The Cheese Stands Alone

    

  It is not a happy morning, it's alternate side parking and I'm walking into a funeral.  Parking was a bitch because each of the row houses in this neighborhood has a homemade curb cut and yellow lines, leaving the whole side street looking like a peed on candy cane.  Because I won't spring for the knit hats with the mink pom-pom, I walk a little slumped over in my single rat pom.   I think I am a social person....until I have to interact with others.
     For instance, I'll make my way in, I am a few minutes late and the speeches have already begun, I try to find an open seat and sit.  Someone walks in behind me, makes her way strait to the front row, kisses and hugs each of the mourners, and is grasped tightly by each person in full appreciation for her words of comfort.  WHY COULDN'T I DO THAT?
    Later on, I go in for a consoling hug, I feel a pullback.  I think it's because she want to greet the next person in line, so I immediately back away-as she closes in to give me a kiss on the cheek.  Every intimate, emotional moment is like a first date with the botched good night kiss at the front door.  I walk away beet-faced, as if I just walked out of a sauna.
     Joe tries to facilitate at weddings, pushing me through the crowd, because he is a natural at working a room.  What he doesn't feel is my pounding heart.  The impact of his hand pushing up against my back, and parting through those who are more comfortably cordial than I.   I am the virgin being thrust toward the center of a smoldering volcanic crater.  Why am I being sacrificed?
     I am not a hi-howya-doing whirl wind.  I will never win a competition at a meet and greet for most outgoing.  But I'm no wallflower either.  I don't know when to do the cut in the break away the smile for the camera or the disappear into the background.  However, I can execute the funny anecdote, or on a more serious note flawlessly.  

"Congratulations to a beautiful couple."

        My absolute worst faux pas' include:
a)  Mouth full of food when the photographer makes his way around.
b)  Pulling up the strapless bra while dancing in the middle with the bride and groom.
c)  The videographer's light blinding me as I try to sound witty, grateful, and sincere while holding a microphone that makes me feel like Bob Barker.
  I'm horrible at double dutch.  I can not for the life of me do the jump-in when two people are engaged in a conversation.  What if it's a sensitive issue or top secret business information?  Every time I enter an affair, while Joe insists on fetching me a drink (and returns an hour later), I'm reliving recess in 5th grade waiting to jump into a spinning jump rope.  My hands are cupped and over my head, trying to get the timing strait so that I don't mess with the rhythm.  The craft I've so proudly mastered in grade school now puts me to shame.  I can not invade, so I evade, I swim around like a shark, do a few laps to see if the chat has died down...and then go in for the kill.
      Time has taught me that I can jump at my own pace.  I've always been more of a people watcher than an entertainer.  I don't have to be pushed up against the wall (or center stage) to speak.  I just need to be myself. Once  I welcome the fact that I am not the Ringmaster at a party, then maybe  I can relax and enjoy the circus.