On Traveling- Holiday '10 PART TROIS!

Here, at last (at long, long, 3-major-cities-in-as-many-weeks long last) is the final installment of the "On Traveling- Holiday '10" series (in case you are just joining us, you might want to check out the first two- on being in a hotel and Things you Must Pack). (Also, please notice that I knew how to and did spell "trois" correctly, and thus I do know how to spell in french)

I must admit, however, this final installment has actually morphed quite a bit from it's original topic. Originally, I was going to talk about relatives- and to be honest, I still feel that relatives and the ettiquette surrounding them and how to manage/navigate amongst their broods and dwelling-spaces will make an excellent post (holiday '11????), but as I was holiday-ing, something even more important made itself painfully relevant (no, seriously, I actually felt pretty awful learning this lesson- not like 'get out of the way, Aunt Margie, I'm going to up-chuck' bad, but like 'my insides are making a sad panda face really really hard' bad).

So what, you ask, is the topic? The topic is:


'Time Management'

with a subheading of 'How I almost over-scheduled myself into trouble.'

The holidays are a time of joy and cheer and catching up with old friends. When traveling, there is hardly a more delightful experience than catching up with a dear old friend over a drink, or drinks, or dinner and drinks. You find out about their life, you get to talk about yours (and, of course, highlight the Awesome things that have happened to you since last you saw each other- don't worry, they are doing it, too) and share in giddy reminiscences of ye olden days past.

Now, as with an ever-lengthening list of things, it is of the upmost importance to remember that moderation is key. Let me say that again, as it's own paragraph for emphasis:

Moderation is key.

Now to put this in context, a bit of background: All of the traveling I did this holiday season was with The Date. He is (among many of his charming features) an excellent traveller, and more importantly, incredibly game when it comes to meeting my many friends and family members. As we were planning our holiday schedule, I asked him "The Date, is it ok if we meet up with a few of my friends while we are in ________(fill in city of choice)?" and he would say "Of course! Let's do it." and then I would get super excited about seeing said friends and even more excited for said friends to meet The Date, because, let's face it, he's Awesome and if someone is a friend of mine, they have to be Awesome too, so it will be like a whole mini-Awesome convention, what with all that Awesomeness in one place.

And it was so. We met up with quite a few of my Awesome friends. And The Date seemed to be enjoying himself. But appearances can be decieving, and at a certain point, The Date pulled me aside and reminded me that, while a short trip down memory lane was fine and to be expected, a long, multi-city voyage by horse-drawn carriage and/or on foot was not exactly a trip he would book. What could he contribute? He was feeling (entirely rightly) a touch left out.

(I would like to stress at this point that any persons who may have met The Date this holiday season should not be alarmed or concerned. He says he enjoyed everyone that he met.)

I was stunned. I was flabbergasted. How could I have been so blind? So insensitive? So Rude? Needless to say, I was appalled at my own behavior.

There is a theory that some of you (hell, all of you, being the readers of Intelligence and Taste that you are) may have heard of and it is called the Pendulum Theory. It states that if a certain cultural attitude/idea/what-have-you swings too far in one particular direction, it will inevitably swing back the other direction and counter the original attitude/idea/etc. I believe in the Pendulum Theory. Not only do I believe it, but I happen to be a fantastic case study in it. And when The Date let me know that he didn't find my 2-hour conversation about previous employments simply and exhaustively fascinating, well bet your ass, I pendulumed back.

Now, as we all know, the Pendulum Theory isn't actually that teriffic in practice. You get lots of extremes, but not much in the Center (where Moderation lives his lovely little well-balanced life). Anyone who follows politics surely knows the insanity of wildly swinging from Far Left to Far Right (or as I like to call it, the goings-on of the US Senate). And thus it was with me. Trying to correct my most egregious faux pas, I then became excessively concerned with The Date's level of enjoyment of a given activity, checking every five minutes or so that he was having a good time- and thereby irritating him by checking in constantly.

In summation, my lack of moderation lead to hot mess of insecurity for me. Had I practiced a bit more Time Management, however, and limited some of the events to shorter intervals (and my own conversation about other non-present old friends), the whole mess could have been avoided.