I realized, several hours before it was due to start, that it was a theme party. Tropical Winter. Wear a Hawaiian shirt. I am not the kind of person who owns a Hawaiian shirt, and I am not interested in going to parties where the contingency thinks this is a good idea. Am I a party snob? Kind of. Essentially, and I am making a generalization here, parties of the tropical shirt variety cater to a younger crowd of people. I read the invitation more carefully. Potluck (this I already knew, and it was something of a sticking point, but I was willing to make something anyway), wear a Hawaiian shirt, at 9:00 p.m. go dancing. There were now three elements of supreme disinterest related to this event in place. I started planning to not go.

So I asked myself 'Am I sabotaging my plan to get out there and meet new people by blowing off this event?' So I thought about the importance of being strategic, wanting to do age-appropriate things like attend a lecture series, go to poetry readings, do cocktail parties, meet for coffee, etc. if I am going to meet people for viable, useful connections. My goal is to meet people outside my present circle, yes, but to meet people roughly my age, interested in the things I'm interested in. I don't want to be the conspicuously non-festive older lady at a party filled with early 20 somethings who do have Hawaiian shirts in their closets if for no other reason than because of previous parties like this one.

Talking with Catherine (who is back!) she said "I didn't even like going to parties like that when I was that age." I couldn't agree more. I once went to an 80s themed New Year's Party in 1999-soon-to-be-2000 and I felt like a fraud the whole night. I felt ridiculous, because that's not me. Anyway, I stayed in and got a bit of reading done. I watched tv till about 1 a.m. then went to bed.

My professor did e-mail me, though. Just reading his discussion of the salient points of my paper excited me. Intellectual discourse makes my heart sing.