My Normalcy

I'm setting this one to post on Thursday morning because I love setting things to post.

My husband asked me about my new blog (see two posts ago).  I told him, no, that he couldn't see it.  He asked what it was about, and I said it was about my second life as a prostitute.  And he just shook his head.  Men.  In all seriousness, I want to have at least a handful of posts there before I give out the address.  It's hard to figure out how much of myself to put out there - kinda like this one - but I'm selective about who can see this one with people I know in real life, and if you just happen to stumble onto it via the internet, I'm not in real fear that you'll figure out who I am.  It's not like I'm JLo.  Cuz she has a butt and I don't; I'm sure that's the only way in which we differ though.  ;) 

I just got back from book club.  This was the month we all read My Favorite Book Ever "Thirteen Reasons Why."  I was nervous, and I thought they would all hate it.  Since I was the one who suggested it, I had a vested interest in it NOT being like "Running with Scissors" - the one they all indeed hated and still talk about in a bad way over 2 years later.  In a happy surprising way, they all really liked this book and thought it was worthwhile reading.  Yay!

I suppose my trouble with book club is that book club really isn't about books; it's about making social connections with other women.  As I have said before many times, I don't really understand women all that well.  Plus, I'm very task-oriented.  I'm the one at work who is cloistered at my desk; I don't chit chat in the halls except with people I know really well.  I don't really relate well to most women.  So this book club construct kind of confounds me, along the same lines as how Bunco confounds me.

You sit around and talk about the book for 15 minutes altogether and wind through a bajillion tangents about husbands' work, your kids, potty training, your friend with a drug problem, blah blah blah blah blah.  Not that it isn't interesting, but I wanted to talk about the book and not just chit chat.  If it was just mindless chit chat, it should be the Chit Chat Club and advertise it that way.  And I sit there thinking, "Um, can I go home now and talk to my husband?"  But they keep going and going and going, and I feel like a dweeb for ducking out because I'm always ducking out early.  They are very nice women and are very welcoming. I feel bad for not being as into it as they are and always checking my watch after the first half hour of mindless chatter.

Why am I like this?  Why? Why? Why?  Why don't I desire to go shopping with other women?  Why don't I like mindless chatter with other women?  Why am I annoyed with women who say "You just don't understand, honey, because you only have 1 child"?  Why don't I want to procreate a bajillion more times?  Why do I listen to Snoop Dogg instead of the Christian radio station?  Why don't I like Glenn Beck?  Why do I classify spending two hours with a group of women as "mindless chatter" but talking to a guy for two hours is a "conversation"? 

Those are the questions I ask myself as I leave book club.  Those are the times I really feel alone in the world, like I will always be a square peg that will never fit in anywhere.  I never did.  I wasn't smart enough to hang around the smart girls (and they were kinda boring), I wasn't athletic enough to hang out with the athletic girls, I wasn't musical enough to hang out with the band girls, I wasn't offbeat enough to hang out with the drama girls, I wasn't slutty enough to hang out with the slutty girls, I wasn't in touch with my vices enough to hang out with the drugged out girls, I wasn't goth enough to hang out with the goth girls.

Now as an adult the story has changed slightly.  I don't philosophically agree with private schools, so I don't fit in with the private school moms.  I cannot relate much to the homeschooling moms because they tend to be waaaaay more religious than I am.  I don't think my child is a genius, so I can't relate to the overachiever moms.  I would like to join the "I want my child to be well-rounded, but my child is her own being and I can't live my life through her.  I want to be myself without my sole identity being someone else's mom" mom's group.  I still haven't found that group. 

That's the short version of my thought process on my way home tonight. And then I come home to see my husband, and my world does that abrupt shift back to my normalcy, which isn't anyone else's normalcy but is my normalcy.