The sound of silence

Hello Everyone:

I'm back after a rather dull weekend.  About the only thing that was remotely interesting was getting my hair done.  I need to start getting out a little more, especially now with the longer days.  Mom wasn't too big of pain.  Although, once again she was carrying on about my lack of sparkling meal time conversation.  Basically, I'm really loath to sit through a meal carrying on a conversation with someone who speaks in non-sequiturs.  I get brain whip lash just trying to follow along.  Further, I really don't want to keep hearing about some random act of "cuteness" by the grandkids.  I also don't like really long meals, especially in the evening because I'm usually too tired to sit through it. Mom even went so far as to threaten, once again, to start going to other people's houses for lunch.  Fine, go.  It's not a punishment.  I'm not deliberately trying being unsociable, I'm just not interested in any dialog with mom.  As I've said previously, I've basically reduced other our conservations to the basics.  It's a conscious choice because I've nearly choked on my food on more than one occasion, we, rather she, carries on about the same things over and over again, and I'm simply not interested.  So we eat in silence.  I've tried reading at the table or checking my email but  to no avail because she still tries engage me in conversation.  Some times I'll pick up the thread then cut it off after a few minutes.  The only time I'm actually interested in the meal time repartee is when there''s other people and then I'm just trying be civil.  Let me qualify that, when there is company I can tolerate and I'm gritting my teeth and trying to be polite.  Before you think I'm some anti-social psycho, I'm not.  I just don't do idel chatter well.  I can actually function within the acceptable norms of society.  Being social doesn't mean, at least to me, being artificially sticky sweet.  People like that make me want to vomit.  Ugh!