brain brain grow a way

i've been back in 'merica for exactly two weeks now [almost to the hour] and yet i still haven't been able to collect my thoughts enough to put together any kind of coherent european reflection together. this inability to articulate my travel experience includes but isn't limited to written, verbal and indeed even internal forms of expression. this is largely due to the fact that i managed [in typical 'me' form] to fill up my schedule with a flurry of activities and obligations. time not spent actually 'doing' things is subsequently filled up with purposefully mindless drivel [i.e., reality television, internet social networking, celeblogs, etc.]. i'll top off my long list of excuses with the obligatory jet-lag card and a surprise 48-hour weekend cold [replete with residual mucus that my body is still trying to exhume -- *cough*! *hack*!]. nevertheless, i'm pressing on in hopes that the simple act of putting fingertips to keys will awaken the creative beast within.

[*cricket* *cricket*]

hmm. well, i guess for lack of more innovative means, i'll just answer the line of questioning that gets asked more than any other: are you sad to be at home? do you wish you were back? in a word, my answer to both queries is no. then again, i never really got homesick during the whole two months away. i got a little churchsick [both in that i missed my church and that i got really sick of the gaudy churches there] but for the most part, i didn't ever really feel like i wanted to be anywhere other than i was. nor do i currently wish i was anywhere other than where i am. europe is beautiful or whatever, but when the puget sound is in your backyard, it's hard to complain.

[actual shot of my backyard. no big deal.]

i guess one of the grad students from my program put it best when he said "i take my body with me wherever i go" [or was it "everywhere i go, i take my body with me"?]. something to that effect. the point being, i am where i am wherever i happen to be. i avoid the senselessness of the greener grass syndrome whenever possible and try my best to be at peace regardless of my circumstances. the only area of my life in which this pursuit seems near impossible is [wait for it... you guessed it guys and doods!] in regards to relationships, or rather the persistent and glaring lack thereof.

in europe, it was the ubiquitous public displays of affection [public displays of pawing, more like]. in fact, i wrote a short poem in response to one such visual assault:

this is the millionth couple i've seen making out in public.
they are swaying.
i want to die.

now that i'm back at home, it seems that in my time away, just about all of my friends have wrangled themselves up a significant other or three. who knew it was MY presence that stood in between them and a relationship? perhaps my analysis is a bit too self-involved? hmm. irregardless, i'm back home and feeling very third/fifth/seventh/odd-numbered wheel-y. it certainly doesn't help that the second most common line of questioning since i've gotten back is "so are there any dudes? any euro hookups?" and i find it very difficult not to laugh in the faces of my well-intentioned friends. particularly my well-intentioned NON-single friends who seem to be rubbing their happiness in my face [jerks].

i hate feeling this way and as my longtime readers may know, i don't particularly enjoy waxing poetic about the perils of singlehood, though it may seem otherwise at times. [it's a little too livejournal, both in its lure and cliché grossness if you catch my drift.] nevertheless, i sat down to write and lo and behold, my fingertips took me here to this well worn place once again. i have no morsels of hope to offer, no particular epiphany to pass on... just to say that blah blah blah, whine whine whine, being single feels like disease, wah wah waaaaaah. gah. i better hurry up and publish this before my sense of shame catches up with me lest i delete it all and/or vom all over my pretty laptop. *sigh*...