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Been chill enough recently to freeze a moose standing up.

On learning of this, aspiring survivalists began honing their sneak-up skills. When exposed some admitted their cheat while others held theirs was harmless deception. You can almost see how they’d voted. 

Those knowing me are aware, sometimes bitterly so, that having me at a party reflects joy as might be found with a skunk nailed to a corpse.

I’m not a partyer, and yet my first recollection of a party (birthday) is pleasant enough. There was cake, chocolate. I was happy.

Push a decade deeper to a party invitation as a teen. I was there because a girl told me she was my date. I went in hope of cake, of which there was none. Explanation is needed.

An early teen party could trigger any number of images for readers. But (now get you ready) how many readers will connect first-time boy-girl teen partying with a taffy pull?
Lost most of you, haven’t I.

Taffy pull sounds like something should belong say, 1850. Despite appearance and odors, I’m not that old. Although my entry into teen partying was, indeed a taffy pull (some may need to research that) I have no practical knowledge of taffy production, certainly none from that experience where our supposed taffy (I had not idea what was going on) turned into brittle-hard glasslike material.

Of course, I ate the stuff, Age 14, I regarded sugar in the way of a logger. I ate anything sugared same as loggers ate sawdust if whiskey soaked.

Apparently, I had enough “fun” (devilishly difficult term) to understand the need (might be requirement) to invite my date for a second go.

Considering I’d gained and learned nothing from the first attempt, might as well go again. A school dance provided a larger crowd of confused persons with which to mingle, meaning sweat amongst.
Having scant idea what was going on proved less bothersome than a condition of pervasive, unsuccessful horniness, several hours of that proved exhausting to the point of staggering stupidity. Well at least I was at home with that condition.

Now here’s the (from me, what else) off bit. Coinciding with the debilitating exercises of social dating (dances and parties), I flung into another sort of partying, political. I say flung as roughly accurate because by age 10 plus five I’d broken three major bones. The first in a car accident is not to my credit, as are the other two breaks exemplifying what a worried mother saw as a habit of horrifying impetuousness. I did not agree, but none-the-less lumbered along in casts, which mother (not eager as I to see them off) saw as devices that checked my impulses.

True enough. Leg or arm weighted in plaster slowed running into grief. Slowed did not prevent.
Reaching an entire decade of life experience (I don’t see the first five of my years having much political consequence) I was ready for politics, a form of party that was, frankly, a lot less burden on the nerves and psyche.

Confronting my immediate society and sex was a lot more difficult and draining than saying yay to progress and other forms of societal goodness and improvement I could support and advance from a comfy distance.

Being part of (even by distant affiliation) a political party was a way to be in without entanglement, at least not the kind of clamminess associated, say, in hand holding, dance and determining when and where to move a hand in a movie theatre. “Got it! – Oh, that’s an elbow.”

I doubt I was alone in youth acting and believing as if political and social partying were similar games of gaining (however limited) some level of personal reward to be reviewed endlessly in private. “YES!”
I’ll wager, and I encourage others to put their cash against mine, many an individual could double (or even triple) the experience time of a 15-year-old and not (little surprise) see much beyond the advantage-to-self side of political partying.

One can, I’m certain, be barely able to any longer do the two-step and still be stuck with the sock-hop realm of party activity in terms of “What’s in it for me?”

Even a half, full or multi-decade store of experience wouldn’t get me far from my sock-hop mind if I continued looking for the same things. Always sounded nice to seek friends, fun, romance, adventure and etc., only to very often find disappointment. Why?

I believe because I was after the wrong things. Now here, if you think I’m about to turn religious on you my advice is go suck on a lemon. Whatever I think or you believe of God has no part here simply because my stand is simpler.

Consider it somewhat along the lines of how I dumbly stumbled into a middling case of “I’ll be darned” revelation. People and situations that satisfied, that provided the comfort I held so dear were of use only if I was content adding SG for sluggard onto my academic credentials.

Agreeable friends sound swell, will soothe or buy you a drink, etc., but not give the thump needed to stop playing the fool.

A 15-year-old at a dance wants easy things, much the same as seeking clones to make life unilaterally easier. Clones, now’s the time to recall, are sterile and unchallenging. Robot, AI, etc. But that’s the problem. It’s one-sided. It’s what I want-see-believe is valuable. It’s me wanting to be agreed with and your job to do the agreeing. Whether at a social dance-party or in political partying, the trap’s similar. Too one-sided. I can claim universal motives, but they’re still mine from my perspective.

Dealing with the “me” side is trickier by far than denial. Many an altruist champions the other if they, so to speak, wear the same suit as the champion. Tricky. But then siding with ourselves or those alike to us is damned appealing along with lots and lots easier.

Having vigorously opposed the opposition while staunchly standing by my party felt proper and righteous. But then, doing so I had to assume being holder of sufficient truth. Not likely, that.
I can believe I know what’s best and more than you, but do I?

Having a party position has the value of a Junior High sock hop if I don’t see and respect the views of others. Without that I’m no more’n a self-centered child.