So I can't sleep ...

I'm staying in this hotel, away from my kids, and I've got a lot of quiet on my hands. I'm working but since I'm out of my element, I'm forced out of my routine and I find myself rattling through the hours. I get the feeling that by the time I settle into a routine and start enjoying myself, it'll be time for me to go home.

Maybe it's just me but I don't get Sex in the City. Since I can't sleep tonight, I just watched back to back episodes just to see if I misjudged it the first time around. I didn't. Here are just a few of the problems I found with the shows I watched tonight.

1) A gold necklace with a big gold pretzle pendant? The name necklaces? Didn't those go out in the 70's? The fashion is so ridiculous, the heels so high, the colors so vivid, Sara Jessica Parker so melodramatic ... she's positively watery-eyed, like an anime heroine only made of flesh and bone (ok, maybe just bone).

2) Cassie is supposed to be a writer? Who would read that drivel? The narrator vehicle may have worked for her husband in Ferris Beuller but it was fresh when he did it. Now it's just awkward, cheesy time-filler. And the witty rapparte between the friends? It's all too forced, with the exception of, maybe, Miranda, whose timing is impeccable.

3) The ensemble, apparent when they are together, is formulaic. The young blond, the old blone, the brunette and the redhead ... each with a neurosis for everyone to relate to. The construction of the cast is too apparent to me ... like watching the Spice Girls drinking Cosmopolitans.

4) What's with the shoes? Did someone just call her shoes Come-do-me heels? Who says stuff like that? They are called Fuck-Me pumps, thank you very much. It is all very much like a bad high school play with a lot of shoe shopping. WHO NEEDS THAT MANY PAIRS OF SHOES??

Maybe it's just me. I'm not into the shoes, the glitz, the glamour, the extreme pinkness. I don't buy into the lifestyle. It's too much fantasy, too much romance. I've been to New York and it's not nearly that romantic, not unless you are very rich.

Maybe I'm too realistic? Maybe I just can't relate because I'm not a hopeless romantic? For those of you out there that are, I can see the appeal. I suppose it's an escape to a fantasy single girl's world.

Well, I'm single and I want to escape as much as the next girl but why would I want to watch something I can never, ever have?

For that matter, if I could have it, would I want it? I don't think I would live like any of them, no matter how rich, how young, how pretty, how drunk I was. Here I am, a "single girl" (*sigh*) alone in a hotel in a "city" and I'm ... ummm ... alone in a hotel room. I finished my workshop at 4 today, stopped to pick up dinner on the way back here and made a beeline for my room. I don't socialize during the complimentary cocktail hour here at the hotel and I sit by myself during the continental breakfast, though a few of the others from the workshop tried to engage me in conversation this morning. It's not that I'm trying to be antisocial ... I'm polite and I make plenty of conversation during the workshop, but I have no desire to socialize with anyone unless I have to. And forget about going out to dinner. By myself? I don't think so. I'd rather bring it back here and get online or sink into a good book.

Maybe I'm not normal. Maybe I'm not 'into' Sex in the City because I'm not as 'brave' as Cassie. Maybe I resent their freedom, their lifestyle, their success.

Or maybe the show just sucks.

OH ... and when I called home tonight to check on the kids, they were too cool to be excited to hear from me and Mom was too wrapped up in her drama and NO ONE EVEN ASKED ME HOW MY DAY WAS. *sigh* And here I was worried that they might actually miss me or something. Silly me.

I'm trying to pretend it doesn't bother me but it really does. I've spent 24/7 for the past *almost* 14 years giving every bit of myself to the task of raising my kids and it feels like I could have taken more time off without them even noticing. *big sigh*