fitting in

I’m going on 10 days here and I haven’t slept at night. My routine is work/whatever, I come back to the apt around 4-5pm, get dressed and head somewhere, come home around 11pm (on a work night) then I don’t sleep till 8 or 9am the next morning. Finally fall asleep and then wake up around noon. In my 10 days here I’m working on my 5th book now. Bit the bullet last night and bought some sleeping pills (like our neighbors to the South at home, we can get anything we please at a pharmacy). It’s helped.
The people I roll with…
I spend most of my time with people who make me feel like algae on the intellectual food chain. You know that saying to always surround yourself with people better or more intelligent than you? That’s effing exhausting. If they’re not from some Ivy-League American/British/Canadian institution, they are either heading to one, or have differed enrollment for a year. I have the urge to impress, but definitely not the mental capacity to keep up. Every word that comes out of my mouth has to be significant or at least have some humor, smart humor… my what’s Tiger Wood’s new name joke isn’t cutting it here (it’s Cheetah Woods). When I lived at the yellow house in Galveston I mentioned that I felt like Rush Limbaugh there, well here I would be the love child between Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. They are liberal, smart liberals, yoga, Birkenstocks, protesting, and already filled two passports with stamps liberals. This is an example of a conversation…
Someone was talking about an Italian protest for I don’t remember and the Italian riot police are especially brutal. So brutal they opened fire, gas, or water on protesters and were even beating pregnant women. At the moment I thought my response was reasonable…
Me: that’s stupid, why are pregnant women protesting?
Comrade 1: Melita, what you should be asking are why would you beat a pregnant woman?
Comrade 2: Perhaps to bring that unborn child into a better world
Comrade 3: To stand for something
Me: (sheepishly)… oh yeah, you know I’m different. (sounded more like I was saying “you know I’m retarded)
Before I fully appreciated my company I was speaking the way I usually do. In one conversation I used the worlds “chastise” and “castigate” interchangeably and whenever the hell I felt like it. They couldn’t take it anymore, and I got schooled. Since then my conversations have dwindled to simple words, about things I know about, and I ask a lot more questions. Interested doesn’t look stupid. One thing I have is Medicine. I have the monopoly on that here. These are a bunch of current and future lawyers. But God forbid one of their Ivy med school buddies show up… forget Ivy, God forbid a nursing student from UTMB shows up, I’m screwed.
All in all, I’m having a great time with everyone here. My medical education, travel experience, and (weird enough) racial make-up provide enough ammo to hang. But I definitely miss those of you that were kind enough to let my BS slip by unmentioned… I wouldn’t be here nor have the ego I do without you.
I'm heading to the Red Sea for the weekend in case my parents decide to call any of you in a panic.