I am not, by far, Emily Post. I don't follow etiquette protocols to the T and I'm fine with that. I do, however, follow it more than others. Way more than others actually and unfortunately it's not always seen as a good thing.

I have a friend who more than once flaked out at the last minute. She will RSVP yes to something and will wait until the last minute to notify me that she is unable to make, like our party last weekend. It was not a sit down dinner so the fact that she couldn't come was fine. What bothered me was the excuse why she couldn't come and the fact that it came via text message 23 minutes before the party start time. Not that she had to be there right at 7pm but still. A friend mysteriously shows up in town and mysteriously has tickets to the basketball game and mysteriously made plans to meet other mysterious friends downtown after the game. Please, spare me!

Another one of my friends was invited to spend Thanksgiving with some relatives who he is not too close with but since he lives far away from his parents, these relatives often invite him to functions and such. He supposedly told them that he would more than likely go to their place for Thanksgiving but he would call to confirm. It’s Wednesday before Turkey Day and no call has been made yet. When I asked him about it he said he no longer wants to go there because some of his friends are having a party. Yet, no call has been made.

These are just two very recent examples that bothered me. Not to mention people that RSVP yes and are “no call no show” or people that don’t even bother RSVPing.

I had a situation once where a friend was coming for Thanksgiving dinner. The morning of Turkey Day, she calls me to say that her husband is coming too. Mind you that space was limited at my previous home. Of course I said “that’s fine” but I said something along the lines of “I wish you would have given me more time.” Anyway, I moved the tables around, changed the glasses, added a place setting, all set. I get a call from her around 3pm (3 hours before showtime) saying that they were no longer coming to dinner. Did I mention that she was responsible for bringing wine to dinner? We had a VERY limited supply of wine that Thanksgiving because 7-11 didn’t carry wine (or didn’t have any) and the grocery store was already closed.

I invited people from work for my last 4th of July bbq. I had 3 no, 1 yes who did not show up and 3 no responses. How can you say yes and not show up? Not even bother calling! And the people that did not respond?? I don’t get it! One of those who did not respond still hasn’t sent a “thank you” note for the wedding gift I gave him last December.

Anyway, like I said, I’m not Emily Post. There are 3 weddings that I did not go to and still owe them a gift. But at least I RSVPed accordingly…

A while back I saw some show on TV about dreams. I don’t remember the whole show but one thing that I never forgot (and it’s quite obvious when you think about it) is that your dreams normally incorporate things that you did/saw/thought of during the day.

Isn’t it obvious? Well, I never thought of it and now I can’t stop analyzing my dreams. I have been having dreams rich in details lately and I try to analyze the most memorable parts of the dream. For the most part I can connect the pieces but there are times that I just can’t seem to figure it out. Sometimes, it will annoy the crap out of me as to why I dreamt that if I can’t make the connection.

Anyway, like I mentioned before, I have been “dreaming a lot” lately and always complicated plots and with deep feelings. I have started talking in my dreams too, which is never a good thing. At any rate, during my most recent “talkie” I kept saying “Fuck You! Fuck You!” which woke Seth up. He woke me up and I was clearly disturbed. I still remember the dream and why I dreamt it. It wasn’t so much of the “Fuck You! Fuck You!” and who I was saying to, it was more the feeling of frustration I had earlier that evening.

I guess what prompted me to write this is because I still haven’t figured out last night’s dream. The place is somewhere I’ve been before, in a situation that I have been in before but yet the players are different this time and they don’t really go with that place. I can, somewhat, connect the feeling but not the situation or place. I’ll have to file this one in my unsolved mysteries files.

I wonder if someday, I will see some of the places I see in my dreams. Whether it’s a street, a house, or a parking garage, I wish that when I see this place, I remember that it was in my dreams. This will prove that our dreams are way more prophetic than we think….

Probability is a factor of our lives. There’s a probability that we’ll wake up late one morning. A probability that we’ll get stuck in traffic. A probability that we’ll trip on the steps. A probability that we’ll burn our tongue with soup. A probability that we’ll get dumped. A probability that we’ll get fired. A probability for everything!
And although we accept that it’s something imbedded in our daily grind, we can’t help but to think “What If...”

What if I hadn’t hit the snooze button 3 times? What if I had taken the side streets instead of the highway? What if I had climbed the steps slowly? What if I had waited for the soup to cool off. What if I had been nicer to my mate? What if I had worked harder?

Sometimes the answer is simple but sometimes it’s not. I am not sure how others feel but there are times that I would give my kingdom to see the other side, the “what if” world.
The world where my parents hadn’t gotten divorced. The world where I hadn’t moved to the US. The world where I had dated girls in high school. The world where I would have worked harder in high school to get into a college right off the bat. The world where I hadn’t met some of my closest friends. The world where I came to Disney in 2001 not 2002. The world where I went back to Texas instead of staying in Florida. The world where I had stayed at Disney instead of coming to UCF. The world where I hadn’t made a series of poor decisions that led to major troubles in my relationship. And the list goes on and on and on and on.

Some people accept that things are the way they are due to the choices we made in the past. Some people live in the past and can’t accept the present the way it is and suffer immensely. And then there are others, like myself, who dream about the “what ifs”. Practical? It is not! Beneficial? Definitely not! Then why the hell do we do this? Is it simply my curious nature? Or am I on the borderline of not accepting the present the way it is? I would like to think it’s my inquisitive nature traveling away on a quest for “knowledge” of something that did not happen. The probability that things could have been different than they were, whether good or bad, happy or sad.