Day 78

I need to stop having expectations.

About anything.

Ever.

I was hoping to have a fun-filled, chill, Saturday night.  With the holidays over, it was the first Saturday night in almost a month where I wasn't exhausted from holiday activities, or scheduled to work an extra intern shift, or had to be up early.  It was a normal Saturday I could use as I pleased.

I ended up sleeping the day away, and using the next few hours to dye my hair, take a bubble bath, play some Rock Band, and get ready to hit the town.

I should have known better.  I should have sat on the couch in my p-jams, with some champagne, watching Bridget Jones's Diary for the 400th time.

I should have.

Instead, I headed into Chicago, and save for some great shows, what a complete let down.

I knew it was time to leave when someone pointed to the huge blemish that had erupted on my forehead and said, "Hey?  Did you get into a cat fight?  What happened there?!"

Thank you.  So in other words, no...my attempts to cover it up did not work at all then.  Awesome.

I ended up visiting Max's dad and some old friends at the bar he works at.  (Inside, however, and even though it was fun, I was still wishing I had chosen the p-jams, booze, and movie on my couch...)

I hopped into a cab to where my car was parked, it was far too cold to wait for trains or walk the nearly 2 blocks to my car from the station...we're talking like 2 damned degrees cold. 

The cab driver was incredibly nice.  We spent the ride talking about the life of penguins.  How if their eggs touch the ground for as little as a minute, they freeze, and the embryo dies.  How the females leave for two months at a time to find food while the males watch the egg and keep it warm.  How they know each other by sound alone.  How they have to trek 70 miles to get to the water.  And how, if the mother dies while out searching for food, the egg the father worked so hard to protect will hatch, but the baby penguin will starve.  We also talked about the VW Bug he bought for $100 when he first came to America...and how it had no heat.

And all this reminded me that really, even on a night like this...things aren't that bad.

(Although, I'm still going to wallow in my own self-pity for a while...sometimes it's what you need to flush it all out, regroup one's thoughts and start over.)