Monday: Pulling Another One Out of My Derriere

Posted on July 16, 2012

This may come as a bit of a shock to some of you, but I’ll own it and say it. I’m not exactly the most social person in the world. There. It’s out there in the universe and can’t be taken back. Now, this in itself isn’t a huge deal. Why? Because the overwhelming majority of authors I know aren’t entirely social except when we’re around each other. We understand our dysfunctional nature and are the last ones to pass judgement on someone else with the same issue. Why bring this up? Because apparently when I am social, I don’t have the intelligence to space it out. Oh, no. I cram it all into three consecutive days! My brain still hurts and I’m typing this.

And, ironically, the above had nothing to do with what today’s post was going to be about. Just…just bear with me and read on, okay? It’s always so much easier that way.

Let’s back up for a moment and set the stage for the three days of being social. I took dad to the mall last week for his walk, only in my haste to get around to the other side of the vehicle to ensure he didn’t lose his balance getting out, I neglected to hang the handicap permit up. Naturally, when we came back out, there was a ticket on my windshield. It was my own fault and I understand that. It didn’t make it any easier, but at least I’m owning that it was my fault. A trip home and phone call to the court later, we headed right back out to the aforementioned court, presented all the documentation they requested and the ticket was voided. All’s well that ends well. Annoying, but well. And I have to be social soon.

Friday comes, I have dad again and I receive a polite reminder that I’d agreed to meet a former co-worker in Royal Oak that night for a midnight showing of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension. The beauty is I’ve never seen the film on the big screen. The less than beautiful bit is that it’s at midnight! I’m usually in bed two hours earlier, plus I have to drive to Lansing the next morning. Still, I’m not about to break my word and I have an absolute blast watching it! You couldn’t wipe the grin off my face if you tried…and I wouldn’t recommend trying to touch me to find out if you could. When someone isn’t particularly social, they also don’t like being touched. Unless you’re hot and I happen to be shallow. Which I’m not, but don’t let that deter you.

So, I fall into bed at 2:30 a.m. and am up by 7:30 a.m. to set my social media up for the second Face of Gay blog post. I get a few more things done and somehow manage to get everything packed and in the car by the time I’m supposed to leave. No problems there. I’m anal, so it was really all set to go. I power up the GPS, type in the address and it essentially stares back at me and says “I have no idea where that is.” I’m not amused. I return to the flat, power up a laptop, then print out directions from MapQuest as a back-up and am on the road 10 minutes later than I was supposed to be. Since I’ve not seen this friend in many years, I stop off and pick up canollis for his family and decide to type the address into the navigation app on my phone.

“I hope you know where this is because I surely don’t.”

WTF? I HATE using printed out directions. This is why I have a GPS and the phone as a back-up. The mystery is solved an hour and forty minutes later when I pull into a brand new subdivision. I knew I should have been a detective.

I get to chat with his wife for the second time in 10 years, get to meet his children and then they’re off for the night so we can talk shop. We talked shop so much that it carried over into a walk, dinner and then late night conversation about…you guessed it…shop. The chances are pretty good that when two writers get together, they’re going to talk about writing. We did. We talked about it, shared some of it and then talked about it again. I so rarely get the opportunity to do this. Anyway, we turned in late and got up quite early, only the adventure didn’t end there!

No, I drove back home, dropped my luggage off, took another shower, laid down for 2 hours and then was up and right back out the door for dinner with friends. And the adventure still didn’t end there either! Why? Because upon driving home, I realized I still hadn’t written Monday’s blog post yet. I was going to do a kind of mid-year look at the top 3 posts so far and ask for some feedback. Did I write that? No. Did I even look up what the three top posts were? No. So, yeah…Mr. Social here is burned out. lol

Maybe we’ll do that on Thursday. In the meantime, drink your coffee or tea, eat a snack and sit in amazement of people like yours truly here who remains less-than-social-before-cramming-two-weeks-worth-of-social-activities-into-three-days. Why? Because we never learn and we’ll do it again and again while expecting a different result.

It’s good to be a writer.

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Kristoffer Gair (who formerly wrote under the pseudonym Kage Alan) is the Detroit-based author of Honor Unbound, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To My Sexual Orientation, Andy Stevenson Vs. The Lord Of The Loins, Gaylias: Operation Thunderspell, several short stories featured in anthologies (to be combined in a forthcoming book), the recently re-published novella Falling Awake, its sequel, Falling Awake II: Revenant and Falling Awake III: Requiem.

2 Responses to “Monday: Pulling Another One Out of My Derriere”

Dorien says:
July 16, 2012 at 10:24 am
“Why? Because we never learn and we’ll do it again and again while expecting a different result” And therein lies the story of my life. Good to know I’m not alone.

Dorien

Reply
Katherine T. says:
July 16, 2012 at 3:46 pm
Sounds like me, only I’m not a writer (technically). LOL! I can go for months with no real social activity (outside of what I do with my kids) and rhen all od a sudden I have an entire weekend planned. I guess I should start witting to make it official. Hee, hee!
It sounds like a fun time was had by all, thoug. That’s what counts. 😉