It's not Monday anymore, I don't have a headache anymore, and save for a foggyish Himalayan hairball incident at three o'clock this morning, I have slept a little bit. I didn't think I would but I did, and this just reiterates for me how incredibly damaging it is that I don't get more sleep and I will. After tonight, that is, because Ben comes home in around twelve hours and so there's no way in hell I'm going to manage more than four or five hours of sleep tonight tops (shhhh) but it's okay, I'll try to get some at the end of the week and we'll see where we are then.
I had chocolate cake for breakfast which always seems to make me feel better about all kinds of things. I had a run this morning. All the way down the street and then home because yeah...I'm not feeling well enough to pull it off today. Not by a longshot.
In other longshots, last night I watched The Bachelorette on television (which is that big glossy black slab in the living room that the boys play the Xbox on, I think). A long time ago I watched two shows from the first season. There was a man looking for love and at the end he proposed to a woman and they broke up three weeks later. The women on the show all looked the same. Tall and tanned with straightened hair and overly-whitened teeth and false eyelashes and far too much makeup and few, if any of them, exhibited any class whatsoever. They all gushed about their search for their very own fairytale ending and then proceeded to answer questions posed by the Bachelor that they thought perhaps might be the right answer, instead of their own answer.
He seemed to pick the one who appealed to him most and when her composure slipped a little at the end when the contest was over, she seemed human, almost. Two weeks later she resumed her facade and they were over because they didn't have any depth as a couple, they hadn't developed a relationship, you can't do that on television and you won't find your fairytale by giving what you think are the right answers to someone who wants to get to know you.
But the Bachelorette seems different. Maybe it's because it's the first one I have seen with the role-reversals. Maybe it's because the Bachelorette, Jillian, I believe her name is, is scared and cries a lot. Maybe it's because some of the men are adorable and actually are willing to be viewed in an honest light. I remember seeing the promo on TV and thinking, oh look, perfectly coiffed men with their fauxhawks and attitudes hoping to get publicity/laid or whatever and why would someone go through that?
They didn't turn out that way last night, but mostly because ninety-nine percent of the guys that I have ever met don't give answers they think you want, they just say whatever comes to mind and then later on they beat themselves to a pulp internally for possibly fucking up something good.
Maybe I just identified with Jillian because I'm usually the only woman in a room full of men and I'm the center of attention and they compete for my attention while I give out roses disguised as affection and in recognition of points scored. Sometimes someone goes home or maybe it's the group dates. I really don't know for sure. I just know that Monday nights are now going to be a whole lot different, because I'll be watching to see how this one turns out (I do realize that she'll pick the wrong guy, they'll proclaim it to be happily ever after and a month afterward she'll be back on the talk-show circuit telling the world how it just didn't work out.)
Because fairytales aren't real.
Don't you people know that by now? Especially the ones on 'reality' television and in all the stupid bride movies we've all watched. It's not reality any more than I'm a REAL princess. We just believe in what we want to and hope for the best. Jillian's doing it in front of the cameras and I'm doing it in front of my keyboard. Everyone tunes in for a glimpse of a fairytale, because you know that's all there will ever be, that glimpse.
It's an interesting blend of faith, hope and perseverance, isn't it? It's worth tuning in to, just in case I'm wrong. That's why I keep going.
Because I might be wrong.
