Somedays...

I just feel so--inadequate. Ignorant. Uninformed. There's all these conversations swirling around me and I'm lost in the sea of them. Things I feel I should know but for some reason don't. Where do all these other people find this wisdom. This knowledge. It seems everyone else knows everything about everything. Like how beer is made. The history of moonshine. How to catch a catfish with your bare hands. Where was I went they were learning about all this stuff? Was I just not paying attention?

I know, none of that stuff is important in the scheme of things. It's all frivolous stuff. But if I missed out on that, who knows what all else I've missed out on. I mean, I can tell you that Luke's Diner has the best coffee in Stars Hollow and that Rick and Phoebe used to be uncle and niece and are now step-brother and sister who are fooling around but I can't tell you that if you wiggle your fingers at a twenty pound catfish it'll swallow your fist and you can pull it out. Or at least, I couldn't until this morning when two coworkers were talking about it. And I had to watch a "pop-ups" version of a Big and Rich video to figure out what in tarnation "gigging frogs" was!

And I have this one friend who I just envy so badly. She knows everybody and their whole life history twenty minutes after meeting them and people remember her. They smile when they see her and run over to talk to her. Me? I've seen the same people every day for six years and they hesitate over my name and I couldn't tell you a single personal detail of their lives. How does she do that? I'm at a total loss. There are people I've known my whole life and still don't know all that much about them or their history.

Of all the things I inherited from my dad, I think that is quite possibly the worst. He is as social awkward and hangs back just as I do. My mother kindly pointed that out to me. Of course, that is one of the better things I could have inherited. My oldest sister got his nasty quick temper and impatience, my middle sister inherited his ability to freeze you out so completely that a body could get frostbite. That's if you piss her off, btw. I got his social ineptness and his biting sarcasm. And his cowlick. Well, the cowlick he had when he had hair. I hope I don't inherit his baldness!

And why couldn't I have been born with the love of sports? I swear, I miss out on so many conversations because I am sport ignorant. I don't keep up with scores, games, teams, seasons, etc. The only time I ever know anything about any of it is if someone mentions it to me. And then, unless it was really impressive, I don't retain the info. Because you may as well be talking about algebraic algorithms for all the care I have for it. But everyone and their brother are fanatical about it. Even Mr. Coffeebreak Man who I'm steadily learning things about everday and who my above mentioned friend already knows in and out and can talk to him about anthropology with some level of credibility while all I can do is smile, nod and ooo and ahhhh over the interesting stuff.

You know, I think that's why I love my redneck cousins so much. They don't know nothing either. What they do know they don't care whether or not I know it. They don't make me feel stupid. Well, mostly. lol And the only sports they care anything about is Nascar and horseracing--neither of which requires a lot of talk from me.

Anyway, got a busy weekend ahead. Cousin's baby shower tomorrow, supper with the grandparents tomorrow night, church Sunday and visiting with the best friend and her family after church. Don't know when I'll get laundry done, dishes washed or the carpet vacuumed.