8.03.2006

Down

Down

It has been a moody week. Our remodel hit another major roadblock ($ & time), and Leelo's IEP and school entry process suddenly turned from smooth to convoluted. The phone calls informing me of these two developments came within an hour of each other, on Monday morning while I was grumping about being at home with non-conversationalists Mali and Leelo (Therapist Y was vacationing), still moping about missing Badger's WoolfCamp, and trying to figure out why BlogHer spun my tail around so badly. Five bad moods for the price of one!

But there are few things as soporific as someone else's depression, unless they're a great writer or you're a great listener. So instead I'll relate a story about why scenarios like BlogHer freak me to the bone:

When a good friend of Seymour's got married eleven years ago, he asked my husband to be in the wedding party. I love Seymour and I liked his friends, so I was excited to go to another one of their gatherings.

However, upon arriving at the ceremony I realized that the groom didn't invite anyone I knew besides my partner, who would be sitting with the wedding party. I started to panic, but was able to keep my freaking under control by reassuring myself that the reception would of course have assigned seating.

Wrong.

I arrived at the reception (bustling, lovely, lively) to discover that seating was a free-for-all. My stomach started to roil, but I swallowed a few times, looked around, and spied a gentleman to whom I'd been introduced a couple of times. I didn't really like him, because he was a cocky dickface who liked to boast about living with a cage-free Burmese python. But he was my one Known in the room, so I summoned all my courage and asked him if I could sit at his table.

He said No. And not kindly, either.

I am not sure what happened after that, but I know I bolted. Somehow I ended up sobbing in the car by myself. Eventually Seymour came looking for me (fucking up his groomsman duties) and took me home.

The wedding could have gone differently. I could have asked Seymour to help me pair up with a friend of his before the reception. Or at the reception!

BlogHer had some whiffs of that wedding. Large groups of people, some structure, but mostly reliant on one's own networking abilities. Of which I have few. I spent the entire time either being the personal remora to accommodating friends, or being too paralyzed to approach anyone who might tell me "No."

BlogHer could have gone differently, too. I could have done some research beforehand as to what panels I really wanted to attend. I could have reached out beforehand or during to other bloggers I admire and asked to meet up with them so as to not have to worry about what table to sit at during unstructured intervals. I could have followed my instincts and gone to panels like Identity and Obligation (which apparently rocked) instead of MommyBlogging (legitimate, but WTF made me go? Most Mommies are squirmily uncomfortable about Leelo, and I am straightforwardly disinterested in typical or mainstream parenting).

Anyhow. I am tailspinning a bit, as previously mentioned. I intend to work it off tonight by celebrating my 11th wedding anniversary with my wonderful, patient spouse at a shmancy restaurant on the coast. Where we have reservations and I know exactly where and with whom I'll be sitting.

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