restless, bored and swimming in the stream of consciousness

One more week until my two-week, unpaid vacation. I'm not going anywhere. Jolie was supposed to visit, but she needed to change her plans.

I told Frank that nobody likes me. Not my family, not my coworkers, not anyone who has had to endure more than a few hours around me. I'm obnoxious and boring and fat and odd and sad and generally the kind of person that nobody much cares to spend time with.

So what to do during vacation? I have well over a hundred items of clothing to iron before giving them away or donating them to charity. I cleaned out an entire drawer filled with belts. It shocks me that I had a 27-inch waist within this decade. And now I'm in plus sizes. 1X. Larger than extra large. Sometimes larger than that.

I have a gift card for Lands End, which is one of the places I get to use the My Virtual Model application. My model looks like Carnie Wilson before surgery. When you sign up for MVM, you enter all of your measurements, age, weight, hair and eye color, and a couple of other bits of personal data. Once you've created your model, you can "try on" clothes from a number of Websites.
I made some recent updates to my model, and just as she appeared on screen, Frank stopped and said, "Wow. that's amazing. It looks just like you. Even the hair is right, just a little long."

You have to give your model a name. I didn't want to name her May because it was too close for comfort, so I named her Bovinia. It seemed more fitting, somehow. That's Bovinia pictured here, in all her underwear-clad glory. She looks better than I do because she doesn't have virtual cellulite or virtual fat rolls.

So, I can't take Bovinia on any vacation adventures and that leaves me with me. Frank uses all of his vacation days to work on the house.

Sure, I could go to a museum, or to the library, or the public pool, or walk around the park, or to a movie (except they all seem to be stupid or depressing), but that's not the point. The point is, I spend every vacation alone, immersed in my own company. Even worse, I don't know who else I'd prefer to spend time with.

Here's the thing. I have secrets, and people with secrets have a hard time being in friendships. It's hard to be close to people when so much of yourself is not in the relationship.

May is deep inside her head today.

I wouldn't want to hang out with me, either.