Social Machinations

I love Chuck Klosterman. Really. He's so adept at the one-liner last word that it drives me crazy. HOW DID YOU DO THAT? I just read an article that he wrote for ESPN (oh, believe me, my computer is as shocked as you are. It had a bunch of suggestions when I typed in E...S... but when I typed P it just sat back and was like, "I dunno where you're going with this - you want to go to ESPN.com? Really? Sure, why not.") about how Kobe Bryant and Shaq hate each other. And then somehow he made it about love. I don't know. Most of the time I don't have a clue what Klosterman's talking about anyway (hint: most of the time it's how Stryper's career arc is still affecting the American Presidency) but that's especially true here.

I was just really tempted to write that Klosterman is the King of Closers but that's too alliterative. True, but too alliterative. God, that last sentence sounds too alliterative. Alliterative! ALLITERATIVE. I now have sincere doubts that 'alliterative' is a word. Fuck.

My parents and I had been planning to go to Turkey later this summer. I was kind of looking forward to it, because, you know, fancy...but at the same time, clean, modern and cosmopolitan is really more my style. I'm really looking forward to all the chocolates and sweaters. I predict that it will all be a very good look for me. Unfortunately, I don't know German or French or...Swiss...but they know English so I'm confident that I won't have to stumble around muttering things like, "Gutentaag, meine Kinder!", "Wo ist das Badezimmer?" and "Scheiße". A girl can only greet children, use the bathroom, and offend strangers so many times in one day, you know.

It's 6AM. I can't sleep; I keep waking up in a cold sweat from dreams that are about Lauren's wedding. Yesterday I had a dream that she had forgotten her something old/new/borrowed/blue and I had to get something from each category for her to carry with her. It sounds stupid now, but I woke up this morning feeling horrible. I also have been suffering minor panic attacks when I realize that I have no idea what's going on with the guestbook, the drinks, who's going to wrangle the groomsmen (they always need wrangling)...Note to friends: putting me in charge of anything close to major (like I was this time with the bachelorette party) is a horrible idea, because I can't just do my job and be satisfied that if I can help someone will let me know. Once I enter "helpful" mode I can't seem to extricate myself and end up trying to organize everything within my sphere of influence. This is a lot like when I enter "tour guide" mode, which happens when someone asks me to help them out when they're visiting my city and I turn into their overbearing-but-means-well mother, under the logic that they must feel horribly lost with not knowing how things are done here. The worst thing is that I can see myself turning into these characters but am powerless to stop the transformation. Strangely enough, this thing about making myself into someone perfectly capable's mom is the one thing that I find hilarious about failing miserably at not turning into my own mom.
Anyway, none of these freakouts are based in any mystery for me. I'm sure it has something to do with the concrete fact (as opposed to the whimy of my obvious disorders) that until very recently, I was panicking about where Kyle would sleep this weekend (he's visiting for the wedding). For two months I tried desperately to get some information from various male friends and groomsmen about whether they'd be attending and if so, would they mind sharing a room with Kyle? Radio silence until yesterday, but by then I had already booked a room for him at the Magnolia and solved my problem. Now two friends have come forward with offers of generosity, which opens a can of worms like: if Kyle crashes with a friend for just one night and stays at the hotel for one night, that would free up a bunch of finances for us to do cool stuff while he's in town. On the other hand, we're going to be busy enough running around for the wedding without needing to find something cool to do, and he's only here for two days, really. Also, If Kyle crashes with a friend on the first night, we'll need to check him into the hotel on Saturday morning and we have other stuff to do that day that kind of takes precedence. And I'm already used to the idea of having some privacy this weekend and I think paying for the hotel room would be worth it. King sized bed, dude! But I don't know. I need to figure this out soon, since the deadline for cancelling or changing the reservation is at 4pm tomorrow, and I will undoubtedly forget to do anything about it, since I do all my strategizing and thinking at night...which is not at all evidenced by this post.