The Trouble with Staycations

So this week I am on a "staycation" necessitated by lack of budget but need for a seriously long break from work. The good thing about staycations is that you can take the time to do whatever you want to do, explore things you have never explored, yadda yadda yadda. The bad thing is that you have no one to do things with cause everyone else is working and doesn't want to take off to entertain you so you don't feel so damn lonely. It's actually kind of all a big fat waste of time. I live alone and have no significant other, so I have plenty of regular "alone time" and trying to come up with things to do by myself actually kind of sucks. So although I've gone to the pool, and to a nice "beach," I can't help but feel that this 5 day depletion of annual leave really wasn't the best use of my time. I even tried to get a massage but scheduled with the wrong person so it wasn't what I hoped it would be. So I guess what I really want to say is STAYCATIONS SUCK! Next time I will just suck if up and spend the money to go somewhere to escape reality and my really horrible, boring, lonely, awful life!

Friend of Last Resort

It's been a really tough week, so I guess I'm feeling extra cynical today, but here goes. I have become pretty good friends with a girl in my neighborhood recently. She calls and texts a lot and we hang out sometimes. However, she often drops out of sight in the middle of a text stream, and I just get the feeling that she's found something better to do with her time. Like I'm her friend of last resort. When she's bored, no one interesting is responding to her, etc. she's up my ass. But when she has other plans, she goes MIA.

Ironically, she complains about a friend of hers who does something similar and only wants to hang out with her on certain terms and with certain people. Yet my friend doesn't always invite me to hang out with certain crowds. Occasionally she'll ask me something that is almost an afterthought, like "oh, a bunch of us are getting together, and I guess you could come if you're not busy." Yeah, thanks but no thanks.

Last night she was apparently bored and was going to have me over for some wine. I had plans and couldn't make it, and suggested tonight as an alternative, but I haven't heard from her since some texts around 4 pm. Oh well, guess she's not bored enought to hang with me tonight.

Dating by Text and Social Media

I got asked out last week by text by a guy I've met only a couple of times. He's a nice enough guy, but he spent last week frequently texting me (which I hate but have grudgingly accepted is the way of the world) without ever calling despite the fact that I had asked him a couple of times to call so we could discuss schedules.

It kills me that this supposedly interested guy texted me day and night, but he would never pick up the phone to actually talk. Call me old fashioned, but I'm not going out with you if you don't even have the balls, courtesy, nerve, decency, desire to talk to me, whatever, to call me.

So this week he asked me out again Monday by text, and by Tuesday I had decided I wasn't going to go out with him. He claimed he was going to call Tuesday night, but why was I waiting around for him to call? Somehow I felt the decent thing to do was tell him "in person" that I wasn't going to date him, but why did he deserve that courtesy when I didn't? Instead I turned the tables on him and told him "no" on Facebook. Not on his wall, but as a message. He apparently got my point, and put a post on his wall acknowledging that he just learned a hard lesson and apparently had to work on his communication skills and not rely so much on texting.

Incidentally, the main reason I wouldn't go out with him was because he was 10 years younger than me and I learned the hard way from past experience that is too young. Ironically, I think that his inability to deal with me as a person versus a text illustrates my point exactly. Next!

Beach Bust

I have needed a vacation so badly, and finally took a long weekend to go to Ocean City, MD, this weekend. I think I honestly haven't been there in over 20 years. I used to hate Ocean City--it was so crowded and took forever to drive down to the boardwalk. It was a total pickup beach at a time when I just wasn't interested in that. So needless to say I wasn't entirely excited to go but it was close and reasonably cheap. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised at how much Ocean City had improved--virtually no traffic!

My travel companion was a neighbor with whom I have traveled before. She had badly sprained her ankle this week, and probably shouldn't have gone but she insisted she was fine. Of course this meant she couldn't do much, walk far, or move fast, and expected me to wait on her more than I was prepared to do. Kind of infuriating.

I met up with other friends who happened to be in Ocean City that same weekend, and they are always full of drama and BS so that added to the ambience. One guy barely speaks to me cause I wouldn't date him years ago cause he's a total player. Another is completely stuck in his ways, yet to his credit we convinced him to do some different things. And the one girl wound up ripping me off inadvertently during dinner by not adding up her bill correctly, again all kind of infuriating.

Don't get me wrong, there were some fun moments, sunset dinner at BJs on the Water, now a new favorite; dinner at an old favorite Harpoon Hanna's; ice cream at Dumser's; and a really fun DJ and bar crowd at the Carousel, where we stayed. Again, that was a throwback to my youth.

I ate too much, drank too much, all the markings of a good vacation, but unfortunately it was just for a weekend, and it rained most of the time. I am trying to get away again at the end of the month, but having logistical and financial difficulties so I don't know if it's going to happen. Maybe the stars will align this week and I'll figure it all out...

A Day in the Life (and Death)

A while back I blogged about a neighbor who was dying, and last week she finally, peacefully, passed. She was suffering and wasting away, so as terrible as it is to say, it was a blessing. The viewing was Monday night, and the services were yesterday. I was unable to attend the funeral itself due to work, but I went to the viewing Monday and the reception yesterday.

Ironically, yesterday was a friend's birthday, a big one with 0's. He had invited some friends to celebrate at a local bar, so after the funeral reception, I headed over to the birthday party. What a weird day, and an odd juxtaposition of life and death. I was glad I could be there yesterday for both of my friends.