Well, it's neither of those things, actually. What it is is a giant can of worms... like the spring-loaded gag gift kind that someone gave you for your birthday in 1980. It's $19/month to have a Meetup group, and setting it up is a bit of a pain in the rump.
I started the San Francisco Zaftig Chick Social Club. As you may know, Zaftig Chick is my fat pride related internet handle, created in 2003. "Zaftig Chick" is even the name I used in the Craigslist personals section to catch the eye of my now-husband. I realized, after much thought about why GFC wasn't exactly working for me, that to have access to people I want to hang with, aka "my people", I'd need to figure out who my people are. I had the same exact process thought right before I put up that last Women Seeking Men personal ad, the one that worked (while the previous five ads hadn't). My people are, theoretically, like me so I created a Meetup group that I'd want to join.
The Club initially had one member. I might have pouted about that for a minute, thinking no one else wanted to come to my party. But soon enough, many others joined and by the time I went to bed on Saturday night I had 25 members total. I actually woke up in a panic on Sunday morning at 4:30am with the following tickertape running through my head: How in the fuck am I going to come up with enough stuff to do for 25 women???? But, as most of us know, nothing of substance really comes out of a 4:30am anxiety attack so it was nothing but a lot of hand-wringing and tossing and turning. After finally falling back asleep and then waking a few hours later, I felt strongly that I can do this, no worries.
Since then I've cycled between casual confidence and panic. On one hand, it's fun to be the ring leader and come up with fun stuff to do. On the other hand, it feels like a lot of pressure to put together not just a series of events (meetups), but a community. Earlier this week I realized I needed help, and fortunately Meetup has a solution for that. I can and did ask for volunteers to be Event Organizers, those who can plan, post, administer and host meetups without necessarily having me be part of it. So far I have one person who would like to be an Organizer.
Right at this moment I'm in PANIC!! mode. I fully plan to attend and enjoy the two meetups I've scheduled, and any that my other Organizer will schedule, and hopefully those will be so fun that it will propel me forward. Maybe others will come forward and want organize some meetups as well. To be continued...
On a completely different and more positive note, Honey Bunny and I went biking last weekend in Golden Gate Park! See, I had HB's beloved 10-speed bike from the 80's restored for him for his birthday and he was super excited to go out and ride. So much so that he whipped out my beloved mountain bike from the 90's from storage, cleaned it up and got it working again. Give my man a can of WD-40 and he can make pretty much anything work.
In full disclosure, this is the other reason I woke up at 4:30am on Sunday monring -- knowing that Honey Bunny was probably going to pounce out of bed, raring to go on a bike ride in the park where the road is closed on Sundays. The last time I rode a bike was on our honeymoon and let me just say there was a very heavy and unfamiliar rental mountain bike involved, as well as 95 degree beating-down-sun SoCal weather, a shitload of dusty dirt, a couple rattlesnakes, some chafing, and several meltdowns and tears, all capped off by a rather unfortunate fall down the side of a slippery hill. It was not fun, and it felt like the last nail in the coffin where bikes and I were concerned. The thought of not only riding a bike but riding it in front of other people was terrifying.
Except, I'd forgotten about my bike! I have a wonderous Trek 820 that I bought in Arcata with my first credit card when I was 21 years old. I bought it because my friend Shazzer bought one and upon test-riding it, I felt like this:
That bike is... well, the only way to put it is that it's like a razor blade going through cat shit. It's smooth as butter to ride. Lucky, lucky me. The height and frame and feel and gearing of that bike suits me perfectly. I'm sure there are better bikes out there, and certainly all the road bikers I know (including Honey Bunny) would say I'm high on crack to prefer riding a mountain bike on the street but whatever. I. love. it.
Honey Bunny is out of biking shape as well, and to my surprise was also feeling tentative about the Sunday ride. He kept saying, "It'll be fine... we'll just take it one block at a time... we can stop to rest whenever we want!" But you know what? I got on my bike, and it all came back to me, and I rode it like a mo-fo. It was so beautiful riding on a bike next to Honey Bunny on his bike, chatting away as the lovely scenery rolled past. We biked much farther than I ever thought we would, especially first time out. It was fun and I can't wait to do it again! All in all, a perfect purposeful gift for Honey Bunny and a perfect accidental gift for me.
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