Discourse on My Present State, or Poor, Poor Pitiful Me

These days my feelings vacillate.

There are days when I deeply love this new place, and then there are days when loneliness creeps in and I start to feel sorry for myself. "They've all forgotten me" is what I think, and then I feel like crying. Or, when I have to go to the office and work there for eight hours, alone, and lonely, and bored out of my mind, my only lifeline the phone with which I call people who themselves are vacillating, wondering if they really want to go ahead with their After-school Good News Clubs. "You'd better go ahead with that club!" is what I think, because if they don't, then I am a huge moot point.

I find myself checking Facebook. A lot. I realize this is pathetic, but it gives me a sense - albeit false -of connectedness. I tell myself that now is a good time to read all of those books I have piled up beside my bed, or write a book, or jog (yeah, right!), or take up some type of handy-craft, say knitting, or scrap-booking (this is even more unrealistic than jogging), or just sit and commune with nature (there is A LOT of nature around these parts, most of it incredibly itchy), but no, I crave people.

There are people in Arkansas, I just don't know them yet, I guess. One of the things I love about Arkansas though, is Bud and Nancy, my host family for the year. I wish I could spend whole days just following Nancy around with a notebook to write down all of the crazy, funny, wise things she says. The other day she reminded me not to eat the dog food which she had put on the kitchen counter, "Jeanne! Now, don't eat the dog food!" As though there were some danger of my actually doing this (note to self: don't eat dog food. Also, try to stop looking like a person who would eat dog food). She is just hilarious. The other night she was making fun of televangelists, and their "holy hair-dos" as she calls them. "Just think", she said, while watching one of them beg for money, "if I only send in some seed money we could all be rich!"

Yes, there are plenty of interesting people in Arkansas, but none with whom I've really connected. I am a stranger in a strange land. The only person here who can't wait to see me at the end of the day is MacGregor, and he really isn't a person, but only the very large dog which the Hancocks own. Apparently, he loves me. The other night we had a "guest", the French bulldog of a guy named Lane (also not my soulmate), and MacGregor had a fit when I started to pay attention to Baxter, running around the house, nipping at Baxter, just generally being a nuisance. "Oh, he's so jealous! He's showing off for you!" exclaimed Nancy, by way of explanation. If only MacGregor would realize I don't feel the same way, because, well, he's a dog. And he barks. A lot.

Anyway, it would be nice to find a friend. I am all the time tempted to walk up to someone reasonably sane-looking and just ask them "will you be my friend?", but I feel that would be even more pathetic than endless Facebook surfing. How does one meet people in a new town? Church. Yes, I'm trying. The grocery store? Possibly. Work? I'm the only one in the office! Probably I'll start talking to myself after awhile, and then no one will want to be my friend. "Don't talk to her!", people will start to say. "She's weird!" Maybe they already do. Maybe that's why I don't have any friends. Hm...

Yes, well, it is a little humorous. A very little. At least I still have that. In my hours upon hours of pure loneliness, I can amuse myself with pithy little antidotes about my life in Arkansas. But really, it isn't so bad. Some of the greatest people in the world were lonely - all of the Reformers at one point in their lives, the Puritans, many, many famous explorers, Mary, Queen of Scots - I mean, they all had stretches of loneliness. They are also all dead. Well, I thought blogging would cheer me up, but now...

Some days I vacillate.