Laughing at myself...

Situation:
Stephen's friend (and mine, by proxy) Joy calls me asking to hang out with us. I suggest a game night this Saturday, but when the question of where comes up, I falter. I will have to call Stephen and consult. I tell Joy I'll call him and call her back in a few.

Conversation with Stephen:
Me: "Joy just called me; she wants to hang out. I suggested a Saturday game night. Does that sound okay?"
Stephen: (some kind of assent)
Me: "And I need to talk to you about where. Should we clean up our apartment and have her over here, or go to her house? I don't think she cares."
Stephen: "Well, it would give us an excuse to clean up our apartment." (Which we have been seeking for ages.)
Me: "Yeah, that's what I thought, too. Okay."
Stephen: "Should we keep it just the three of us, or invite, say, Ryan and his girlfriend too?"
Me (halting): "That'd be an awful lot of people for our little apartment."
Stephen: "Yeah, but three players is kind of a weird number for playing a game."
Me: "But--five is too. Aren't most games for 2-4 players?"
Stephen: "True."
At this point I look at our game stash analyzing what games we can play: Apples to Apples (not enough players), Life (no way she'd like that game), Pit (too loud), Family Games (are there any 3-player ones in there??), Boggle (don't think that's Joy's strong point; also, alarmingly quiet way to spend an evening, interspersed with the alarmingly loud rattling of the cubes every 7 minutes or so), Battle of the Sexes (two girls against one guy? not fair at all), Jenga (possibility), Stratego (two player), Yahtzee (again with the rattling), Settlers of Catan (ugh), Catch Phrase (with three??), card games?
Me: Begin freakout. "Honey, we don't have any games! Should we invite others? We can't play Battle of the Sexes, that wouldn't be fair, she wouldn't like Life--" Proceed to list all the analyzations I just made on our game stash, voice getting higher and higher in panic, ending with, "It won't work! No! Just no."
Stephen (gently laughing): "Honey. Honey. Calm down. We can talk about it when I get home."
Me: "But I told her I'd call her BACK!!"
Stephen: "Oh. Well, then, we'll just figure something out. Don't worry."
Me: "Clue. She might like Clue." Invisible thief, Clue characters, stolen paintings, yes--she would like Clue. And it's fun. And it takes a while, and it can be switched up. Okay. I begin to calm down.
Stephen (still gently laughing): "We could do Clue. Are you okay now? I'm sorry I threw in variables."
Me: "Yeah, I'm okay now, I think."

I hate it when Stephen throws in variables--and he's so good at it, too! He is the kind of person that sees all the possibilities and potential and it excites him, and he could just think up possibilities all day long and never get around to doing any of them, LOL. I'm the kind of person that likes to limit possibilities because then I can make a decision and DO something. I like to get to the "doing" as quickly as possible and not explore all the ideas there are--because I would NEVER get anything done then!! And the idea of not ever getting anything done really worries me, because then who am I? If I just keep imagining and dreaming and never doing, who am I?! What I do defines who I am.

Anyway, we decided on a 7:00 game night with Joy, with dessert. And we'll probably play Clue and then talk, or maybe talk and then play Clue. But if we talk first we might never get around to playing the game, and I would really like to play it with other people--it's a lot of fun that way.

(By the way, this is Clue: The Great Museum Caper. Not regular Clue.)

I have to put in here that I am very proud of Joy for making that phone call. It must have scared her to death. She prefers more indirect forms of contact, but I have been off Facebook for a week and a half or so now, forcing her to use more direct means of communication. Good for her for doing so!

It's forcing me to do the same thing. I called my friend Melanie yesterday. I told her to e-mail me, unfortunately--so I may have to just call her again sometime if she doesn't get around to e-mailing me back. But I did call her. Maybe I can get this thing down--this making-friends and maintaining-friendships thing. Maybe I can. That'd be good.

Heading southeast in a couple weeks to see Jenny, Mindy, Elizabeth, and hopefully Becca. Hopefully my aunt Glena, too, but I am not sure I can make that happen yet.

-Stephanie

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