Moving the water-cooler.

I was at dinner with a friend on Tuesday night, election night. And she was dispirited by how little she’d gotten to talk with anyone about the election, the issues, what’s going on in our area. That it’s just not the water-cooler chatter that's around her. That there’s a part of her intelligence that doesn’t feel fueled and fed in the current iteration of her life.

I replied that I knew precisely how she felt. That there are conversations I don’t have any more on an intellectual level, not just by being out of school, but by being out of the groups who talk about topics that make me think (beyond the emotionally intelligent conversations I can have until the sun burns out).

I told her there was an informal dinner a friend from grad school hosts every Wednesday, and how for 2 years now, I continue to get his weekly invitations. I haven’t gone once.

Well, that’s not true. I went once, with an ex, and he felt awkward, so it was awkward, and we left. But I have a feeling that dinner’s one source of the higher conversations I want to have.

Meanwhile, this morning I get a text from a friend saying it’s her annual birthday party this Saturday. She’s the founder of a non-profit that provides medical birthing supplies to women in Africa, and has visited more times than I can count. I can see from my text history that she invited me last year, and the year before, and I still haven’t gone.

My friend at dinner on Tuesday night challenged me to accept an invitation to events like these. To go, to meet, to talk, to learn, to be sparked. To see if there’s a level of conversation I can have beyond my normal scope.

I haven’t wanted to go alone. But that’s usually the best way to meet people. And so, today, this morning, I replied that I would be at my friend's birthday party this weekend.

I can’t attend the Wednesday dinners at the moment because of rehearsal, but I promised my Tuesday friend I would go after they finish.

It’s not that these opportunities aren’t available. It’s that I’m scared to go. Scared I can't keep up. That I don't know enough. My Tuesday friend told me we both know enough to have *some* kind of a conversation about anything, and she's right. 

There are science lectures I want to attend at Cal. I have wanted to sit in on classes there for a long time. Maybe it’s different from a party that’s social, and I’ll want to bring a wingman, someone to discuss it with afterward or -- and here's my real desire -- I'll meet people there who will want to grab tea afterward and discuss it, our own little study group of lecture-junkies.

I’ve written before about wanting to seek out conversations and friends and classes that will again spark the kind of thinking I miss so terribly; that in the absence of such conversation, I begin to feel stagnant and short of my potential. I know I’ve hemmed and lamented about it before, but maybe, with this one Yes for this weekend, I’m changing the direction of my action.