There are people who simply have a worse sense of time than others do. Don't get me wrong, I'm gonna put my mind to it and do my level best to get to dinner tomorrow early*. But I have a bad sense of how time passes, how long it takes to do things or get places, etc. This contributes to my being late fairly often, and it's not out of a lack of care for the person I'm meeting.

Mind you, I am apologetic when I'm late. I do get that I'm the one who screwed up.

(*Which is to say insofar as it's under my control I willl get there early. I can make no promises about buses or trains breaking down, though.)

Yeah, I actually don't have a huge concept of time. And have trouble caring about it, though it bugs other people.

I wouldn't have accepted Nora's time-sensitive invite, at all, because I could give a shit about being late and resent having to race against a clock to pay to sit at a restaurant just for the convenience of the people I'm paying to cook for me. I'd rather not go than get all stressed about going somewhere.

Half the invitations I turn down are due to some time-constraint issue.

It's always a problem in any largish city. I'm almost always inconsistant in my timing to get to work. Leave early- smooth sailing all the way in and get there too early. Leave at the right time- sometimes get there on time, sometimes 5-30 minutes late depending on which of the 3 major highways are being constructed on, whether people lost their minds because water was coming from the sky, or whether there was a particularly interesting accident/tree/roadsign on the way. If I'm already running a few behind, I'm likely screwed or on time.

The last thing I had a specific time to show up for -- I was fifteen minutes late. And the first person to reach the restaurant. Next person showed up in 10 minutes, and the person after that in about twenty more.

No harm was done, and we had a good time.

The night before, there was an evening planned with multiple segments, and a driver being paid by the hour. No one was that late, but even worse -- we waited and waited for someone who only later revealed she wasn't actually in California that day. The delay waiting for her for twenty minutes meant our reservation got jacked up, and we had to stand around the restaurant for twenty more minutes before they could seat us.

Despite that, we had a good time.

Sometimes it messes with the plans, sometimes it has no effect at all. I'd just rather not be that one taking the risk. Although, I sometimes am. Traffic, LA, predictability -- unmixy things.

The Nilly has Landed!

She is safely at Tom & Nora's awaiting the arrival of other Somervillains.

The Nilly has Landed!

Yay! She's gonna be a tired little critter by the time we send her back, but what a grand tour.

Huzzah!

I'm making a run to the store for trashy magazines and batteries for my mp3 player for my TRAIN RIDE tommorrow!

Runs away squealing and waving arms like a Muppet.

Cereal to add:

Ok. I'm back from WalMart with a new (and yet, somehow eternal) dilhemma- what to wear. I'd love to wear regular old walk around Boston clothes, but I'm not sure my sightseeing look fits in with a nice dinner look. All of this has to reconcile with my clean laundry.

Sigh.

We are partying.

Hooray.

Erin on the phone is being passed around. That beautiful Buffista phone slut!

Whew, people are moving from all being in the kitchen to circulating around the apartment.

Nilly is the Nilly-est.

I wouldn't have accepted Nora's time-sensitive invite, at all, because I could give a shit about being late and resent having to race against a clock to pay to sit at a restaurant just for the convenience of the people I'm paying to cook for me. I'd rather not go than get all stressed about going somewhere.

Yep, that's the part where I'm cool with it, nowadays; if you know you have an issue with time and don't want to deal with it, makes sense to me. It's the "absolutely, I'll be there at ten to six, no problem", get there at ten past eight, find a crowd of people shivering on the kerb and glaring and an additional ten bucks parking fee added, and the response of "what's the big deal, just be mellow, man, you're all trying to control my time!" 'tude that gets me. Best exemplified by lady called Toby, mother of Margot, daughter's best childhood friend; once made us miss a plane by showing to pick Margot up four hours late, and gave us the hippie rap about time being no big deal, and how we had to let it goooo, man. Nic had to be restrained from sending her to talk to God the hard way.

My grandmama, she was a tightass on the time issue, but she wasn't necessarily wrong. She disliked the entitlement behind that aspect of it, and drummed the same dislike into us by dint of major smackdowns.

How's the weather in Boston? It has to be seven miles better than the weeping fog that finally showed up here this morning. I'm sincerely grateful it held off as long as it did.