So it's the day after Thanksgiving. Everyone's stuffed to the gills, there's turkey left-overs in the refrigerator, cranberry sauce sits, tantalizing those who look in the fridge for answers, pie in the spare bedroom, and an owlish sister glaring at her Deviant Behavior homework she should have started working on the first of the semester... And me, I'm sitting here wondering why I feel like such a extra. An extra person listening to conversations, an extra person sitting at the table, an extra person watching Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, an extra person wandering around the house, an extra slipping in and out of other people's perception.

We had seven people for Thanksgiving this year, one more than we usually do. My family of four; the family's friends, a couple we've known for years; and my sister's boyfriend. Everyone had a hand to hold or a shoulder to lean on last night, someone to talk to quietly in the lull between scenes or between courses. Everyone, that is, save for me.

Don't get me wrong, I am happily single. I really don't care if I don't have a boyfriend. The relationship thing is something I'm not comfortable with, not after the experience I've had in the past. I've had great friends that I don't mind spending time with, great friends that I don't mind being close to, but try as I might, I've never felt that connection so many people call 'love.' I don't really see the point. More often than not, it ends in heartache and all that other soap opera drama.

This is different. I feel excluded from so much, simply because I don't have a partner that I can talk to. While everyone else was engaged in conversations, I was sitting on the peripheral, listening in, but never really allowed to add my two cents. I wandered to my computer more than once, fighting with my 3D program, photoshop, or word processor, depending on the thing I was attempting to distract myself with. And nobody seemed to miss me. Most people at least ask after a person secluded in a corner with only a soulless computer for company. Not in this case.

It feels strange to sit alone in a house full of people. It's difficult to be thankful for anything when you're left to entertain yourself with mindless garbage because no one really feels the inclination to go out of their way to talk to you, even when you're more than willing to strike up a conversation first.

Ah, hell, I don't know what I'm talking about, I guess. I was just the seventh wheel, an oddity to look at and say "yeah, that's a really cool bit of art. What program is it?"

bah. Wasted my own time. Better get back to my school work...