Hobby Swap

[cjsmith]

Here's a swap meet I'd love to go to. Hobby swap! Bring your old hobbies and go home with secondhand hobbies you get from someone else!

I'll probably never make candles again, so I'd bring my books and molds and paraffin and colors. I'll bring my rollerblades with elbow and knee pads. I'll bring my cake decorating books and my collection of fancy icing tips. I might go home with pliers & dowel & a bunch of thick wire to turn into chain mail, or perhaps a power sander, or a beginner's archery bow and arm guard.

Comments

[firecat]

Oh, I'd go to that.

What seems hard to you about hosting?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Cool!

Hosting: Just, um, everything. A lot of it seems to be tied up in the "must please all of the people all of the time" idea.

One side branch of that is the "all social gatherings must have food" concept linked with the "every single person in the Bay Area is allergic to a different set of foods than every other person in the Bay Area" thing. There's just no way I can deal effectively with food. I honestly have no clue how people do it.

There's my worry that my indoor-only cats will get out and I won't discover it until morning -- they're not all chipped, and that's my job if I'm going to have non-pet-owner sorts of folks over, and I haven't done it. There's the whole issue of child care and my completely un-child-safe house (house not made safe from them, house not made safe FOR them). There are people who won't be able to come and will be disappointed, people who will come and will make snotty comments about the fact I used paper plates, people who will pile into the hot tub until enough water splashes out that after the party is over the pumps suck air all night and get damaged, people who will vanish into the guest bedroom upstairs and get walked in on in an "embarrassing" situation by someone in search of a bathroom... I dunno. It just ALL seems hard. I suppose I take responsibility for too much.

[firecat]

Well. That sounds like a lot of worries!

Here are my IMOs about hosting:

Food:
We do potluck gatherings. We ask people to bring a few servings of a food they can eat, and if we were more on the ball, we would ask them to include a list of ingredients so others could decide whether they could eat this thing too. We also provide some basic snacks of our own, or more if we're feeling ambitious, but we don't try to please everyone.

My cats have never run away, but they aren't the bolt-for-the-door types, either.

It's acceptable to specify "no children" or "no children under X" on a party invitation. We've always said "children are welcome, but our house isn't childproof." This has led to some minor damage to our stuff, but no damage to any children so far.

It's acceptable to specify that the hot tub will not be open for the gathering. Just because you're inviting people doesn't mean you are inviting them to use everything in your whole house. Same goes for people snogging in bedrooms.

I don't know how to control for people who make snotty comments about paper plates, though. And of course you can't pick a date that will please everyone.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Potluck with ingredients specified seems like a very good way to go. So does "children are welcome, but our house isn't childproof."

Hosting is something I've never really done much, so it's outside my comfort zone. Having specific answers like these makes it... well, not completely inside my comfort zone, but not quite AS far outside it!

Thank you.

[eichin.livejournal.com]

As my party invitations say - "My house isn't child-safe... it isn't really *adult*-safe, either". This was emphasized by Nancy's kid making a beeline for the rechargable circsaw :-)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That's really amusing! (Well, the part about Nancy's daughter is amusing 'cause she didn't get hurt.) I wish I could steal that line, but my house is fairly adult-safe. Adults who are awake and not too drunk, anyway. :-)

[firecat]

May you host comfortably someday, then. If you wanna.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Thanks. :-)

[jcgbigler.livejournal.com]

The secret to a gathering with food is to realize that not everybody will be able to eat everything, and to just make sure that everybody can eat at least one or two things. Having been one of the "can't eat anything that other people would want to bring" people, I always brought something I could eat. I always appreciated it when there were other things I could eat, and I never whined when there wasn't. And most importantly, I didn't begrudge other people the things they could have that I couldn't.

If your guests don't behave reasonably, I'd suggest that you need to edit the guest list rather than the menu.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hihihihihi long time no see how are you! :-) Did I not know you were on LJ or did I miss a journal name change or something? (...going off to edit friends list)

I always appreciated it when there were other things I could eat, and I never whined when there wasn't.

I respect this. rfrench is also like this. From what I have seen and heard, the social assumption in this area of the country is that it's very much the host's problem.

Pot luck is a reasonable approach. I could go for that. People tend to bring things they themselves can eat.

In a way, I guess I've preemptively edited the guest list -- I don't host much! But maybe I could come out of my comfort zone shell a little.

[jcgbigler.livejournal.com]

> Did I not know you were on LJ or did I miss a journal name change or something?

You probably didn't know I was on LJ--it's a recent thing.

I signed on first to MySpace, mostly because several students at my school are on MySpace, and are putting things on the web that they don't intend people other than their friends to see. I want them to run across their teachers often enough to think twice about what they say in a public forum--it may save their sorry butts later in life. :-)

I signed on to LJ because it's not much more effort to keep up with 2 blog sites than one, and a lot more of my friends are here than there.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Welcome! Holler if Nancy comes over to the dark si... I mean LiveJournal too.

may save their sorry butts later in life

*amusement*

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

I have most of the same worries. More to the point, though, I just have the general idea that if I'm the host, it's my fault if anyone is unhappy for any reason. In fact, this applies even if I'm simply gathering people to go out somewhere together, so I don't even do that unless I can figure out a way for it not to matter if people arrive late or leave early or can't drive or whatever.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

I just have the general idea that if I'm the host, it's my fault if anyone is unhappy for any reason.

That's it! That's it exactly. There was a time when this was a more accepted responsibility. The host(ess) would make sure shy people were introduced to people they would like, would wander over and break up conversations that started to sound acrimonious, would make sure everyone's drink was filled... I think those days are past, but I still have that level of expectation of myself.