I was THRILLED to learn the other day that my friend A had gotten engaged.

She is one of those people you can swear by: When she was one of my bridesmaids, she even shaved her underarms for me.

Shall I explain that? Perhaps I’d better.

I’d given my bridesmaids a range of tops to choose from, but they were all sleeveless, and she does not usually bother with the shaving. I’m all for everybody doing with their body hair whatever suits their fancy, and I wasn’t going to even bring it up, but I did have a small-to-medium fret thinking about the mutterings this sort of hippiesh behavior would provoke among the considerable number of conservatives amid the guests. Well, anyway, without a single word from me, A showed up for her fitting cleanshaven, and that, my friends, is a measure of a good friend!

So, right, A emailed me that she was just proposed to by her long-term partner, and it reminded me of one of my favorite social blunders.

Here goes:

We’d made plans to go catch a movie; I’m not even sure what anymore, but I told her I’d stop by and pick her up.

When I walked in, another person was there and they were in the midst of wrapping up their time together. I was briefly introduced to Friend and said hello. If I had any social awareness at all, I could have perhaps picked up on an unusually charged atmosphere. But alas, I do not.

A said she’d run Friend home quickly and come right back.

I asked where Friend lived. It was on the way to the movie theater.

(Painful social cluelessness reaching boiling point here.)

I said, “Oh, don’t be silly, *I* would be happy to make the detour on our way to the movie theater.”

A demurred.

I assumed that she was just being unusually adamant about not putting me out or using my gas, and insisted, “No, really, it’s NO PROBLEM!”

A and Friend were, at this point, probably seething, but I chattered blithely on and bundled Friend into the back seat of my two-door Tercel.

Argh!

And made A sit up front with me!

Argh!

I continued to chatter blithely for the entire car ride, “Oh, where are you from, where do you work, blah blah blah…”

(If I didn’t already have a monster sinus headache today, this would be where my head caves in under the strain of the remembered cluelessness.)

It is when we pulled up to Friend’s house, and A LEAPT from the car and walked Friend to the door, that the penny finally dropped for me.

I spent about 5 minutes searching for imaginary lint on the floor while they had what was presumably the usual awkward first date goodbyes, which had now been compounded by a flashback to teenagerdom and the embarrassing presence of Mom witnessing your every move.

Which is all a very long-winded way of saying, Congratulations!

… it comes out teal on the other end.

I’ve decided to revamp my site and in so doing, create something a little less rinkydink. I am actually using blog-friendly software, as opposed to patching together a rough approximation of what a blog looks like through Dreamweaver, spit, and swearwords.

On the upside: nifty tools to help organize this puppy, allow me to post all sorts of nifty links, and the ability for you, my four faithful readers, to sign up for rss feeds that will tell you when I have updated, as well as comment on the words I throw around on here.

The downside? I have not yet figured out how to make it pretty and am operating with a VERY boring template. This may take me a while. I’m also not completely sure how I’m going to get photos up yet; we’ll see if what I just tried works or if the whole thing goes kerflooey.

I’m working on it, more tonight.

Below: Eliza reads the Classics.
Jim and one of his friends have this habit of sending each other bad celebrity bios for their birthdays, and the other day, Eliza pulled this one, by Joe Eszterhas (he of Showgirls fame), down from the shelf.