A Dangerous Ennui

*Track of the moment: Thievery Corporation - Richest Man In Babylon*

Family gatherings...

(Holla if you sympathize with the following)

I think the whole idea behind family gatherings, of getting in touch with family, is a cool idea in principle.

That being said, I'm quite sure that I miss half of what goes on at get-togethers, because while the male relatives say hello, sit down, and stay relatively silent, the women...

Well, there's a constant torrent of noise there, isn't there? Not just on the way there, but as I can attest, on the way back. Every female relative in a family gathering insists on dissecting it in minute detail afterwards, so that car rides are filled with "Can-you-believe-she-said-that-and-why-did-he-say-this-why-don't-they-remember-that?"

My guy cousins, we just tend to sit in a sort of pluralist silence. Any topic we bring up is met with agreement, polite inquiry, occasionally a level of fascinated discussion... And then the conversation fades to an acceptably relaxed level. My male cousins and I... We're not conversationalists. I figure, we live with the women in the family (Who are all, relatively speaking, significantly more vociferous than all the rest of us), so we don't need to keep up the sheer volume of chatter. We'll keep the talk on a low simmer, and the women will be in the next room, yapping it up.

Which leads me to my point - When we're all around a table, sharing food and talking, is when the really friggin awkward questions start - "When are you getting married?", "How's that job?". Judgement is such an ugly phenomenon when it comes from relatives, innit?

If you haven't experienced this yet, you will in time. I'm not exactly sure how or why it happens, but it does. Which is why I always find the most comfortable place to close my eyes and sleep when I can't add anything to the conversation, and I've played Bejeweled Blitz as long as I'm willing to for a single session.

There needs to be some sort of bluetooth-based messaging system for the non-parents around a table who have cellphones and want to message without texting so that we can keep ourselves occupied in-between awkward questions, the cheesy uncle-jokes, and unrelated conversations ("Really? You got a punjabi suit from Sonu? Well, that's uh... On sale, hey? That's... great.")

I'm changing into my pyjamas. And then watching another movie. By the way, "How To Train Your Dragon" is an awesome movie. Highly recommended.

Night Blues

Sunday has an inertia all its own - Responsibilities and necessities are subverted to a greater, lazier cause.

This comes about because I know I have (some) work to do, but I'll be damned if I can find the gumption to go about doing it. Laundry? PSHAH, I SAY! I'm mentally exhausted from helping a few people with their respective futures, and nothing quite spells mental exhaustion like going through a graduate application process, or the dreaded initiation to real life, the "résumé build". Both are productive for the people who initiate them, though neither can be considered, even charitably, a 'productive' use of time for those of us who choose to help these poor unfortunates.

The problematic result, though, is that it's 7:30 on a Sunday and I'm tired like Lindsay Lohan on a Monday morning (Ah, Lindsay Lohan jokes. Will she ever STOP being such an easy, freckled and redheaded target?) I have neither the will nor the desire to face the coming week, and I wouldn't mind crawling into bed right now, the only thing stopping me being a shred of dignity that does not want to admit to going to bed before The Simpsons.

Anybody else ever felt this kinda tired before? That achy, gnarly "I want to sit down and not get up until tomorrow morning" tired? What'd you do to get that tired?

More importantly, did sleep help, or just make you more tired?

Crap

I hate when I forget to do things.

I think the students in my (temporary) 12 Resource Management class will understand what I'm talking about.

I will (probably) take care of it on Tuesday, though, so... Yeah

Sunshine is awesome, though. Utterly awesome.