incorrect expectations

Real talk: I don’t know how to keep this blog up with my lack of life. Luckily I had a bridal shower and two parties to attend all in one day, so there actually is something to share! Miracle.

We will start with the parties. Both of them were goodbye parties for either friends or coworkers and at both of them I came to realize that hey I don’t know these people.

And when you don’t know people in a group very well, not only will your beer not save you from forced small talk but it also won’t save you from the hardcore clinging to the two people that you do know.

At party Numero Uno, I assumed it would be wildly fun, but my two people became occupied and things got awkward quick.

Tried asking a coworkers boyfriend about the bar that he runs and when that went south I appealed to the vanity of a woman and complimented the girls hair next to me, which did go somewhere, but it left me without words to use because she had taken all of them and left me with nodding. Hey bro, lets go back to those one word answers about your bar that I’ll never take a step inside of.

Party Numero Duce..(?)… (spanish class was a long time ago), this party had the potential to have a lot of drunken people and a lot of laughs and it did amuse me on both of those counts for quite awhile.

One of my two people at this one was hammered. I mean like singing out loud in the middle of a bar, occasionally lying down on the table, and every so often telling someone FUCK YOU, with no rationale. Brilliant drunk.

Unfortunately, early in the night I had gotten very hung up on my crush being there and his not making eye contact with me. He was glued to his phone or the tv most of the night, and somewhere in that behavior I decided he loathed me.

At one point I was smushed between two different couples and almost got up to stand next to him, despite the general dislike I assumed he had for me, just to have someone to stand there with, and we could both be glued to our phones, at least together? Instead I decided to stay planted in between the couples, trying to be as small as a Chinese gymnast, and text whoever was willing.

It was when it got so bad that people in the group sitting around me had pointedly started a conversation that clearly did not need my input, is when I begged a friend to call me so I could have a reason to go outside and take this ever so important call, and this is when I realized I had lost our drunk friend.

I found him outside minutes later, standing on a curb, and looking out into the parking lot. I wanted nothing more then to plop down on that same curb and stare at whatever he was staring at, and not have to make one any more unsuccessful efforts to converse with others.

The funniest thing about yesterday was that I had thought that those two parties would be the best part of the day and that the bridal shower that afternoon would be that part of the day I’d be praying for to be over as quickly as possible.

The bridal shower, being at a church, and also being a bridal shower, I didn’t have my hopes set high, but was in fact a wonderful three hours.

Sitting at a table with my mother, aunt, mother of that aunt, and a cousins girlfriend, our dry wit and overall immaturity gave each of us away to inappropriate fits of laughter from beginning to end. Also the maid of honor who is my cousin, was running the show and quite hilariously I may add. She obviously had the upcoming Bachlorette party on her brain because she never ceased to make jokes about how she’d be hammered later and to quiet us down would say “ladies, ladies, off the tables. were in a church.”

The games she planned were even fun and our table even got bizarrely competitive and began cheating early on. When we weren’t cracking jokes, the maid of honor was acting as our own stand up comedian and had the whole room going.

I shake my head even now at how odd or maybe even stupid it was for me to be so sure that I would have gobs of fun at these random parties with random people, but yet not be as entertained with the amazing women of my own family!!

The women of my family are intelligent and fun loving and deeply sarcastic, from aunts to cousins to grandmothers, and I don’t know how I ever came to doubt having a good time at this shower.

I guess at some point in your life you need to take a step back from the bars (hooold on what is she talking about) and the strangers (omg is she saying this) and look at who has been around your whole life, and who is ready to jump up and be your friend when you’re own are scarce.

Shit just got deep. Hope everyone enjoyed the Grammys!

I wouldn’t plan it, but if i had to plan it, I wouldn’t plan it the way it was planned

So I was sufficiently bored and undercaffinated at a bridal shower yesterday afternoon, and how I managed to not fall asleep on that barely decorated table was by making a mind-list (yes I’m calling it that) of most of the things that irritated me about this shower.

1. Hottest day of my fucking life
2. Super random assortment of snacks
3. For god sakes invite more then ten people, awkward silences up the ying yang
4. Small tables and folding chairs in the middle of a crowded living room
5. No booze
6. Asked maid of honor if there was coffee, she had apparently already gone to dutch bros, so she was good (bitch).
7. Soft christian music playing in the background that they probably play at my grandmothers, grandmothers church. I would take country over this.
8. The best story anyone had to tell was the time the bride-to-be got drunk, while playing Wii. For reals folks.
9. The maid of honor made like she knew EVERYTHING. Which she might, I don’t know, but lets pretend like some of life is still a mystery.
10. Again, no booze
11. Ok and I can’t believe I’m saying this but is there any kind of theme going on? Could something match the other?

The fact that I sat there and thought I could plan a bridal shower better than someone else is actually kind of absurd. Me being asked to throw a shower, or volunteering myself to throw one are both completely unrealistic scenarios.

Now I know, who cares right? So what if the shower was lame? I’m not even intensely close with the bride-to-be and I’m certainly not gal pals with the girl who threw the damn thing, so who cares about the way in which it sucked?

Well that damn list has been bugging me, and picturing the little beads resting on the tissuey table cloth, surrounding those vases with that little heart thing, on those tables in that cramped little living room is bugging me.

Maybe I’m just a bitch who was expecting to be entertained and wanted there to be booze and people dancing on tables and lots of talking and hilarious stories and you know, fun and color! Which I know, I know it’s the bridal shower not the bachlorette, I get it I get it but still.

I feel that I should mention that I was out at an awesome club the night before this shower. I danced for hours, saw two single ex-coworkers make out, triumphantly assisted in getting two other single friends to dance together all night, danced briefly with a guy that is known to be a little strange who actually had some good moves and I spent a fourth of the night peeling the room for him. Sometimes girls like a little crazy?

Perhaps this wild night of nonstop dancing and juicy drama is what made it hard to sit politely in my little folding chair in someones living room the next day. A christian radio station for people in their seventies softly playing in the background, as I drank lemonade and ate crackers. What bothers me also is that the very few women there, were girls! Most of them my age, with the exception of one mom and one baby, that’s it!

There could have been loud music, fun games, definitely more sex jokes and all around dirtyness, wild stories, food that is bad for you but also delicious, and booze. Can’t forget booze.

Yes, I am aware, this is not MY day and not my shower so my opinion on this is null and void, but that’s why I have a blog right? So I can proclaim my inappropriate feelings of anger, over this bridal shower not catered to MY needs and individual preferences.

The games that we played weren’t actually that bad. They got us up and moving, which I was grateful for because I was barely trying to control the volume of my yawns anymore. The toilet paper game- I was one of the chosen to be wrapped-was hilarious because they just barely had that toilet paper cover my ass, and I instantly became the whore among the other fully covered toilet paper brides. It was probably my favorite moment of the whole afternoon and the picture of it, that was posted on facebook, made it feel like my decision to attend the shower was worth the serious struggle to stay awake for most of it.

Honestly people, were not sixty YET. Put on some Katy Perry, buy some wine, and get some crazy decorations. How many times is she going to get married?

Well, were hoping for just the one time.

the stroller

I just want to state that I love my sister. Truly and truly and truly I do.

But when she is describing to me her plan to walk about her neighborhood and inspect the sidewalk; the cracks, bumps, and gravel, to then evaluate the kind of stroller she’ll be needing, I feel not only the urge to strangle her but also anyone in the business of supplying strollers.

Now let me just note, she already has a stroller picked out. Her son, my nephew, will not be born until the end of August, but she has had her stroller picked out for over a month.

This was until she realized, “what if the stroller can’t properly manage the state of the sidewalk in the neighborhood we live in?” Now I don’t know where she thinks she is living currently, but it sounds to me like she has her suburban area confused with a mountainous terrain or a spot out in the country where aliens previously landed and left giant craters.

I mean strollers don’t have superpowers…It’s a stroller! Am I right?

Meanwhile my younger cousin is prancing about the yard with her fiance, all a glow in her little sundress with her ring sparkling in the sun. I looked up into the sky and secretly cried help but wine did not suddenly pour out from the clouds and into a large pitcher.

My sister and cousin talked with the moms aunties and grandmas, almost in the fashion of a huddle if that helps you with imagery, to plan their upcoming showers. It’s a moment like in the movies where all these ladies in the same family are sitting around in a circle and laughing and smiling, and I did want to be a part of the circle because of the obvious merriment. However I knew if I went over there they’d be talking about shower dates, changing tables, matching the flowers with the linens and the bridesmaids dresses. So I stayed at the table with the boys who were all focused on distracting one another so they could pour ice down each others shirts.

My sister will be having her baby shower here soon. I want to suggest that she bring her stroller and then load it up with all the baby gifts she receives at the shower to you know, see how it handles the load while taking corners.

The bridal shower for my cousin wont be for a couple of months, so I have some time to buy a really cute sundress somewhere and then also find a reason to be super happy so I can look half as enchanted with life as she does. So drunk then, I’ll probably be drunk.

Maybe I’ll go buy a stroller tonight so I can cart around my bottles of wine to all these showers…..