On the essential aloneness of modern life.

I'm a relatively attractive, personable, nice female.    I have my foibles, of course.   I'm not a great housekeeper...Betty Crocker I am not.   But essentially I'm alone.

I have lots of acquaintances.  I spent seven years building up acquaintances.

But friends? No.  People are either much older or much younger.  People my age all seem to have families, or lives.

And, yes, I have enough to live on.  And I have a house.   But in the end, it is just me rattling around in this house, and no-one really cares.

I've taken classes.   I've gotten involved.  All it did was get me busy, busy, busy.   I didn't actually make friends.   Even through work... people who worked at the Branch in the past have no interest in reconnecting.  And I didn't work enough at the Main to have really made many friends there.  

I trusted people in the past, and every time I have, it has bitten me in the ass.  

I always thought that by this time my life would be different.  

But instead, I fit in nowhere.   I don't *get* the suburban American mentality.   I don't get games and backstage politics.   I'm complex, yes, but complex in that I read a lot, that I'm a deep person.  I'm always looking for the deeper meaning.

I don't fit in in Cairo, though.   I am more American.   But I'm also comfortable in French, in a polyglot culture where folks use an Arabic or French word to illustrate their point...  

I am NOT a city girl.   I hate the city.  

I love my house, I just wish there was more space between me and my neighbors.  Like miles.  

I am artistic.  

and damnit, I am lonely.