Lingering

There was lingering this weekend. I think it may be hard to explain what a delightful surprise that was for me.  Lingering is so rare anymore.  I find it is different from being stationary.  I may have sat home some evenings last week devouring books, but with so many things to do in this very social weekend I expected to be a bit harried.  Of course, you must understand the harried feeling is something that comes from myself, and not due to anyone else.

I shall try to clarify a bit.  I am a planner.  I always have been.  I know that it will take me 12.5 minutes max. to shower, 10 for my hair, 5 for my makeup, so in under 30 minutes I can be out the door.  And on my way somewhere that I know will only take 15 minutes but the anxiety of being late is already worrying me, so I started my shower 30 minutes before I should have and now am leaving a full 20 minutes ahead of time because the butterflies in my stomach just can't stand to stare at the clock and count down the seconds to when any normal person would think about leaving.

And working in events, where everything is either a giant or miniscule puzzle piece to a larger whole that we are putting together, compounds this need.  From the outlook calendars (where I track not only my own calendar, but our setup calendar, and our AV tech's calendar, the conference room calendar), to the system wherein I do most of my job (EMS) which tracks every class, every meeting, every banquet, lecture, student movie showing, wedding, reception, holiday, etc. and places this many tables on this wall, in this hallway at this precise moment in this precise order, and where will the microphones be and at what time and will it be him or me or someone else and what side note did that customer request that isn't standard so we just have to add it and remember it, to the two homemade wall calendars behind me in the office (home made because companies don't make yearly calendars as far out as I need them to fit all the pieces together), and there is Aurora's custody schedule and school schedule and homework schedule, etc. 

This is all very well and good for my freakishly over-active control feature, and not so well and good for me trying to let loose and enjoy life in general without freaking everyone else out.

Sooooooo this weekend I envisioned something like this:

Frances' at 10:45 to leave for Courtney's Pampered Chef party at 11am
2 pm or so to wander with the ladies to Art in the Bar IV
3 pm to hang out with Frances whilst getting ready for a wedding she was going to
5 pm to hang out with Emma to dine and get ready for PROM!coming
7 pm leave for PROM!coming out in BFE
7:30 PROM!coming begins

What happened was:

11:15 leave Frances' with the amazing entourage of Mee-Ae, FYN, Emma, and Samantha.  Eat, drink, be merry, girl chat, order something, chat, get a lovely bottle of Malbec (Thank you Courtney for remembering how much I love Malbecs!) head to Emma's.
1:30 pm wander from Emma's, the exceedingly farther than I thought way to Portches for their jewelry sale, bitching and glaring the whole time at Emma for how far she is making me traverse

1:45 pm enter the GLORIOUSLY kept under glass jewelry store of Portches, which is having a 50% off sale, and not at all what I expected and tried not to choke at some of the over 10K tags.  I also made the very wise decision to NOT try on the hand painted enamel piece with gold filigree and custom set diamonds from 1890 that would have looked absolutely like it was made to rest on my collar bones and had a price tag of 14K.


2:30ish leave and walk past the Chocolate Bar and decide it would be quite wise of us to also enter and buy some chocolate to make up for the lack of purchases in the antique jewelers store.


3 pm walk out with Dark Chocolate & Ginger Twig/Lime & Ginger Hard Vanilla Twig (these have yet to be devoured)


3: 15 pm enter PieHole for some pizza.  Flirt shamelessly with gorgeous singer from Finn Riggins who I don't know is married until we leave with our hot slices of pizza for the LONG Trek back to Emma's.

3:45 pm leave Emma's with Frances to prep her wedding attire

4:30 pm arrive back at Emma's with PROM!coming gear and the intention to FINALLY make it to Art in the Bar.  Another long trek.


5 pm enter Art in the Bar IV and visit with friend Anica, whose manga style work I love and who made me aware of the event in the first place. 

We see amazing lego treasure boxes complete with sneaky hiding holes and hundreds of dollars in work. 
Beautiful photography from Wayne at Dead Bird Gallery.  My favourite is the dead fly.  Emma got a great necklace at 50% from him. Why? Because she's hot and batted her eyelashes.
There was this piece that I like from Manuela Muminovic:

 

There is Connie Sales, and her art is deep and saddening and beautiful. And lots and lots of other amazing pieces.

We lingered here.. much longer than I intended and entered in an apropos text conversation which also was of the lingering type.

Emma walked back to her place for cash to purchase her necklace.  I sat and talked with Anica and enjoyed a beer.  Emma and I discussed the wisdom of perhaps getting dinner before heading to PROM!coming.  We decided it would be good.  Plus, we were enjoying the lingering.  Or I was, maybe not so much Emma.

But realizing the clock we decided skipping food would be wise so we could dress.

And finally at 7:15 pm we make it back to Emma's to prep our lovely selves for the prom. 

It is after 8 pm when Emma finally mentions how late it is and we are DEFINITELY late and am I going to be okay (you see, she's seen the anxiousness in action before and we were invited to come over EARLIER and now we were later and usually my head has exploded at this point).

And we arrived and then the party really got started.  God, I needed the dancing.  And soooo many great songs that were actually played at our high school dances.. and here are just a few of my favourite pictures from the night.

 

 

And then we headed down town because there were MORE EVENTS.. like the leftover evening of that wedding Frances went to and then an old friend from college was having a birthday party and we had to stop in and even though I was done drinking for the evening a certain person who shall remain nameless except for the new title of "Scrumy" ordered us whiskey shots and beer.  Yes, the look of incredulity on my face (I had just consumed almost an entire bottle of alcohol by myself at PROM!coming) was enough that a few people made note of it and then I put on my big girl panties and drank it all anyway.

And the next morning we had brunch and you know my anxiety didn't return until I realized I was going to only just be on time to pick up Aurora and would not at all be able to shower or stop at the grocery  or any of the other things I had on my schedule to do that Sunday.