Of Returns and Suchlike Pandemonium

Oh the stress of returning from days of travel to see the piles of unread items in Google Reader! The annoyance triggered by having to read three more VERY-long faintly unnecessary rants from a blogger we like(d?). This has meant that I have had to *gasp* unsubscribe!!!!!

Seriously though, sometimes my head hurts at the thought of tackling my Google reader after travel. Perhaps I shouldn't subscribe to so many Earnest blogs about the world, economics, India, development and whatnot, but they're fun to read! Except I end up with so many starred items that I can't be arsed to read at the time that I never actually read the interesting pieces. Sheh. Maybe it's the fluff I should discard. But then it's the fluff that keeps me riveted with little snippets about Other People's Lives, which, after General Hospital, is the single most interesting thing in creation.

But I digress.

Here I am, home again after a(nother) trip. This one was wildly spur of the moment, but oh so deliciously decadent! Why is it that, even though MinCat hates the heat and her hair and her temper go wild when the humidity rises above 30%, she still ADORES the beach? And this is the beach in India, in the SUMMER. But ah the contentment that spreads over one when one is splayed out in a chair with sunglasses on, with an endless languid supply of food and drink, and one spends all one's time playing cards and desultorily leafing through a book! (On travel, incidentally. In Asia, without planes! What an idea!)

The only disquieting note was the ambiguity that I felt at enjoying one person's company. Now Said Person I used to know back in the days when I Was Not So Very Young, But Still Young All The Same, and I used to hang out with a certain group of people who were a very closely-knit bunch. But they were all very nice to pore lil MinCat when she needed it, and even though she fell out of touch with most of them over the years, in some cases deliberately, she did acquire her beloved Scientist by virtue of the group. But the beloved Scientist has ALSO fallen out of touch with them, and since they were her Very Good Friends, and just my friends, it has obviously cost her more. The Scientist, Darwin bless her soul, is truly one of the very few people who simply cannot be blamed for the decline of a relationship. And Said Person used to be very close to her. And then SP let it all decline. Which must have hurt Scientist a lot. But Scientist found new friends and a new gang.

Said Person has, by virtue of the twists of fate, become part of a new gang, which, ironically, is partly if not wholly made up of the Scientist's second gang, which includes my Fabulous Fag and Acrosticus Anonymous. So when I was sitting on the beach and giggling at Said Person cursing, once again, the cards for their treachery, when the culprit was SP's optimistic bidding, my delight was disturbed by a sharp jab of guilt. It goes without saying that any close friend of The Scientist is bound to endear themself to me and vice versa, because of how we are. And SP doubly so cos of Acrosticus Anonymous' approval as well. But somewhere I feel so bad, because it feels wrong to be liking SP and enjoying SP's company when The Scientist can't/isn't. Even if SHE doesn't care!

Ah the convoluted mind of a MinCat.

And not everything is its fault! It IS a convoluted world we live in too. Seriously though, The Scientist makes me believe in Fate. If there ever were a tale of two lives so incestuously entwined t'would be ours. Though, to be honest, I mostly seem to acquire her friends! Which is awesome, so yay Scientist!