Feast or famine

[scarfman]

Tonight I have a riding lesson and a rehearsal.

When scarfwoman qtrhorserider and I arrived in this town three and a half years ago for her to attend law school, we were utterly unable to scare up any science fiction fandom except CCG players in the back rooms of the comics shops. For social contact we've had to rely on my parents and her schoolmates. We've spent most evenings in front of the tv, she with her law books (till last May), I drawing cartoons and reading fanfiction and webcomic criticism.

Then about a year ago she got into the horse culture around here, taking up riding again (she'd rode when we lived in Chicago and Louisville, and since she did her undergraduate work in Louisville - or at least the last ten years of it - for her paralegal certificate she'd had the option to specialize in equine law and she took it) and landing a part-time job at a tack shop. She loves it so much she joined a mailing list for a local trailriding club, of whom the members we've only just begun meeting. At the lesson stable's Christmas party we won a couple of free lessons, one of which was designated mine, and since then I've been going every other week. I don't have the passion for it that she does, but there's no sf fandom in town and we've been wanting something. I gather many of the other husbands are also merely social riders.

Meanwhile, last November (the week before I started this journal) I attended a reunion of my high school's 1976 The Music Man cast. Shortly afterward my former drama coach emailed me that there was a retrospective being mounted of the Road Show, my high school's annual variety show, and she wanted to know if I wanted to recreate our 1977 performance of the Boy Meets Girl bit from Free To Be/You And Me. As might be expected of a drama coach, Pegi's an outgoing person; it was like being recruited into time-travel by Luxwana Troi. The performance is March 26 and we've had one rehearsal. I was going to try to get off book before tonight but I never cracked the script.

So tonight I have two (2) unrelated social engagements. I have riding right from work, and then I'll have about enough time to go home, change and maybe eat before I turn around and go out to Pegi's whence I'll return about ten. Twenty years ago the like'd've been de riguer. A year ago - a month ago - it'd've been unheard of. It's a sign that something I've been wanting is happening. And I'm not sure I like it. I like the downtime too. I like having downtime at the end of the day, even if sometimes there's been more than I can think how to fill. I need it, even. I sure don't want all of it to go away, and tonight it has.

I know it's good for me. Eating less is good for me too, but I don't like it.

Comments

[larksilver.livejournal.com]

As long as you're not losing your downtime every evening, I think you'll find a balance pretty quickly. Social occasions are a wee bit o'work, sure, but they're also fun.. something I have to remind myself sometimes.

I still don't really like "stand-around-and-drink" parties.. but that's 'cause I have waaaay too much time for my brain to think of the 1,000 things that I'm not doing. But that's another issue for another day.

Anyway. Have fun!

[ladyrutile.livejournal.com]

As I remember it, being social always enriched your daily cartoons. So many of the people you knew ended up in them, eihter in their proper persons or with their words being spoken by other characters. Unless you've changed more than I think you have, you LOVE being social; what you dislike is unheralded change.

[antikythera.livejournal.com]

If you're used to having downtime every night, having some nights where it doesn't happen (because you're being social, which is something you wanted) will make the nights you do have it feel more precious. The transition can be bumpy.