How do you deal? Some people seem to take care of it all so very gracefully, while others kind of fumble their way through.

Two examples happened today.

I was scheduled to meet Lisa at 10 am, which, for all intents and purposes, is rather early, considering that I don’t have any classes that I’m scheduled to wake up that early for on Tuesday. I stumbled across campus towards the Engineering buildings, when I ran into Samir. He was one of the members of FOC 2004 representing the Math Faculty (I was part of Engineering). Anyway, he has now taken over the role of…hmm…committee organizer guy. I wish I knew the formal title so that I could give him full credit, but I’ve already forgotten. Anyway, I wanted to ask him all about his new position and how well he was doing, but all I could muster were a few incoherent phrases.

“So…how’s that thing…with the groups, and the people…”
“FOC?”
“Yeah, that’s it”

I think I must have seemed stoned or something, because I seriously could not connect my sentences togehter. Beforehand, while walking, I was feeling alright; perhaps lost in my thoughts. Then, all of a sudden, I was spewing out nonsensical crap.

How do you deal? I wanted to leave the conversation, but I tried to keep the pleasantries up because I genuinely wanted to talk to the guy (he’s a nice guy). In the end, I just excused myself to go meet Lisa. I wasn’t mortified, but really just relieved that I didn’t have to use stress my brain any longer.

Second example happened later in the afternoon. Now that I’m back at MKV, I recognize a few familiar faces. In particular, there’s Terri the cleaning lady. I see her around often, and we always greet each other. I haven’t been in the building for a long while, so seeing her again was pretty cool. Anyway, I was walking down the stairs to meet someone on the main floor. As I was heading down, another guy was coming up the stairs. He was running. Or, it looked like he was running away from something. As I continued down, I found out why. He must have let a big fart go, because it was stinking up the stairway. As I continued down, I run into Terri. Now, geez, here’s this rotten smell, that will probably be attributed to me.

How do you deal? I wanted to disclaim any responsibility. However, instead, Terri and I just greeted each other as always and exchanged a bit of dialogue, not really acknowledging the stench. I just kept on walking, pretending like nothing happened. Meh. Whatever, man. If she thinks it’s me, so what? It’s not like she’s going to hold that smell against me for the rest of my stay here. She’s not going to look at me and think, “oh damn, look, it’s the guy who farted”.

In the end, I’m under the belief that I’m a normal well-adjusted guy. These two situations haven’t done anything to disprove any of that. Still though, it makes me second guess whether I’m making an ass of myself, and whether my presentation of “self” is being changed by these odd situations.

Then again, if no one else really cares, why should I, no?

Last night I went out to celebrate Darlene’s birthday (again). I say, “again”, because on Sunday I went out with her to East Side Mario’s for dinner. Sunday was her actual birthday, but she decided to split celebrations over two days. Sunday was dinner out, and yesterday was night out at the Bombshelter, which is a club on campus.

Sunday was cool. She arrived with someone named Penny. They’re both really great people, and we all seemed to get along well. I bought Darlene a chocolate martini because I felt that she needed a drink. To my surprise, it seems that she’s a “necker”. After a few sips she was red and quite merry. I was sitting next to her, and her sudden clinginess was entertaining (for me, anyway). Darlene and I look good together in my opinion, but I don’t think anything will happen *shrug*.

Whatever.

Jenelle and Chris arrived a bit later. I think we all enjoyed ourselves…despite the expensive prices, the fact that the waitress almost dropped capaletti on Penny’s lap, and the fact that she dumped a ridiculous amount of cheese long after I said, “that’s enough!” I guess all that matters is that Darlene had fun.

Yesterday, the birthday girl went to the Bomber. I had class that night, so I had to join her a bit later than the time she specified. By the time I got to the SLC, there was already a long lineup to get into the place. I decided to just wait around because she said that she’d meet people outside if there was a line. Sure enough, out she came–but I couldn’t help but laugh a bit when I saw her. She was wearing a tiara and had a wand that had flashing LEDs on it; that, and she was already quite red and merry. The group that attended this outing as different from the Sunday one. I mean, I didn’t know anyone at this one. Mind you, Penny was there, but I had just met her on Sunday night.

Penny was pinching me and poking me all night. I kept telling her to stop, but she kept doing it. What was I going to do? She was already drunk. I guess I put up with it enough to the point where people assumed that I was her boyfriend. Heh.

So yeah, I didn’t know anyone in the group that she invited except for Penny, and Roselle. Roselle was a fellow FOC member for this past orientation week. It was a pleasant surprise to see her there. Now, not knowing anyone would have made me a bit uncomfortable, but I really tried my best to mingle. Inevitably though, I ended up sticking close to Penny and Roselle. Darlene was drunk and acting much like a social butterfly…going around from person to person, striking up conversation, hitting on numerous people–to which I say, good for her. For a period there she was just kissing and hugging random people. Man, was she drunk.

The crowd has heavy that night, as it usually is on a Wednesday night. I saw many people I knew there. There were a few from my class, a few leaders that I hired from Frosh week, a few people from my old class, and other FOC members. I managed to greet all of them. The dance floor was crowded. I will quote one of Darlene’s friends by saying that there was “too much humping going on.” Heh. At the very least, there didn’t seem to be any raised skirts and obvious fucking going on.

It was a different experience. I’ve never been in there on a full night. I was uncomfortable, but I still forced myself out there. I hope the birthday girl had a good time (oh, I’m sure she did…but I hope she got someone to walk her home).