train of thought

Does anyone else lay in bed at night, thinking random thoughts, only to wonder how you ended up at the current thought, so you lay there for another 20 minutes circling back to the original idea?

Last night, all in the space of about an hour while trying to fall asleep, listening to my husband snore 2 minutes after he hit the pillow: What am I doing tomorrow? I should use that gift certificate tomorrow. I need a new dress. Something shiny to wear to that charity benefit in February. Then I could wear it to that wedding in April. So it needs to be appropriate for both. Surely it's a dress-up wedding. It's at the country club. I wonder how many people are invited. I wonder if my old friend X will be there. I haven't seen him in a while. I think he lives in DC now so he probably won't come. My cousin lives in DC now too. I wonder if they know each other. Wouldn't that be funny. She just got a new job. I wonder what she does exactly. I wonder what the weather is like there. Wait, why am I thinking about DC weather?... DC... cousin... friend... wedding... benefit... shiny dress... oh yeah, gift certificate. What am I doing tomorrow?

And then for another thirty minutes I laid there making a list in my head of the several errands I must run today, so many since I haven't had a free day since Halloween.

What I should have been thinking about: Why is it so long since I've seen my old friend? We're facebook friends but we hardly talk there. We were best friends in high school, the inseparable kind, knew each other's thoughts before they were thought, a real heart to heart, soul to soul connection. I have very few of those-- just my husband, my friend Karen, and my friend Betsy. I wonder why I let his friendship go all those years ago. Young then, only 18, leaving for college, dating someone who I thought at the time was SO important. That's when things started to fall apart, when I started dating someone. My friend and I were never like that, but I guess he just felt a little replaced.

Come to think of it, I'm not friends with anyone I knew in high school, so I don't really know why I'm going to this wedding in April. The bride and I were close then, but I haven't spoken to her in years. Why am I even invited?? We don't know each other. She wasn't invited to mine.

My wedding was small, only about 100 people invited, 80 attended, mostly family, and very close friends. The best complements I got were
A) thank you for having a short and sweet ceremony that happened to also be pretty (no problem)
B) it was like something from an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, a Great Gatsby jazz age Deco ball come to life, but without being costumey or themey (that was the point, so glad you noticed).
We really enjoyed our wedding, except for the part where my grandmother fell down the stairs, but that's another story altogether. And we did it pretty cheaply too, which was great in a town where the average wedding costs 30 grand. Who has that kind of money to spend? I can see easily how it's done, though, with one venue wanting to charge $2000 just for chairs.

Why am I thinking about the cost of wedding chairs? weddings... Fitzgerald... that wedding... not friends anymore... my old friend in DC... train of thought. Oh yeah.