Good humor makes all things possible.
-Charles Schultz-

With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.
-Shakespeare-The Merchant of Venice-

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Just call me Big Edie

All I've done for the last couple of hours is read the archives of this blog, You're Doing It Wrong. The author is so engaging, articulate and genuinely funny that I never want to get the end. (Sadly, she hasn't been writing as long as I want her to.) Go see; you will not be disappointed.  The verbs!  The adjectives!  I'm in heaven.  Only in my happiest dreams am I that clever.  She has kick-started my resolve to get back in the groove.  Besides, I have to start flexing my neurons so Lillie and I can churn out another season of Downton Abbey recaps.

There's a great big world out there

A few weeks ago a friend from my old job decided to set me up with a buddy of hers who is my age.  Turns out, our age is probably the only thing we have in common.  I agreed to meet up with them at a bar and listen to music.  He arrived two hours late.  The next day she encouraged me to tag along on an outing to a famous brewery in a nearby town, where I helped even out the gender ratio. Her boyfriend, the tardy friend, plus their out-of-state pal made five beer-tasters.  It was a warm, bright day and the brewery tour was interesting and somehow I rode back to town with the out-of-state friend, who was funny and friendly, although he had an unreasonable (I thought) aversion to using the air conditioner.  It was Labor Day weekend and so there was a barbecue the following day (tripling my social event count for the year) where the original set-up buddy arrived with a date who appeared to have been on the scene for quite some time.  And naturally the out-of-state pal lives seven hours away so I'm home reading the archives of clever bloggers and wondering why I even leave my house at all.

But this is good, too

You might be surprised, given the circumstances, that I accepted an invitation to yet another venue to showcase my geeky discomfort a going-away party.  I don't know where this optimism comes from.  Most of my former colleagues, including an old beau and my old boss, would be there.  You may recall that I was "let go"; a slightly fuzzier term for "fired" (i.e. no party) and so although many of them had been my friends, it was rather unwieldy to socialize with them afterwards.  And you know how it is.  You may find a spouse or a best friend at one job or another but you tend to lose the rest of them. Que sera, sera.

So as you might expect I wanted a Xanax was anxious about the party, even though logic (which has a questionable track record) insisted I had nothing to fear.  I baked cookies to bring along and put on clothes and eyebrows and drove across town to the hostess's house. THERE WERE NO OTHER CARS THERE. Wait, what? The e-mail had clearly said Friday.  I was here on Friday. What if she made a mistake and the party was Saturday?   My lizard brain (the lobe that keeps me from running out into traffic or putting my hand in fire) ordered me to just slither away immediately, but the configuration of the driveway almost guaranteed that anyone inside would have seen me arrive, so I crept up to the door and begged the hostess's husband, who remembered me, to please not tell anyone I SHOWED UP A DAY EARLY.  He promised, and I went home.  I checked; the email said Friday.  Aha! I knew it!

Except today was Thursday.

 I can see everything just fine from right here.

On real Friday, although I almost chickened out, I drove over again, if only to keep the party guests from talking about how I had lost all of my marbles since I left the company.  Turns out the gathering was lively and it was great to see everyone and I received just the right amount of attention--neither too much nor too little. I got to say goodbye to the colleague who was escaping that madhouse moving on to a bright new future, and the others saw that, despite strong evidence to the contrary, I'm still in the game.  And the husband never said a word about my little miscalculation.  (That's how it's done, boys.)

Because I'm flexible like that

I blame all the good bloggers for making me a social basket case.  The lizard murmurs soothingly, just stay home and read books.  Watch Breaking Bad and the West Wing.  Or Grey Gardens.

So maybe I should have dusted a little
Seriously.  Cats and all.