Rainy Day Woman

I made a to-do list today, for the first time in a long while it seems. There's not much of importance on it: buy new phone minutes, get batteries for the camera, toilet paper and other various groceries. I also am going to take this guy, Ben, around the city center to put his C.V. out to as many schools as possible. He's desperate to find work but isn't certified yet, so...we'll see how much I can actually help him.

The recent days of gray, cold rain have awoken a sense of despondence and near severe lonliness in me. There was a party on Saturday, and we went out last night to the booga club until 5am. These drinking adventures serve as nice distractions when the sun goes down, but I find myself through the days not knowing what to do with myself. Should I just go for a walk? I bought a book called The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Choello. It's really beautiful, but I'm reading it too fast and worried about what I'll do once that's finished. I'll have to go out and buy another book, for sure.

Reading has been a very good way to kill the time pleasurably, but what I really want is a friend. I was hanging around with a guy from the house a lot, and for some reason one day everything just changed. He stopped asking me to go places with him, we stopped doing things alone together, which were the times when we really were able to talk. I felt for a while that I had a good friend I could count on, and now it's like he's intentionally pulling away. I'm not sure if this is common among travelers who don't want to get too attached to people they meet on the road so they try to avoid close connections, but I don't understand this. I think people are always going to be in your life for an undetermined amount of time, so it's important to make the most of the time together. I don't know. I feel guilty for expecting more from this guy's friendship. I feel stupid for wanting to ask him what's going on. I don't like feeling like I need something from other people...like I'm not self-sufficient or like I'm needy.

Anyway, that's a little bit of the undercurrent of emotion that's threaded through all of these dark, gloomy days in Granada. It's amazing what a difference the sun makes. I feel its power and like I can go out into the city and see and do anything. But with this overcast, I just want to stay in bed and fester about how lonely and bored I am. That's an overstatement, of course - I don't allow myself to stay in bed all day. But hanging around the hostal can only be so exciting. Perhaps I should go out and get a coffee. Yeah...that's the ticket.