crap at social activities

We went to a kiddie party yesterday evening, and I realized again how completely crap I am at talking to people without a desk between us. In the midst of guitar music and clinking beers, I feel like a boring, mushy, dull thing. The young farmers laughed and talked about clearing land, breeding goats, making kava, cooking with edible flowers, and I just had the ERMAGERD CLERP CLERPS horse in my head, not helping at all. Bounced on the trampoline and laid on lounge chairs, instead. Leif found an enormous ball, and we pelted each other in the head for the better part of an hour, until the herd of children roared through, got in a dog pile on the trampoline, gave someone a bloody nose, and buffalo-stampeded back toward the food table. I was fine until they relocated to the barn for party games, where the bigger kids started riding bikes through the crowd and mowing down the littles. After a bit of ineffectual flailing, I went outside to wait in the dark with the barn cat, who had similar feelings about the mob scene inside.

Despite my personal fail, it was a really lovely evening with ridiculously lovely people. And chicken wings. Lovely, lovely chicken wings.