flat as a bored

I wait all year long for the summer, wishing away the cold and the snow, but this summer my friends are with their husbands and their families. They're at cottages or going to summer barbecues with other couples, or they've moved to the suburbs and I just don't feel like taking the subway and two buses to go and hang out on their patios, staring at the pale vinyl siding of the next door neighbor's house, sipping diet coke, and chatting about the real estate market.

Now it's almost over. I swear, I'm moving to MIAMI.

I try my best to take advantage of the weather. I go for runs, ride my bike, walk the streets, shop, sit on a patio and drink coffee and read the paper. I can and I do all of this alone (and sometimes with the rockstar), but what I really crave is to go spend the day at the beach with friends. Even better, I secretly wish that someone (preferably an attractive guy) who knows their way around a forest would 'force' me into a weekend of camping. Oh, how I do not like to rough it, yet there is something sexy about roughing it with someone sexy, you dig? Even taking a day trip to the wine region or picking fucking berries. Can you believe it? Picking berries? My mother used to force us to do that shit. Can you believe that now I would CHOOSE to do that with someone...do something...ANYTHING?

Like I said, Everything bores me right now. I'm bored.

A few years back I had to go to a head and neck surgeon for an enlarged lymph node in my neck. My family doc seemed concerned and got me in to see the specialist quickly. I sat in the exam room waiting, trying not to think of the worst-case scenario. In walked this little man with enough attitude to fill the room. He palpated my neck thoroughly, stepped aside and nodded to the first resident who repeated the process, and then a second and third. He wrinked his brow and appeared to be mulling over his findings.

"Well Ms. Gold...I'm underwhelmed."

I waited for him to continue. Is that good or bad, I wondered, barely breathing.

"I'm definately not overwhelmed." he looked toward his residents, with a sly grin. "You know, I'm not even whelmed". This was followed by some polite laughter by his residents.

"Does that mean it's fine?"

"Yep. See you in 3 months."

He turned and walked out, his cape-ish lab coat trailing after him, leaving his residents in his dust. They followed, one giving me a meek smile and a wave on the way out.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this summer has been a little like my enlarged lymph node.

Speaking of 'underwhelmed', have you ever listend to the song by the same name by Sloan? I highly reccommend it. Go ahead, if you haven't already, listen to it and get back to me.

PS: re the line, "She told me to loosen up on the way to the LC", LC is what we Nova Scotians call the liquor store ("liquor commission [LC] of NS").