Its 2pm on a Friday. I’m starving & have finally left for lunch. The office is quiet today, all of the sales guys being at the Home Show. There’s nothing better than a quiet Friday, especially when the office is empty and the phones are virtually silent. I feel slight guilt at the “goofing off” I have done thus far today. Don’t get me wrong…I have done some real and necessary work. But it is far easier and irresistibly tempting to do nothing of value. Having access to the bottomless pit that is the internet offers a procrastinating office gal endless entertainment. My sources of entertainment today are the public forums/message boards on Comcast.net.
As of late, I’ve become rather obsessed with a handful of television shows. Because my roommates have “real lives” (and by that, I mean ones that don’t revolve around making it home for the next episode of Prison Break), I have no one with which to share my obsessive observations on the rediculous prediciments of my favorite television characters. So I seek the online community for comraderie. There is comfort in knowing there are others out there in the WWW equally as obsessed as I about these fictional characters through which I live vicariously (as if I know them, they are personal friends of mine–”What are we going to do about Michael?”).
In addition to the TV forums, I’ve been spending much of my day “hanging out” in the Coffee Shop, a place to discuss anything & everything random. I am surprised to find so many users seem to know eachother personally. I find myself wondering, “Will I ever post over 4000? Will my ‘handle’ become a recognizable community name? Will my opinions come to be respected, looked forward to even? Will I be missed when I am gone?” Is it sad that one should seek acceptance and belonging in a virtual world, where people aren’t really tangible, but rather just words and thoughts on a page?
As I ponder these things, I’m eating my lunch in a local cafe, sitting at the bar eating a burger dip. I anticipate the heartburn that will likely set in sometime in the next few hours. The last time I ate here, it was debilitating…but the food was so good. I take solice knowing that one Pepcid AC will cure what ails me in only a matter of minutes. Down the bar from me are some older gentlemen, folks I can only assume are what one would call “regulars”. The waitress knows their names, brings them their coffe and oatmeal without asking (“The usual, Doc?”). The smell of French Fries fills the air, and I feel a slight twinge of guilt knowing that my “burger dip” wasn’t the healthiest choice on the menu.
Is it necessary at this point to mention that I’m chubby? Yes, chubby…but TALL, HILLARIOUS, and SMART, which should even things out, right? And yet, I’m single, and a chubby girl like me can’t help but draw a connection between the two. Chubby = Single. I have a pretty face, but a squishy middle. I tell myself that my charm and smarts is simply intimidating to potential suitors, and my single status will change once I’ve finished “finding myself”. And so, I send out this question into the ether: I’M LOST, HAS ANYONE SEEN ME?!
