Irony.

Irony is feeling wide-awake and looking forward to going to work, then getting a call that you're cancelled until 11 a.m.

We (the full-time nurses, as opposed to the 3/4 time nurses) get cancelled on a rotating basis to save money. What this means in real terms is that we get called at the last minute and told to stay home, then the four (or eight, or twelve) hours that we don't work get reimbursed through our paid time-off fund.

So the hospital isn't saving any money, and they're not reducing overtime, but it makes them feel good. And it gives us extra time at home to do things like wash dishes and fulminate.

Fulmination

Is it a bad sign that neither of the men I've left in the last year have shown even the slightest interest in getting me to stay? (My tongue is firmly in cheek, here.) Man A. has a blog, which I read now and then. His last entry said nothing about how the most gorgeous, talented, intelligent, funny woman he'd ever met had walked out on him, but did mention his online flirtation in the first sentence.

This (and here the tongue comes out of the cheek, because I'm serious) is something I'm glad I read. For one, it reinforces that I made the right call in cutting him loose. This other person must be really something. For another, reading it made those "Species"-like spikes sprout out of my back again...and that reinforces that I was right to cut him loose. I'd like to take the word "possessive" and tie a brick 'round its neck and drown it, but that's not happened yet. Until it does, I have *no* business dating.

Which leads me to...

Desperation

Maybe it's because I've hit my mid-thirties, or maybe it's because I've already done the white dress/trot down the aisle thing, but I don't understand the fascination women my age and younger have with Getting Married.

I have an acquaintance who was nuts to Get Married. It didn't seem to matter to whom; she dated with an eye to Getting Married. She dated multiple men with an eye to Getting Married, as a matter of fact. Desperately. Searchingly. Beseechingly, in a couple of cases.

And she got what she wanted, I guess: a mutual pal told me she now has a rock on her left hand the size of a birdbath. *shrug* I hope to hell she's happy--she'll Be Married in a few months, and much good may it do the both of them.

I read blogs by women younger than me that talk about finding somebody to marry. Hell, these women talk (I hope jokingly) about not putting out until they have some sort of sign of commitment.

Which is all alien to me. Oh, I can understand the fear of loneliness--that hits me sometimes, and not always in the middle of the night. I can understand that some women want children really badly, and want to raise them well. But I cannot for the life of me understand the attitude that My Life Hasn't Begun Yet And Won't Until I'm Picking Out Cocktail Napkins For The Reception.

Because what do you do after the wedding? There you are, tied to this person for the rest of your life, short of death or an expensive legal process, and you find that your life is just the damn same as it was before, but with more laundry and more complicated tax forms. Do you then decide that life will start when you Have A Baby or Buy A Hummer or Go On A Cruise?

No, thanks.

My life is what it is. My life is what I live. Boyfriend or not, married or not, alone or not, this is it. It ain't *starting* in a few weeks or months; it's already *here*. I refuse to have some sort of moving target that I have to hit to have a life.

I won't deny that it's sweet, sweet to feel the weight of someone else's arm across your waist in the middle of the night, or to share inside jokes, or to bring them chicken soup when they're feeling bad. But that's not all that a relationship--of any sort--is about, and your life isn't on hold if you're not doing that.

You can always bring yourself chicken soup, after all. And it's awfully nice to be able to spread out on the bed.

Oh, and one last thing...

Something friend Michael said the other week:

"It's not the amount of baggage you carry. It's how well you have it packed."