Face Punch

Two interactions that meant one thing but came off as totally different:

1. After the show on Sunday, I walked up to two theater friends. One is directing an upcoming show at the community theater. Months ago he emailed me and asked if I'd help out his step daughter with the poster for the show. I emailed him back and said yes. Told him to send her my email address and have her get in contact with me. I've heard nothing back. At all. So when I see him on Sunday the first thing he says to me, with a big grin on his face, "So you're working hard on that poster, I see. I see you got back to me right away." Or something similar that directly implied that I had ignored his email and it was somehow my fault for not pursuing HIS project after I put the ball back in HIS court.

Just a tiny note

I'm going to my reunion tonight.

I am a little scared.

I've had 2 nightmares since I decided to go.

I decided to go on Wednesday.

But I'm bringing alcohol.

Everything will be fine.

Age

I was at the local craft store tonight (GET OUT GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN) buying some tiles and it was a particularly slow night in the store. It's acting like July outside so I imagine everyone is at BBQs. The result was employee down time and two women were helping me at check out. One of the women was talking about how she's having her 50th wedding anniversary next month. You can tell by the polite nods of her co-workers that she's been talking about this a lot. But I'm new, so she tells me and then goes on to explain that that is next month, THIS month is her birthday. She's 71. I look up at her and say, "Really?" And before I've had time to process the pros and cons of another statement I blurt out, "You've got good genes." She's halfway through her, "I know" before I begin to really wonder if I've said something offensive. I've paid so now my trajectory is out the door and I can feel half of my body kind of turning back to try and make sure I haven't said something terrible but the other half of my body is wrenching myself forward. The latter strong armed the former and I sit in my car awhile wondering if I should go back and apologize.

Finally I just drive away.

I don't like that I said that though. I don't think it was offensive but the very fact I said anything bothers me. It's not the first time I've told someone they have good genes. A lady who worked on Chicago with us is 40 and she's living inside a late 20s early 30s body. Now SHE has good genes.

But then what does it mean to have good genes? Does your good genes rating go up depending on your looks-close-to-a-pre-teen vs actual-age ratio? At one point in our lives we wanted to look older. And then somewhere in our 20s it switches to want to look younger. Because that's what I'm saying to the woman in the craft store: good job not looking old. And that's what I'm telling the 40 year old: Hey, nice one looking like a 20/30 year old. It means that they are getting points for not being what they are. That looking 40 and 71 (whatever the hell that means) isn't OK. And that if you don't look 24 you might as well be dead. What crap. What total crap.

I think the larger lesson here is stay the hell out of craft stores. Somewhere Zach agrees.

Facebook....hmmmmm

Zach pegged it last night. He said the very purpose of Facebook is the very problem I have with it. Right now I have a defunct Myspace account and a newish Facebook account. I kept all my blogs for friends-only on Myspace and I liked that my profile was public but everything else, private. Also, I made my account unsearchable on Myspace. I used a junk mail email address. My full name wasn't listed. My Myspace account let me reconnect with more or less my peers whether they be former classmates or new friends.

I think the issue I have with Facebook is it's a larger community. People who know my parents use Facebook. Theater people galore use Facebook. If I make a comment about drinking it up and having a ball at an upcoming wedding let's say this May, people who don't know me in that context will be getting that message as well as the person I intended it for. (KARAOKE!!!!) I don't like that. It's making me guarded, and yet I think it's smart to be.

But it also annoys me. This is a side hindrance of living in the town you grew up in. You create a community across age groups. To one group it's OK to be both the together girl and the girl who totally has a hangover. But it's strange. To people who don't know the full range of you, well, I think the individual pieces of information they do come across carry more weight.

Facebook is not Myspace. It has a different goal as a site. I need to accept those new parameters for what they are and then act accordingly.

So I am going to watch it on there, and I ask you guys (the five who read this :) to please not mention this blog. Or rather it's fine to mention it (as you guys have) but please never mention it in a way that would lead someone to it. I don't really have examples of what I mean, and I think in reality I probably never needed to tell you guys this, but I think that makes sense. (Somewhere Zach is shaking his head and thinking I'm paranoid...and I am. I TOTALLY am :)

OK that's it. I'm done whispering in a low voice and checking the room for microphones. Tomorrow I'll finally get around to writing about the show. We opened Friday night, and it's been a ton of fun. Yay!

PS- I'll still probably make hangover comments on Facebook. But I'll probably make more here!!! :)