Nowheresville

starbucks - semeron blvd, orlando, fl - 1706, 30 Oct 2013

It is interesting to be sitting in a Starbucks far from where I first learned what a Starbucks was and what it was for and yet it still smells, look and feels the same.
Burnt, a certain manufactured ease and pretentious.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. I suppose it's comforting knowing that I can get a passion iced tea, shaken, with a few pumps of raspberry and a few Madeline cookies in Germany, England, New York, Chicago, LA, Grand Rapids...Lake Mary, Florida (don't ask), but even that gets old, I want something new. Different.
The only thing that changes about places like these is the scenery outside the plate glass windows. Right now, I'm rocking palm trees and lots of traffic outside mine.
If I ignored the windows, though, I could be sitting in a Starbucks anywhere in the world.
When I am visiting another city, I try to ignore the place all together and look for something out of the way, off the beaten path, preferably with free WiFi, where there is almost always sure to be some much better offerings. I'm usually right.

OH!

Why am I sitting in Starbucks right now? This is Orlando, Florida. Everything here is manufactured. There are no better offerings here, which is sad. Except, maybe, Panera, but that's even sadder because it's like a little sister desperate to like her big sister. The little pockets of individuality and creativity are run over like so much roadkill and left to fester on the hot southern asphalt as an example to anyone who does not fit the mold...whatever that means...all for the sake of tourism.
Sunshine State indeed. I hate this place. I hate myself in this place. It's killing me. I am making an escape before they tie me a palm tree while a giant anthropomorphic mouse god forces the KoolAid down my throat.

Ugh

It is 2:55am and I am watching "Some Kind of Wonderful" reliving a part of my childhood. I remember identifying with this movie on some primal level. I am trying to figure out why...I think it's the girl is in love with guy but guy is in love with another girl who hardly knows he exists and who is with someone else thing...it all works out in the end.

Perhaps I am looking at my childhood from a higher point in my life and shaking my head at the time I wasted on people who did not waste their time on me.

Even now...if someone is unavailable  in any way then I am sure to be attracted to him. Partly because the men who are available at my age are so desperate and weird that if that's all that's left then I don't mind being alone.

We all know they don't get together in the end, and if they do, it won't last.

I'm 43 years old and I have never been in love. Not even once for a moment. I have a friend who will crucify me for being a self-indulgent, ungrateful person. "You have your family." 

True as that all may be, still...

It Ain't Nothin' But a Number...

I accept the gray hairs on my head.

I accept the freckles and spots that have shown up during my aging process.

I can dig, and actually understand, the way father pontificates and the sometimes stoic silence of my mom.

I hate loud music that I cannot grasp. 

And I refer to my classmates as "Children" "Kids" "Beasties"

BUT I looked over at my night stand and wondered when my Gra'ma came to town!

that weird feeling in the back of my head

I woke up this morning feeling as if I'd spent the entire day at my Aunt Mary's house. Almost as if I'd sprinted through history.
I don't remember what the dream was...so don't ask me., but it was a nostalgic feeling all the same.
I been feeling more and more out of step. Out of place and time.
There has to be a name for that.
.
.
.
I can't find it.

No Class

I guess it's been quite some time since I posted on this blog, which is hard to believe because I have a lot to say. I think I have a lot to say and then, MEH.
I'll get back to that.
Right now I am sitting at home, in my favorite chair, next to my bed, thinking about school. Should I stay or should I go? I say as much out loud and my ONLY response? My mom's dog looks at me with those eyes that say: "Oh you're going to school. What else're you going to do?"
She's right, of course, my mom's dog. I'm going to school today.
After all, this is FLORIDA, what else is there to do?
=P