Tag Archives: events

Planning to Stop Planning

I’d hoped to soon post some brag pictures of myself casually looking off into the distance, wind in my hair, and with nothing but clouds in the background. Or, maybe me and Ryan Gosling embraced in a contrived but nonsensical pose as we ascended up and away. Unfortunately, my plans to ride in a hot air balloon for the 4th of July block party on Tuesday night crashed straight into a power line (not literally). Ryan stood me up too. Jerk. The weather decided to act a fool the afternoon festivities were to commence, and upon arriving home from work and seeing no over sized inverted tear drop shaped balloons in sight, I assumed it was a no go. So, I went to a bar to meet some friends  as consolation. Well, you know what annoyingly corny people say about assuming…

sugar mill pond 4th of july
[Apparently the balloon did manifest itself at some point in the hour that I was away from the party. There were also reports that Ryan actually showed up as well and did a nude swan dive into the pond. Bastards. ]

That is the thing about expectations and planning. Convinced that they are both almost always self-destructive, I think I will quit making them. That whole night was the exact opposite of what I planned in my mind. It was so disappointing, that I actually wrote the most depressing draft for a post while slouched in the corner of my balcony as I watched the last and only fireworks I got to see that night pathetically sort of half explode. Must have been the left over duds arriving late to the party, just like me. It was probably the most unnecessarily dramatic thing I have ever written and certainly not appropriate for the tone of this particular blog. Although I will say, I am good at following Hemingway’s advice to, “Write drunk; edit sober”.

I deleted the pity party post the next morning when I pretty much woke up face down on my keyboard. But, to end on a lighter note, while I did not get to balloon cruise that night, I did make up for it on the actual 4th of July. A few friends, a few beers, and lawn chairs on a roof. Can’t get any more redneck better than that. I regret nothing.

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sugar mill pond 4th of July

[Am I hallucinating again? Does that really say hot air balloon rides? Aliens may have abducted my blog yesterday, but I don't think they abducted me and messed with my noggin. Maybe they erased my memory. Either way, yay for massive balloons and me inside of one.]

Next week brings Independence Day. This obviously brings with it celebrations, pyromania, and most importantly one much-needed day off of work. A certain conveniently placed party will be going down in my neighborhood. A neighbor of mine gushed about the annual fireworks show over the pond a few weeks ago in a Pilates class, and naturally, I have been impatiently waiting to enjoy the spectacle from my third story balcony ever since. I like it there. It is safe there. Just because I love fireworks doesn’t mean that I am not pathetically terrified that they are all defective and will somehow turn in to heat Becca-seeking missiles as soon as they leave the cannon. There is a chilling childhood story that explains the origins of this fear, but it really isn’t chilling at all… at least not to anyone besides myself. I’ll keep that one in the vault for now.

Speaking of fear, I’ll get back to that balloon thing. Assuming that wasn’t an epic typo, this 4th of July is starting to look up (literally). Continue reading →

Contact Beyond the Screen

I have been very proud of myself for staying home, saving money, and relaxing this whole week the majority of the week. Recovering from last week’s whiplash was much needed. But, if you are anything like me, you can only maintain hermit status for so long. I needed some human interaction that wasn’t on a screen and conversation that didn’t start with the @ symbol.

The list of friends I had drinks and visited with were as follows:

Friend 1: A friend of over three years, with whom I worked in the service industry while in college. We didn’t exactly get along or really not get along when we initially met, but at some point we became great friends. It perplexes me when these phenomenons occur, and the thing is, almost all of my best friendships happen this way. Indifference towards each other straight to holy-shit-you-complete-me. I guess we just don’t realize how connected we are with our friends until we start thinking about how things were in the beginning. I’ll admit, we had help from a few bonding apparatuses… anything alcoholic and Sex & the City/Taxi Cab Confessions to name a couple.

did we just become best friends? Continue reading →

Some Firsts to Forget

My Girl movie kiss picture

Along with being behind on writing this past week, I also haven’t been able to read my favorite blogs. I finally got to catch up on some this morning in between work. Finding myself a bit troubled by my seemingly idea-less mind lately, I decided to take some inspiration from a Five Forks blog post today. It has been a decent amount of time since I thought about some of my firsts. Lets see…

First Kiss
It was the Summer between 8th and 9th grade. His name was Sal. Nah, Sal was so not his real name, but I think Sal sounds cool, his real name did start with an S, and it reminds me of one of my favorite childhood books, Blueberry’s for Sal. We had been “going out” (aka chatting on AIM) for about two weeks. Jazzy and I had convinced our parents to allow us an unsupervised gallivant  to the movie theater. Of course, we were not old enough to drive yet, so Dad had to drop us off. Super cool.

The first hour of the flick consisted of playing musical armrests, and when it was my turn, making sure to position my hand palm side up and open in order to make it easier for him to hold my hand if he would so choose. I couldn’t even begin to tell you which movie it was that we went to see, but I do know it was an action movie … ba dun tsss. Continue reading →

Insert Title Here

homer simpson

I was a complete slacker this weekend on the blog front. Hey, it was Easter weekend after all wasn’t it? Considering I had been looking forward to a three-day weekend so longingly, I was a bit disappointed. For starters, there wasn’t much going on. I had been fantasizing about activities in my head that I was going to partake in, none of which happened. Most friends were out of town visiting family, seeing the significant other, or working (shudder). This is a familiar scenario for me. Let me explain.

When there is a free day off of work, a party, an event, or anything that is particularly worthy of anticipating with excitement, it never seems to go as intended. This comes from building up expectations, in this weekend’s instance – a  three-day weekend non stop fun fest. When expectations fail to come to fruition, I end up feeling… blah. Every time this happens I recognize it immediately, nonetheless I continue to do it. Time after time I build it up.  Then, I started thinking about other little life lessons I never seem to learn from. Okay, more like lessons I do learn from but my brain chooses to perpetually ignore. Here are a few examples of this type of failing: Continue reading →