breakthesky.neti'll break the sky, for you and i are going nowhere.

In my immediate circle of friends, there is one person that has a tendency to invite herself to whatever events/happenings we have planned. In a group of friends as big as mine, there is a natural tendency for factions of the group to plan smaller things (dinner, shopping, etc) for those who they are closest with in the group rather than for all the friends. Everyone knows that the bigger the group is the more difficult it is to plan something that everyone wants to do, so we hang out in our smaller “factions” for the most part. This person, however, just doesn’t quite get that and tends to show up at any given time unannounced, unexpected, and sometimes unwanted.

In terms of family, I have an extended family member who has a habit of inviting himself to outings my immediate family plans, such as going out to the movies or dinner. It doesn’t even have to be a formally planned outing; he’s often come over just to hang out and watch TV or eat a home-cooked meal (my mother is a great cook). I know he’s family, but I still find it a little weird that he’ll just invite himself to come over, particularly if there’s nothing planned. It’s not like my family is an exciting host as more often than not each of us are preoccupied with our own agendas and can’t afford to divert attention to guests!

I’ve always been particularly cautious of inviting myself to events/places because I know I’m not always happy to see others who have invited themselves. It places everyone in an awkward situation: the people who didn’t invite the person, and the person who might not be welcome but still showed up anyway. And even though I’ve had somewhat uncomfortable encounters with people who just show up and assume I will be flattered with their presence, I still have yet to find a strategy to handle that type of situation. I’ve no issue on calling out people on misjudgments, but I know the people I am with do have problems with doing that so a much subtler, more low-key way of handling it is needed.

Question of the Week: How do you handle people that have invited themselves to an event? Do you think that it is appropriate for one to do so, or does it make you feel uncomfortable?

My brother is taking the SATs for the first time today, so I baked these chocolate chip cookies for him as my way of saying good luck. How many other big sisters do you know that perform such acts of kindness for their younger brother?

I know he will do fine; in fact, I’m pretty sure he’ll get a higher score than I did on my SATs (his ACT scores are already higher than mine were!). Still, I wanted to do a little extra something for him as my way of wishing him luck. It was either bake him his favorite cookies or get up at the crack of dawn to wish him luck when he left to take the test. I might be an awesome big sister, but I’m not willing to forgo sleep in my pursuit of sisterly awesomeness!

To mark my regained mobility following my recent knee issues¹, I drove my mother around to run errands. I know, I know. Driving doesn’t require mobility in the knees because the driver just sits behind the wheel, but I was able to get out of bed and into the car, which is no small victory. Besides, I like driving every chance I get when I’m home as I don’t have a car at school.

Anyway. I put on one of my CD mixes to listen to when driving as I never listen to the crap that’s on the radio. One of the songs on the CD was The Bird and the Bee’s “Fucking Boyfriend.” It’s not a foul-mouthed song despite the title, but the words “fucking boyfriend” are repeated throughout the chorus. I didn’t bank on my mother noticing what the lyrics to the song were as she usually doesn’t pay enough attention to whatever music plays in the car. Unfortunately, that seems to be no longer the case.

My mom: Is the girl swearing in this song?
Me: Uh… yes. Yes, she is.
My mom: Why do you listen to songs with swear words in them?
Me: Um. Uh. Well. It’s a good song?
My mom: But why does the singer feel the need to swear in the song?
Me: To express herself, I guess.
My mom: Do you feel the need to swear to express yourself?!
Me: …I’d really rather not have this conversation.

I’m pretty sure that my brother plays Blink-182 in the car whenever he drives it. I’m not really familiar with Blink-182’s stuff, but something tells me that their songs have more foul language than songs by The Bird and the Bee…

Are you working up to something? / But you give me almost nothing
Keep me helpless / Up to something on my knees
Would you ever be my / Would you be my fucking boyfriend?
Would you ever be my / Would you be my fucking boyfriend? ♪♫

1. My knee is far from perfect, but most of the time I can get it to cooperate so I can move around. Minus the times where I wake up in the night because I jerked my knee and the pain was so great that I woke up screaming, that is. Basically, it’s still pretty touch-and-go right now. [↩]