I have a new addiction.

I fall asleep with the television on, so I try to choose shows that I've seen a million times like Golden Girls or Seinfeld. It's enough to give my mind something to occupy itself, but nothing to really focus on, and it helps me fall asleep. It's one of the ways that my main character Grace and I are alike (but for the most part we're not). Anyhoo, last night, instead of doing that, I ran across a show called, Extreme Wife. The concept is that a young, single British woman is exploring what it means to be a wife in different cultures, whether they be different countries, or alternative lifestyles. It's fascinating.

The first episode I caught was about mail order brides. She followed a group of guys as they journeyed to Russia to meet the women they'd been corresponding with for weeks or months or years. It was pretty thought provoking stuff; sad and scary at the same time. First thing out of the box is the complaint that western women want to be equals.Grrr. Second thing that irritated me... entitlement... and shallowness. This guy says... "in the US a perfect 10 wouldn't look twice at me, but I can come here and get these beautiful women." Well kudos to you... it's as cringe-inducing as Megan Wants a Millionaire, which I flipped past yesterday (one of the girls from Rock of Love who now has her own show where she's dating millionaires, hoping to land one). The guy was gross, and the lady making the documentary implied that he didn't smell so good... but these women aren't supposed to care about that.... he's doing them a favor... It pissed me off that he thinks he deserves better than what he has to offer... he needs to work on himself and be something worth having (internally).

Okay, so second episode is about free love. I DVR'd it and intend to watch it while I eat dinner (which, on second thought, might not be the best idea). Saw part of the first half and they all look alike to me... long scraggly hair, desperate glazed eyes, and hunger. Seriously, this woman had three lovers and they all looked virtually the same, I thought it to myself and then the journalist commented on it, too.

I'm a monogamist so I don't get it. I like to think that there's more than one soulmate out there for us, but at the same time, when you find one and make that connection, I want the happily ever after. I want the best friend and the lover that I can completely let go with, to trust implicitly. That's my fairytale anyway. To me, sex is tied to emotion. I know that not everyone agrees with me (fine), I know that not everyone is faithful (not fine).

I guess I just don't get the concept.

The thing I can't seem to get past  is jealousy. How do you deal with that? I'm not normally a jealous person unless my gut is starting to sense that something that I just don't want to consciously recognize. I try to go into relationships as a new person, I try not to bring my baggage with me. So even if I'm dating a flirty guy, I tend not to be bothered by it as long as I feel secure in my relationship with him. If, however, I was in an open relationship, I don't see how I could rationalize that to myself, because the guy would actually be sleeping with other women. To me, an open relationship is the precursor to the end. It's a couple who isn't entirely happy with each other, but they don't know if there's anything better out there, so they're auditioning other partners before they let the other go. Things probably work okay until the day comes when one of them finds that person who drives everyone else from their mind and makes them realize that they just aren't happy.

Different strokes for different folks, but on this one I have to go traditional.

I woke up tired this morning, I battled zombies for most of the night. It was a really elaborate dream... sometimes I wish my dreams weren't so vivid.

I know I said I'm not going to talk about work, but this is vague and it would be amusing to me if I didn't actually experience it for myself... Each month I get to look forward to doing 'best estimates'... that means splicing people into tenths of a person and distributing them across several charge numbers in a vain attempt to accurately reflect the projects and tests people are going to be working on for the upcoming fiscal month... other people do this by gazing into a crystal ball or reading palms... best part is when the (aptly named) 'best estimates' are wrong and we get to explain why... they don't actually accept 'because they're best estimates' as an excuse. After working with numbers all day, inputting tenths of an hour for 125 people across 15 different charge numbers, I'm a little bleary-eyed and have a slight headache. So I came home, ate dinner, planted all but one of my remaining plants, watered them so they don't die, worked out on the treadmill for 20 minutes, and now I'm exhausted. All I have left in me are these random thoughts:

1 - I'm all for recycling, but sometimes you just want the crap off your counter.

2 - A great title for a book would be the error message I get when I try to save anything to a Microsoft excel 2007 file: A minor loss of fidelity.

3 - Waterhoses are kinky, and not in a good way. I think I have a blister from trying to disconnect the waterhose that for god-knows-what-reason, the foundation repair people saw fit to join together (the end that goes to the spigot and the end that you put the sprayhead on... they don't belong together...).

4 - This guy looks eerily like Robert Pattinson - who also looks eerily Robert Pattinson-like.

And I talked to the contactor next door... I'm so looking forward to seeing that house put back on the market. It was a foreclosure and the people who bought it paid somewhere around 40k under market price for it. But they've had this guy and his helpers over there almost every day for a month... putting up a fence, pouring a patio, installing cabinets, tiling the floor, doing foundation work, installing new windows (geez, it's almost like my house). Anyway, my curiosity is piqued because by the time they get done I'm thinking they'll be lucky to squeeze a 10k profit out of it (realtors suck up a lot with their 6% commissions so I'm thinking more like 5%). Anyway, the contractor invited me over to see it when it's finished, so I think I'm gonna peek inside and see what it's like (and get all jealous of the new floors). He says it should be done next week (and mentioned something about having almost redone the whole ceiling? WTF?).

And now I'm going to pop an aspirin, relax a little and then turn in for the night... morning always comes too soon... and one of my cats (I have two... I'm not the cat lady...) wakes me up because when she cleans herself she makes this horrible slurping noise that just turns my stomach... I can't stand it, so I push her with my leg to get her to stop but she goes right back to it and by the time she stops... I'm awake. I should learn to make friends with sleeplessness, fighting it doesn't seem to do any good, it wins every time... zzzz