so i was checking out my cousin's myspace page (she'd changed her profile image to a b-day photo, so it popped a delta flag in my mind (more on that later)) and appreciating the fine strain of mellow she's got up as a theme song when lo! there out of the corner of my eye i see a face that does not belong in california. mine. surely, i thought, it's not possible that she has a friend that so resembles me (nor is it all that probable that i am merely so egotistical as to find resemblances where there are none). so i went back over them and sure enough, there in the middle of an array of west coast party events was a photo from christmas of me and my cousin enjoying our macallans. that and the gin and ginger ale (and the mashomack kick off picnic where i had it) have me feeling fairly waspy tonight...
in other news, this weekend was a string of social events - the best of which was a raucous and variegated dinner conversation at our friend rob's saturday night. i explained the blood-brain barrier to the non-doctors; the doctors, in turn, shared with us the more amusing perks of working with anesthetics and amnesiacs. sadly, i don't recall enough of it to share the actual highlights here.
sunday featured the mashomack nature preserve's kick off cocktail party, where i gently sipped a gin and ginger ale while avoiding conversation with the teeming hordes of well-groomed summer people. later, my mother had a dinner party which somehow got round to the topic of ring theory, reminding me that i still haven't looked that up.
today's been an interesting reentry into my home social networks. i've noticed an odd trend of being hyper and upbeat at the beginning of the week, coupled with motivation to coordinate various casual or structured social activities, but then followed by a decline towards the end of the week as these efforts fail to inspire like-minded social planning in others. sigh. also, encountering more new people, i've been re-exposed to the disconcerting sensation that i have no inherent personality. there's a woman at work who inspires a kind of sweet and hesitant behavior in me, that while sincere is entirely absent from other work relationships. this makes me nervous. then at the new volunteer place, i find myself engaged in different tones of enthusiastic exchanges with each of the people i've met there - all of which are strikingly different from (and oddly more open than) the way i interact with the only other person i know who happens to volunteer there. it brings back to focus how central mimicry and reciprocity are to my relationships. as much as i try to grow into someone who can be genuine and warm and good even without immediately receiving those things back, i'm still very much hamstrung to this mode of navigating social situation - at least initially. hmmm....
and then there's the spokes and the hubs and the flags and trying to get people to come play pool tomorrow (today)...but that'll all have to wait.
Ug. I want to come visit!!!
Posted by: Kara | Friday, 01 June 2007 at 09:20