Duck!

Family holiday magic is in the air.

RSVPeeved

Many people today, myself included, are very sloppy about the RSVP process. The computing and telecommunications revolution has made it so easy for people to over-commit, be non-committal, and in the end, to flake. Our smart phones and electronic calendars could just as easily facilitate good manners, but instead they seem to foster indecision and last minute bale outs.

Today's hosts are probably aware that many of the people they invite to events are going to be flaky. We may no longer expect prompt or decisive replies to our invitations. Still, slipshod RSVPing pisses people off. Hosts still need to know how many people will show up. Food, drinks, and restaurant seats will not disappear or appear like icons on a computer screen. There is no tesseract app that can instantaneously bring people together to accommodate last minute changes.

It appears that flakyness breeds flakyness. People may not know if they can attend event x, because they are waiting to hear about a possible event y, which is contingent on event z. They don't want to disappoint their friends, so they say yes to everything or no to everything, maybe, or worse, nothing. Saying nothing to a friend's invitation is worse in my book because I as a host don't know what that means. Does that mean my friend didn't receive the invitation? Does it mean they're still thinking about it? Does it mean they forgot? Does it mean they don't give a shit? Not responding at all to something like a Meetup.com announcement is fine.

In the world of Meetup.com, some organizers don't allow people to RSVP maybe and they will ban members who RSVP yes then fail to show up. At first I thought these organizers needed to pull the cactus out of their butts, but after organizing an event myself, I understood how annoying and rude these indecisive attendees really are. It's thoughtless to reserve a space for yourself, then not show up. At the very least, that spoils someone else's chance to attend the event. The rudeness of the meetup no-show seems self-evident to me now, but I have learned that few truths are actually self-evident.

I didn't really understand how annoying my chronic lateness was until about 6 years ago. Really. I was going through some therapy and systematically examining my social skills as I never had before. I understood why I had to be punctual at work, or on time for a train or a movie, but the value of punctuality didn't sink in as far as friendships were concerned. I asked friends what it meant to them when people were late. While it sounds so obvious to me now, at the time I was surprised to learn that they found lateness insulting. I knew my lateness was a pain in the ass, but I never meant it as an insult. My rudeness was not self-evident. I was a blockhead. Once I realized that, I felt wretched for being late or missing events. Knowing that lateness was hurtful didn't stop me from being late because my time management skills still needed work, but that's another story.

Anyway, when dealing with strangers who have diverse and unknown expectations, I believe that some people need explicit RSVP courtesy instructions. So I spell them out when I'm organizing for meetup.com. Because of my personal history and because sometimes even the most considerate and well-organized people will have to flake under certain circumstances, I will not ban no-shows from my meetup events. Yet I sympathize with those who do ban.

Excellent Day, Lame Night

Yesterday, my plans to make the most of life succeeded without a doubt. I went on a challenging yet non-life threatening adventure with a group of friendly strangers. I learned that I can climb rocks without shredding my skin, exhausting my muscles, or cracking my skull open. Indeed, I can carry my weight. I did not allow the nutty woman with the grating voice to irritate me to the point of losing my cool. I made sure to speak to some kind of cute guys who were my age and didn't seem insane. I met some young people from the middle east and we talked about music, culture, food, history, and politics. I saw spectacular views and amazing raptors in their natural habitat.

So hurray for me for choosing awesomeness yesterday. After that, I wonder why I went on to chose to have a lame night.

Sure, I was tired, but I didn't go to sleep. My night began with a re-run of a Nova program on human evolution. Things devolved into a festival of frozen waffles. I could have gone to the free telescope demo thing in Center City. I could have knitted. Hell, I could have done chores. Out of many useful and fun options, I chose lameness. When I finally went to bed, I had a nightmare in which one of my coworkers was fired and I fell off a bridge.

So, hopefully yesterday has taught me that I can chose to be excellent or chose to be lame. Being lame is not inevitable. The only reward for choosing to be lame is the reinforcement of my lame habits and beliefs. I imagine two lameless gremlins are to blame. I'll call the first one Whimpy. The second one is Scold. They are a tag team of miserly. Whimpy sighs. "Oh, you want to go out again and get on the trolley? That's so hard. And to do what? Look at Jupiter through a telescope with some strangers? It'll be cold. No one will be there but freaks. It's not independent and inquisitive. It's dorky. You're not even that good at science. You'll feel lonely and out of place. Why risk disappointment? Just stay home. You'll probably get bored and eat too much, but it won't be disappointing." Now Scold is gloating about my lame night. "You see, I told you. I told you if you stayed home you would just indulge in sloth and gluttony. Lazy pig!"

Well, bite me, gremlins. My day was excellent, and there's nothing you can say about it.

The Only One

you know she used to have to wait around
she used to be the lonely one
but now that she can skate around town
she's the only one

Disqualifying Myself

When I look at job postings, I have a petrifying habit of immediately generating reasons why I won't get the job. I just have to plow through all the reasons why I won't get the job and apply anyway. I also imagine myself failing if I do get the job. Maybe the only way to delete this script from my mind is to succeed.

I could also try to imagine being successful. Imagining career success is difficult for me. I can imagine a scarf I plan to knit, but I can't picture "success." What the hell is it?

The last time I tried to visualize success on the job, the best I could do was see the vacations. I saw myself traveling, seeing more live shows, making donations, and otherwise being a cultured woman about town disposing her great disposable income. These activities were clearly enjoyable, but the pleasure and mastery of actual paying work itself was hazy.

Harnessing the mind

I find it easier to apply my mental powers to pretty much everything else except strategies to get what I want in this life.

Draining

Hopefully, my head will drain itself of all the allergens soon. I wish I could guide these fluids somehow. Maybe if I bow my head even closer to my keyboard, the irritating drippings will stay away from my poor sore throat.