sociability index

Progress: last night I went to a dinner party hosted by a friend in which I made more friends. And it'll be a semi-regular thing, because she wants to start up a semi-weekly support group for her friends taking the bar. What a lovely idea. Since I'm not doing anything super stressful this summer (well, other than ongoing dissertation work, which is its own nightmare), I was glad to be invited. And on Sunday I'm going over to a friend's house to watch TV. That's right, watch TV. I no longer will attempt any moral righteousness over not connecting my physical TV, since I watch a lot of TV through Hulu and DVDs, and have now made a TV-date. Not brunch, not hiking, not farmer's market shopping, as is the typical Sunday activity among my kind in these parts, but TV watching. We're also ordering pizza.

Also, tips on how to be a good guest to a stressed-out hostess who's trying to do a nice thing for all of her other stressed-out friends: call in advance and ask if there's any help needed. Come over 40 minutes early and make empanadas and chop vegetables. Stay late and do the dishes. This way your hostess, who's also your very good friend, can fall asleep right away and wake up and study, rather than clean. I wanted to bring something, but I had a lemon bar FAIL. So I brought myself, and a bit of elbow grease. Next week I'm bringing chocolate chip cookies, which would be hard for me to mess up. Not impossible, but hard.