You'll Have to Eat Your Lunch All by Yourself

One time, when my sister was about four or five, we went for a hike. She really had to go potty, badly, and absolutely could not wait, so my Mom took her a few feet away from the trail and helped her go outdoor style. Things were going pretty smoothly until a party of about ten hikers passed us and Dee gave em a little more bum than they had expected to see that day - or as I like to call it, a Brown Family Hello.

I'm traveling down memory lane because I'm being more sociable, or at least trying to be, and I'm feeling a little bit exposed.

I am having a gathering, if you will, in a couple of weeks, with some awesome people I met on the Apron Stage. Yeah, that's right, I'm meeting people at a park that I have never met except on the Internet. And I'm bringing a plate of brownies, and a spoon.

Oh yeah, I'm exposed.

I turn 30 on the 30th. I had a plan, 30 days until 30. I would do something fun every day until I turned 30 with a friend or acquaintance and just generally party it on up. Then I realized, in order to do that I would run the very real risk of finding that I just do not have that many friends. I'm pretty sure I do, but my ego can't handle 30 days of realizing people feel pretty ambivalent toward me and now my twenties are over.

Here's the problem, like my sister, I have needs, hers was to go number one, and mine is to be loved! The problem is that in order to fulfill those needs some exposure, vulnerability, has to take place. I just cannot trust that that will not be the moment when a party of people come traipsing by and laugh.