SPONTANEITY CONTINUES

The summer of spontaneity continues.

It has long been known that I hate to make plans ahead of time.  The longer I have to think about plans, the longer I have to regret making those plans, devising ways to cancel my involvement.  "Uh... my liver exploded.  Ummmm, my pet fish died.  Errrr, I have to water all the plants.  Geeeee, I've suddenly developed a migraine that will only last as long as this phone call."  I don't mean to do it; it just happens.  Everything sounds like such a great idea -- at the time.  Then, when the time arrives, it's not so special anymore.  People are wonderful; plans, not so much.


Therefore it's far more likely that I will interact with people and do fun things if you totally approach me at the last possible moment.  Go to lunch?  Ask me at 11:50 a.m.  Drive past your old home?  Ask me while we're in the car on the wrong side of the state.  Meet you at a bar for a drink?  Text me while I'm getting ready to turn in for the night.  Impromptu history scavenger hunt?  I'm in if you ask me five minutes before you actually want to go.  Drive 45 miles to meet new people right this second?  Call me and invite me; I'll probably show up.

But, buy tickets to an event that's happening a few weeks or even a few months in the future?  I'll do it, but I'll twitch and get hives and start hyperventilating as it approaches.  It doesn't mean that I don't love you or the event; I simply don't like to be locked in by my own schedule.  It's a quirk; please don't take it personally.

The conundrum is that my friends tell me I am the most active person they know.  "You're always on the go!"  This is true.  I don't try to do just one thing when I'm out; I make a mental or even a real list, and I check off things as I go.  This is why I cannot tolerate people who dawdle.  If I'm in a museum, I look, I see, I read, and I move on.  Go, go, go!  If I'm someplace new, I want to go somewhere or do something and take in as much of it all as I can possible stuff into the time and energy that I have. 

When I traveled for my kids' sports, I got to see all kinds of things just from making sure I had a to-do list.  I got to see signed documents from the Revolutionary War in Connecticut.  I visited Washington Irving's grave and the locations for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" when out near Tarrytown.  I went to the most excellent flight museum, The Cradle of Aviation, on Long Island.  I got to have lunch with a cousin I'd never met before when I went to Vermont. I touched the Liberty Bell before some yahoo hit it with a hammer so that no one can ever touch it again.  All of this stuff happened pretty spontaneously.

Kind of silly that I work in a job that requires me to make short-term and long-term plans, and that I already know my working days, my days off, my professional development days, my required evenings, my conference days, etc., for the next eleven months.  Talk about long-range scheduling.  I even know already that on Wednesday, June 13, 2018, I will be in the control booth of the performing arts center from 8:00 a.m. until 10:00 a.m. running a movie for the entire seventh grade (and that my team leader will be walking the cat walk above the students because it's what he likes to do for entertainment).

Perhaps this is why I enjoy spontaneous activities in my personal life: I am simply rebelling against the strict structure of my professional life.  Or, it could be that I'm just a last-minute kind of gal.  You have a ticket to a concert in three months?  Don't ask me.  Your date cancels at the last minute for a concert?  Well, kid, CALL ME.  I'm your girl.