group of us to get together, have dinner and play. All of that fell through - I ended up only meeting up with one friend and his boyfriend at 9 or so - and so I found myself sitting around for most of Friday early evening online and chatting with my mom and basically feeling lonely and out of the loop. I'm used to feeling like that where I am now, just as I'm used to the fact that the vast majority of my social life atm is online, but it was a really weird feeling to have that happen back home, where I generally expect to be hugely busy all the time. Brownie wasn't out in KS with me either, which compounded the lonely feeling, and I'd failed to manage to get together with any of the friends that still live in the area because everyone was too busy and I was getting over a cold. It was like going home and being a stranger to everyone not in my family. Things got better once I got out late Friday and the wedding on Saturday was a blast, but I can't count the number of times I thought "I hate adulthood" while I was there. Anyway, even the lonely and isolated bit wasn't bad since it helped me figure out how to start bringing the NaNo novel to an end.

I know that all sounds like a giant "you can't go home again" or "growing up sucks" type thing, but I don't mean it to. I think part of why some of the lonely/isolated feelings were resonating so strongly with me was in how I remembered those feelings being a much more considerable part of my life in high school or college than they are now. Not to sound maudlin, but I don't think I ever fully felt at home when I actually lived there, so it shouldn't surprise me that I often don't feel at home there now.

So I got home Sunday night and was greeted with the coming of Monday's mail by the arrival of a BPAL order and some samples of CB I Hate Perfume scents from a lovely wonderful online friend. It's almost stupid how much new smellies make me happy. Also: I just discovered that a new Editors album came out last week, so I've now downloaded that. It sounds like the Editors spent six months drinking with Depeche Mode and then decided to record it. I'm generally in favor of this.

On the ADHD/dissertation front: I now have enough legal speed to keep me awake through 2011. I should take one and dissertate this afternoon but I just. don't. want. to. because burnout. so I'm contemplating grading instead, or perhaps being completely academically non-productive and spending the afternoon testing smellies, listening to the Editors and fleshing out the NaNo outline some more (i.e., figuring out town layouts and so on).