Hi, how ya doin'?

I guess it takes getting mentioned in someone's blog (which, by the way, is a first for me and I'm all atwitter) to motivate me to update my own.

This Sunday, Lisa, Cooper and I walked around Green Lake with Mona, Mike, and their son Nathan. Lisa met Mona through their mother's group. I met them before at a party thrown by one of the other group moms (Nathan was decked out in a sports coat, which on an infant is totally cute), but I really didn't have a chance to do more than exchange pleasantries. So yesterday was sort of the "official" first time out with them

I'm awkward when it comes to meeting people. I figure its an only child thing. I'm known to joke that it's because I dislike people, but in reality it's more likely that I'm afraid people will dislike me. As a result of this terminal neurosis, I find myself constantly evaluating my performance when going out with others for the first time.

Mona and Mike are both intelligent, friendly, and funny people. In fact, I know a lot about them (as a voyeur) from reading Mona's fantastic blog, hello insomnia. But when we hooked up yesterday I found myself critiquing pauses in the conversation (is it the lovely scenery preoccupying our thoughts, or am I so boring that I can contribute nothing to this discussion?), and discovered that I say, "that's awesome" waaaay too damn much. In fact, I hate that expression as much as the term "dude," both of which I started using ironically, but now have become regular parts of my vocabulary. I imagine I come off like as an old man trying to be hip and cool like the kids, twenty years ago. I'm also quite sure I said at least one thing that sounded insensitive or insulting, for which I'm sorry.

Freakish paranoia aside, I had a really good time and hope that we'll be able to connect again in a setting less distracting than a crowded lakeside trail. It's hard to negotiate two strollers and a conversation with four people when without walking into oncoming traffic or wandering into the bike lane and having a passive/ agressive jackass cyclist tell us to move over as he zips by. Those are the people, joking aside, that I actually, truly dislike.