cancer – day 516

I committed two social faux pas tonight, one amusing, and one not so amusing. Wait, no, three. I had three memorable social slips tonight, two probably excusable, one questionable. I am reasonably sure that none of the individuals involved read my blog on anywhere close to a regular basis, so I can probably tell all three stories to amuse (or offend) the rest of the world.

So, faux pas #1. The laugh-out-loud funny one, for anyone who’s kept up with my blog since the beginning. More than a year ago, a year ago June, right before I was starting chemo . . . I was at the CSCMP June Leadership Program, where I gave a presentation on a new project my committee had just put together to help CSCMP roundtables with a program they could substitute in when they had a last-minute speaker emergency. Blah blah blah, subject of my talk not important, except to note that I was a speaker at the Forum. Anyway, people who have read my blog from the beginning will remember the story about the cute guy who asked me for one of my French fries at the airport and I thought he was a weirdo but I stayed polite and then found out that I just hadn’t recognized him. He had attended my session at the Forum, he had introduced himself to me the day before, and, here’s the most embarrassing part . . . he works for my company. [rolling eyes] Awesomely embarrassing story. That was early June 2008, right after surgery, right before I started chemo.

So, fast forward to tonight. I’m on my way out from the evening reception, and there’s this guy making eye contact with me as he is heading toward me through the crowd. I give him my professional conference hello nod&smile and keep going on my path through the crowd generally towards the exit. The guy keeps staring me directly in the eye (a bit unusual, except when it’s someone you know, you know?) and he has to actually stop me in the crowd to say hello and say good to see you, it’s been quite a while sort of thing. At first I can’t see him name badge, and I have to be totally obvious about reading it in order to see it. And? Well, as you can surmise from this story’s intro, it was the guy from the airport, who works for the same company I do. [roll eyes while blushing] Am I an idiot or what? But he was completely good-natured about it and we had a good laugh and then we ended up hanging out for a half-hour or so and having a really engaging, fun, interesting conversation (granted, this is during my second glass of wine, my limit, when I tend to be more talkative and laugh more than usual).

So, faux pas #2. The questionable one. While hanging out with the “airport guy,” someone basically walks up to us to read my name badge and then starts conversation. Common for me at this conference really, but a bit annoying when I’m having a good last conversation before sneaking out. While this other uninteresting unmemorable guy is “networking” with us, someone else walks by. A guy whose story never made my blog because the big drama of it happened before my cancer diagnosis. Anyway, to avoid naming names, all I’m going to say is that the “walking-by” guy is one who is very powerful in his organization and well-recognized in CSCMP, not someone you want to offend, and who unfortunately made an obscene pass at me the last time I saw him before being diagnosed with cancer (to the point that I pretended to be drunk, too drunk to be responsive, so he would let me escape, and then he insisted on escorting me to my room and then my key didn’t work and I had to go to the desk for a new key with him hanging by the elevator to take me back up while I’m actually completely sober and planning my escape in to my room with minimal contact, which I did achieve) and this guy has been overly flirtatious ever since. But he’s an important influential person, I haven’t talked to him one-on-one all conference, my fun and interesting conversation has just been accosted by someone randomly networking, and I’m on my second glass of wine (just finished, at this point). So as “walking-by” guy walks by and sees me, I touch his arm and give him a smile. He stops (I wasn’t really expecting that) and, it being about five minutes before the reception is over, he pulls out a pile of drink tickets and asks me if he can refill my wine glass. I snatch the opportunity to escape the unfortunately boring random networker, and go with walking-by guy to the bar to get my third (beyond my limit) glass of red wine. We had hugged and made a few comments about how good it was that I could come to conference again after missing last year during chemo, and he very kindly and concernedly asking how I’m feeling, and then we’re at the bartender, and walking-by guy says “a glass of Cabernet for my . . . wife . . . if you please, sir.” Very cute and lighthearted, honestly. But what comes out of my mouth? I’m ashamed to admit it, but you can probably guess given the foreshadowing and my two glasses of wine . . . “I’m not is wife . . . I’m his mistress!” Which the bartender didn’t even hear, but walking-by guy REALLY liked hearing as he slid his arm around my waist a bit too provocatively. Crap. Now next event I’ll probably have to back-wheedle out of another messy inappropriate near-molestation because I made this stupid remark tonight. But, we parted company a few seconds later, so, I’ll deal with it when it comes up, cross that bridge when I get to it. Tonight, I escaped.

So, faux pas #3. This one is completely understandable to anyone who followed my blog all the way though and knows how I deal with pain and how much I try to keep a positive face to people but quickly bow out given a reasonable excuse when possible to save the effort of trying to hide tears of pain for social interaction. A very, VERY old friend of mine, dear to me as family, wanted to have dinner after the reception tonight, we planned it practically the first moment I saw him when I arrived at the conference. But tonight when he mentioned on the phone that we would be going with some other people too, which is a completely cool and usually very fun thing for me, I bowed out and told him that I’d really rather just rest in my room and skip dinner without shoes on so I can walk tomorrow, but then he felt terrible because he thought I was bowing out because of the other person he’d invited to dinner. Which is completely untrue, I am literally just letting tears of pain flow down my face as I type this, and as soon as it’s done I’m taking a bubble bath with my feet sticking out, doing a bit of a crossword puzzle, and going to bed, while most everyone else is still out to dinner. I was so completely relieved that he still had someone to have dinner with if I stayed in my room resting, that it just kind of blurted out of me right after he told me who the other person was joining us. And then I felt bad for making him feel bad . . . oy vey. But this little faux pas I can clear up in the morning over coffee/tea.

The moral of the story? Cynthia cannot network standing on neuropathy feet drinking wine for an hour. 😉 I think we all probably already knew that, which is in an amusing way what makes my little goofs worth the storytelling. 😉

Time for bubbles and crosswords, which usually distracts my mind to relax for bed. Maybe I won’t have modeling or data nightmares tonight, that would be nice.