Jimspeak

Let me take this opportunity to grouse for a few minutes. Not complain or bitch or rant. Just grouse.

The words to follow may not strictly adhere to complaints that are justified coming from the mouth of a male person. Or someone living in ‘paradise’ after not working for almost a year and traveling the world. But that’s too bad. I can deal with it if you can.

Here’s the scoop: not only am I going a little stir crazy due to the remoteness (from people) of this place and the difficulty in getting elsewhere, but I am also about to lose my tenuous grip on sanity due to a lack of conversation. In the three weeks or so since my personal state of affairs drastically changed, I could count actual conversations I’ve had on one hand. This is not to say that I am avoiding contact with the owners of this place or my roommate (with whom I share ONE room). I try and talk with them. But most of the ‘conversations’ I find myself in these days seem to be anecdote followed by anecdote, with no actual give and take and no exchange of ideas. My guess is that 9/10 of what I say to my roomie gets no verbal response at all. To the owners, my comments seem to elicit maybe one sentence, a grunt, or a pause before another anecdote. Don’t get me wrong, they are all nice people and a couple of them have other things going on that I am sure are distracting to them. But I’ve been here 2 weeks now! I’ve had better conversations with the people from whom I bum rides than the people I live with! A guy today gave me a 10 minute ride. In that time, he asked me more about my life and my travels than the three people here combined in 2 weeks! The best conversation I’ve had since arriving here was with our Fed Ex driver and her hubby and niece as they gave me a ride back from last Saturday’s concert.

Now, I’m not saying that I need to have heart-to-heart conversations every day. But a conversation would be nice! For shit’s sake, there is virtually nothing said in the studio (my ‘home’) at night. And the guy is in bed at 9 and up at 6. Not a big deal, that’s fine. But how about even glancing at me if I say something! Oof. It’s just been building. Right now what I need is some distractions (none), and someone to sit around and shoot the shit with. Sit around and talk-not all serious, but have a couple beers and hang out. Uninterrupted thought and little personal contact is what I have. Those who’ve emailed, and especially those who’ve called, thank you. It’s great and I appreciate it. But it’s not the same as hanging out with someone.

And it’s not that I have been avoiding people. Meeting people is tough because getting around is a process, and being in town long enough to hang out/meet anyone pretty much necessitates a $40 cab ride home. One of these weekends I need to go into town and even stay in a hotel just so that I can go to a bar or something and talk to people. For shit’s sake, I’m hitch hiking into town and back (not for any explicit reason) for a chance to talk to people and something to do (next weekend, nothing is planned that I know of so I may blow town all weekend)! That is sad.

Tonight I went with B&B to a friend’s bday party. A couple people there actually showed interest in others and asked questions and partook in conversations. To me, everyone else was simply waiting their turn to tell an anecdote or say what they want to say, regardless if it fit in or not, regardless if it added anything to the ‘conversation’. Maybe it’s my present state of agitation that made it seem worse than it was, but holy hell! My head was about to burst by the time we finally left.

Suffice it to say, I’m a bit of a hurtin’ unit right now. Normally, I’d probably be ok with the way things are here; at least better than I am. But given the present circumstances, this isn’t at all what I need.

Anyone want to come out for a week or so and hang out and have some beers? I’ll buy the beer….(I wonder if they have PBR here. I haven’t even had a chance to look for that!!)