Funky Weekend

This past weekend was really quite funky for me. For someone who is not particularly a social butterfly I had enough socializing to last for quite a while. By yesterday I was completely worn out, exhausted and in an odd sort of way, settled into a combined satiated-yet-yearning mood.

It started Thursday with my first meetup with the Sci-Fi Meetup.com group. It was in a pleasant coffee / snack shop and about 10 people showed up. We talked about lots of sci-fi stuff, mostly centered on TV and movie entertainment, but occasionally venturing into other types of media. Unknown to me, the new Dresden Files show is based on a whole series of books by the same name. I guess I live in a cocoon or something! In any event, I spent the evening having fun with a group of people, not a one of whom I knew, having fun and talking about a subject I enjoyed.

Then Friday arrives, and it is time for the monthly reading group gathering. I've been with this group, hit or miss, for a couple of years now. The original intent of getting together was to share with others the various books that we had read over that past month. With this being gay men, the books were generally themed as gay. But, with the exception of S. (who would droll on for an hour over the 7 historical/biographical/etc books he had read...ugh!) at most we would only have 1-2 other books. So other media came in, especially after the film festival and we now discuss all sorts of gay entertainment.

This was more fun socializing. This time though, I knew at least half of the people there, so it was much easier. But now we've got 2 nights in a row of meeting new people, socializing and in general being an extrovert. If you don't understand just how hard this is for someone, then I think I might just hate you, because 2 nights put me into deep exhaustion!


Oh, but we aren't done yet! That only gets us through Friday. Saturday was hike day, and I had signed up to hike through Duke Forest. This group was smallish, around 10 people ... I suppose the 40 degree weather kept most at home. As usual with THOG hikes, almost everyone was new, with the exception of Harry. Everyone is nice, but my already strained reserves are put to yet another test ... more new people.

I've come to learn that if Harry is on the hike, then it will be an actual hike. Many of the "hikes" that THOG have turn out to be not much more than a walk in the local park. That might be fine, and now that I know how the group works I can go or not go, but I really prefer to have some exertion in the hike. And where Harry is involved there usually is. The hike in Duke Forest had us climbing over rocks and working to avoid going into the frigid river. Plus what was originally a 1-2 hour hike ended up at 4, and us going to the local watering hole afterwards. Ahh! Socializing at it's best!

We're not done yet! On the way back from the bar, I decided to stop in at the Raleigh location for pleasures of the skin. Umm ... I haven't done this since I was about 22. And it doesn't seem to have changed all that much. And just what led me to stop, I don't really know for sure. But suffice it to say that I've probably added another $100-200 to my fine, and it was worth it!

Sunday comes along, and it's all finally caught up with me. I pretty much figure I just need to hole up for the day and recuperate. Anti-climatic as it is, that is what I did. I did my taxes. Then I updated my TiVo so that it was no longer hacked. This is so that it would get the latest versions of the software. With the screwed up time change approaching, I wanted to make sure it was properly set. I'd go into withdrawal if my favorite shows didn't get recorded!

Okay, so I know that I've wanted to be a party animal. At least I like the idea of it. But just a few days of it, and very mild days at that tell me that I'm just not cut out for it. But ... and this is a big "but" ... I do not plan on slowing down much. I need to get out and meet more people, hopefully finding some who want to spend large amounts of time with me. That won't happen if I don't get out there.

And in reality, even for as worn out as I felt after all that, it felt great!