all the fun of the fair...

Walking down the street on the way home from the video store you notice the full moon in the sky. It's huge, bright, hanging low, shining on this neighborhood you've lived in for a little over ten years, this neighborhood that you love. You think about the last few weeks, its strange combination of ups and downs, and wonder if you'll ever again have longer than a month relatively free of stress.

You're learning a whole new industry and, after over ten years of working, in one form or another, in entertainment, you sometimes wonder if you'll ever get the hang of the commercial furniture business, especially working in a showroom that isn't exactly the hub of activity you've been accustomed to, what with only one other person in the same office on a regular basis. Oh, you know you'll get it eventually, you always do, and in a way you're grateful for the respite from the craziness you've dealt with for so long, happy that, at last, you're no longer dealing with numbers beyond the quoting and pricing the products your new company sells. Besides which, it's close to the Pacifc Design Center, The Bodhi Tree and the Urth Cafe, all of which excite you, and it's only for a few months, while you cover for someone going on maternity leave.

You think it's a good thing that it's only for a few months, because already you're missing entertainment. It's dysfunctional and warped and filled with divas and prima donnas, just the sort of self-entitled people you despise, but damn if you don't love that whacked-out industry. It truly is an addiction for you. You hope that these next few months will fill out your resume enough in non-numbers aspects that when you go back to entertainment, as you no doubt will, you can find a job that isn't numbers-centric.

You remember that you have to call the owner of that funky little four-chair salon where you had your hair cut and colored (for the first time by a professional) a few weeks ago, the day before that lovely keyboard found its way into your home (your thoughts swerve away from the fact that neither CuteNerdBoy, Sarriah or Boychik noticed your lovely new hair - after all, Boychik tends to be self-involved, Sarriah pleaded the distraction of an unexpected new color in the brand new top you were wearing and CuteNerdBoy, well, he was probably distracted by, um, other "features" of the top which prominently displayed that which you consider amongst your best physical assets - you know you saw his eyes drift in that direction more than once and, after all, isn't that the effect you wanted the top to have on him, even though you felt you had to cover up a little while you were watching that play because you feared, being in the front row of the extremely intimate theater, your pale cleavage might be a little distracting to the actors, even though they are consumate professionals, several of whom you admire [oh, how you've adored Harry for years, even before you became a Buffy addict]?). After talking to the owner for a little bit while another stylist worked on your hair, the conversation turned to painting and you mentioned that you've painted in the past. The owner told you that she wants to start hanging art by local artists and would like you to bring in some of your work. You've since told her that, being carless, you have to make arrangements to bring in your art and she responded by asking for your information and saying that maybe she could stop by and take a look at what you have.

You're very excited by this, and by teaching yourself to play the keyboard, and by the mix CD's you make and the writing you've been doing, not to mention, of course, the article that BookCrossing published. You're feeling creative again and it feels wonderful, though you're convinced that there's even more you could be doing because, after all, you actually have down time, don't you?

And don't forget your "wedding" to Sarriah on Leap Day, on the beautiful grounds of the La Brea Tar Pits (the grounds actually are very pretty and green), with the sun setting in the west and the statue of a grizzly serving as your witness.

But family issues rear their ugly heads again, after talks with OlderBro and BabySis about the State of Mom, that though she's better about some things, that she's still maybe not taking care of herself the way she should, and the conversation about her living with you comes up again and, this time, you think that maybe it should happen. But, much as you love your mother, you're terrified that, if she comes to live with you, you'll end up as her caretaker, with no life to call your own, no prospect of finding a significant other with whom to share your life and have children because, let's face it, it's tougher as you get older, not impossible, but certainly not easy, and how is having your mother living with you going to make it any easier?

Then you feel selfish for such thoughts, thinking maybe you're not such a good daughter, and you start kicking yourself. Besides which, haven't you been thinking that having a roommate would be a good thing, would help you to save money and be neater around the apartment? But she's not just a roommate, she's your mother, and though you love her and she loves you, there are reliance issues. Then you start thinking that maybe if you put a time limit on it, it might be a little easier in the end, but also knowing that it's possible that the end date could come and go and still you'd be living with your mother. And your four cats. You see the BitterOldSpinsterForOne table in the corner and it's got your name on the "Reserved" placard.

As you look at the big bright moon hovering low on the horizon, you think again about how nice it would be to have someone at home that you could turn to, talk about everything that's going on and he'd hold you and stroke your hair and tell you that it'll all be okay, you'll work it out somehow. But such thoughts remind you about the last time, the only time, really, you had someone to go home to, more years ago than you'd care to ponder right then, and how you recently discovered, though opening a trade magazine, your eyes lighting upon the picture and positive review of a local theater production, that not only was that someone married, which you found out a few months ago, but the woman that he married? Is a former mutual friend of yours that he had a thing for before you and he got together. A woman that shot him down less than a year before your first kiss. A woman that you very nearly lived with over ten years ago. The remembering doesn't leave you shaky, unlike when you first saw her picture, and you realize that maybe if he wants someone more neurotic than you (which she most definitely was, as least the last time you saw her over seven years ago - though, granted, maybe she's changed in the intervening years, because you sure as hell have - in some ways a stronger person, in some ways more jittery), then it's best that you never did marry him, as you so dearly wanted to once upon a time.

You open the front door to your apartment, greet your cats, and you wonder when life got so complicated. You wonder if you're making life more complicated than it needs to be. You wonder if it'll ever calm down. You wonder if you'll stop missing CuteNerdBoy, even though you're just good friends and after all, you did just see him a few nights ago when he helped move that "armoire" type thing from your place to Sarriah's place, even though you were both exhausted and you weren't looking your best, with no make-up and a bad hair day and fresh from a tiring day at your new assignment and clothes that, frankly, didn't look all that great on you. But he looked cute, as always, with that green polo shirt with his company name on it. He looked tired, true, but he wears tired better than you do. But he's not in town now, off to Vegas again, missing the upcoming BookCrossing meeting, as he did last month, and even though you generally don't call him up to do something spontaneous, knowing that you can't makes you the tiniest bit sad.

But it's time to look to the future, to put those feelings for him aside because, as you constantly remind yourself (seemingly to no avail), nothing is ever going to happen to validate those feelings. He has, more or less, told you so. Oh, maybe he hasn't outright said the words "never, ever", but it almost feels implicit, despite those mixed messages that both thrill and confuse you.

And you think about all the other things that have happened in the last two weeks, and know that life just isn't going to ever be simple again. You think about BestFriend, recently diagnosed with Epstein-Barr, and wish you could go out and visit right now, instead of waiting until June, for which you already have plane tickets. Her doctor says she could get better in a few weeks, if she takes it easy, but it's still rather frightening because you remember a friend of BestFriend's who once had Epstein-Barr and she never seemed to get better, though her other medical problems might have contributed to that.

You think about how, much as you love your friends, sometimes some of them get on your nerves, then you remember that sometimes you get on their nerves, so it all evens out, but you also remember a time when it didn't seem that such stresses existed between you and friends and you wonder when the hell all that happened, but maybe that's what happens as people mature and change and become more of who they were meant to be.

And then you think, as you type out your way-too involved long-ass thoughts for the world, maybe the universe, to read, that maybe, just maybe, it's time to get some sleep. Because, in the immortal words of Scarlett O'Hara, tomorrow is another day.

Besides which, the previously viewed copy of Enigma that you just bought awaits you in the VCR, where you will spy your adored Nicholas Rowe (shorn of his lovely curly locks) looking handsome in a British Naval uniform, uttering the immortal words, "Our intelligence has been cut off." It's almost his entire role, but it's enough.

Almost.