Right, so California upheld Prop 8 and another woman (and the first Hispanic) will be on the Court. Chrysler is being bought by an Italian company and GM is going into bankruptcy this week. Obama is spending us into the ground and my play rehearsals are not going well at all. Terminator: Salvation was supposedly horrible.

There are a lot of things to be all crazed about these days (whether crazed in a positive way or a negative). And yet I can’t bring myself to care! I’ve done nothing but politics all my life; been a bookworm since birth. And yet… I just can’t care. I wasn’t moved by Sotomayor’s speech, I wasn’t outraged at the latest auto industry developments. It’s a strange feeling (very much like the larger feeling of Limbo, but more acute). It feels gray. It feels like fog. Of course, DC being so drizzly lately probably doesn’t help.

But my question is this: how do I go from feminist outrage to completely blank? I do care about whether or not my LGBT friends in California can get married. I do care that our government suddenly owns industries. So where is my energy? Where is my anger?

I blame my lifestyle as of late. I spent the holiday weekend living it up in Greenwich, CT with a girl friend – there was sunning, white wine on the Long Island Sound, a yacht club afternoon. We went dancing and met a billionaire. My life upon returning to DC? Crazed work schedule, no sleep, no food in my house (thanks to all the travel), and finally giving up to pop a bottle of champagne with same girl friend and tell ourselves we need to not care. There are plans for happy hours and pool side bbqs… This is not the life I’m accustomed to. I require more sleep than this, I don’t sing in operas, I don’t forgo writing programs for parties.

However! This new, jetsetting, young-and-loving-it world of mine seems to be sapping up all of my intellectual energy. I haven’t read for pure pleasure in weeks, I haven’t been able to concentrate to write.

So where’s the balance? Where’s your balance? Because I need to find mine.

*Edit: The friend that I traveled with emailed me this about this piece and I really wanted to add it (with her permission!) and explain a little bit better what I mean…

People party and travel for different reasons.  Not all of these reasons are for escapism and not everyone is vapid who do it.  Maybe you should inquire into the “why” of your recent escapades… as well as the “why” of your obsession with all things poiltics/online. Perhaps you were substituting one thing for another? Just food for thought.

She also made the a point that I hadn’t realized… We did talk politics all weekend; we talked religion and family and philosophy and books. Every conversation brought new ideas to light and new perspectives to us. I just seem to put those conversations – when we’re spending an amazing evening with her family or eating a delicious homemade dinner – into the category of “social” and not, I don’t know, maybe “activist”? This weekend felt wonderful – to be truly relaxed and among friends, but I think I need to remember that you can be doing those things and still be growing as a learner.

I need to realize that my weekly Sunday brunch isn’t outside of my life – it is my life!

I’ve never seen myself as someone who’s welcome in this kind of world – one where I spent last week with military friends and people who work on the Hill and all over the city and rocking my job. I’ve never seen it as anything but “two different things” – being social and fun and having wonderful friends and then being a bit of a hermit and a nerd from rural Maine… Perhaps it’s just… Being me?

So, seriously, thanks go to my friend for being exactly the sort of friend who points out what I can’t or don’t want to see and for pushing me to think harder on this – blogging at its best!