I think the heat is beginning to really get to me. I definitely have less patience and tolerance, and I am doing things that ordinarily bug me to realize I'm doing them.

An example: the other day, I went to the grocery store. My plan was to get some of those little "pizza shells" - you know the small pre-baked crusts that you can quickly make a pizza on if you want a pizza but don't want to deal with the leftovers from a pizza from a pizzeria.

Well, they had none of the small shells. Oh, they had the big ones - they have big everything, "family packs" of a dozen pork chops, enormous bags of vegetables, all of that. (Sometimes I feel like the local groceries are trying to discourage single people from trying to cook for themselves. The only "single servings" readily available are frozen dinners).

I stood there, looking at the empty space, and I remarked, to no one in particular, "They're out of the exact thing I came to get. They're ALWAYS out of what I need."

I hate it when I do that because it does make me look like the stereotypical Crazy Spinster who has no one to talk to, so she talks to the empty air at the grocery store.

(FWIW, I wound up getting English muffins and using them instead. It was fine, it did what I needed, but it was NOT WHAT I WANTED at that moment. And it does seem, more and more, with the grocery's new "we're going to run our trucks less to save gas and money" policy, they're out of more stuff, and at inconvenient times.)

****

Speaking of having no one to talk to, I think that's one of the problems I have right now. Most of my colleagues are gone for the summer - off doing research, or at meetings, or just not coming in because they don't have a need to. So a lot of the sort of random, low-level interaction I get in a day is absent. (Talking to students in a class context is not the same).

I had a dream last night. Most of my dreams seem to be my brain evaluating the stuff it took in during the day and deciding what to discard and what to keep (that's why some of the odd random things show up, I think). But once in a while I will have what I think of as a "wish fulfillment" dream, where it involves something that I want - maybe even something I didn't realize I wanted, on a conscious level.

In last night's dream, I was visiting someone. We were sitting in his living room, just talking. But it was so wonderful, and I remember being so happy during the dream. In part, because it was someone male, and someone that it could be said that I "like-like" (as we used to say in seventh grade) (but I can't determine, in the real world, and I am too shy to be so forward, if there is any reciprocation. And at any rate, I've never seen any clear evidence of such.). But a big part of that, even beyond all that, was the fact that I was having a conversation. Someone was paying attention to me. And it wasn't the usual kind of conversation I have these days, where something's expected of me, or where I'm uptight because I (a) have to get all the information in and (b) I have to make it "engaging" for the students. It was just a normal back-and-forth conversation.

Towards the end of the dream, the alert part of my brain started throwing in the usual "curveballs" it does - it's as if at some point part of my brain goes, "Hey, dummy, it's time to wake up. LOOK this is just a dream because something like THIS wouldn't happen in real life." But the part of my brain that was engaged in the dream actually managed to ignore them or rationalize them for a little while because I was enjoying myself. But I eventually did wake up, and there's that little split second where you realize it was all a dream. And then you feel sort of sad.

I think part of it is that some of the people I interact with on a semi-regular basis are the kind of "no word in edgewise" people - where they start talking, and you just sit and listen, and even if you TRY to interrupt, you can't quite manage.

Part of it is a lot of those people are people that I recognize have few people to listen to them - not to be stereotypical but a lot of them are women in late middle age (or later) who are either divorced or whose husbands are gone, and whose kids are adults and far away. And I guess I can kind of sympathize with the feeling of not having anyone to talk to. But I have to admit at times hearing a 15 minute discourse on bunions, or on how annoyed they are with the lawyer they are trying to work with over something, or a long monologue on their garden...and I just start to sort of feel sad, like I'm just a giant ear without a mouth or something.

And I also feel sad because I wonder if that will be me in another 30 years or so, when my natural reticence against buttonholing someone and talking at length about something has broken down. I mean, right now, there are lots of times that I'd like to just sit someone down and talk at them, get it all out, but you can't really do that in a normal conversation.

(Yes, I realize: I write long one-sided posts on the blog. But I see that as a little different; after all, you are "opting in" to read them, and if you don't like a post, you can always click away).

I don't know. I suppose part of it is that a couple of the people I regarded as close-ish friends have moved away over the past couple years and I don't have the regular contact with them any more. (I find it really hard to have a conversation over the phone. I think it's because I can't see people's expressions). So sometimes, there are days when I feel like I don't get a lot of close contact with people.

And I realize, it's a trade-off, and it's partly my own doing. I like my "alone" time and my downtime and I really don't think at this point I could tolerate living with a housemate (I've had people suggest that, actually: that I take on someone to live in my guest room, have them pay me a small rent. But I think even with someone with whom I was very compatible, it would drive me nutty).

But I also find it's hard at the age I'm at to make friends - especially those my own age - because most women close to my age have children at home, and those become such a priority. And also, some friends I had down here, we kind of drifted away when they began having kids and realized they had more in common with their other with-kids friends.

So I don't know. I do think one of the nicest luxuries for me right now would be a couple hours of time - at a tearoom or somewhere - with someone who was interesting to me and who was interested in what I had to say - and just the opportunity to talk.