Terry McMahon's Awesome Blog

All right, at this point I have to give kudos to my friends Alex and Natalia's brilliant strategy for enhancing their social life. Now, I know, I'm shouting out to folks who will never read my blog, but there's a reason: their Tuesday night cookouts.

Look, I won't waltz around it here: I know a lot of people who don't have a lot of friends around where they're living, and weekly events are a great way to get a social life. Nat & Alex hold a cookout every Tuesday night, getting a lot of food themselves and encouraging people to bring their own stuff. Tonight we made grilled pizzas using about a million different weird toppings; I stayed away from the vegetables and put on ricotta, cheddar and mozzarella, plus sour cream, cream cheese, and pesto to go with straight-up pizza sauce. Now that's good pizza. In previous weeks we've put hamburgers in marinade, grilled provolone by itself and ate it with a fork, and even, sometimes, made hot dogs and put them in hot dog buns with ketchup. Also tonight Alex made some weird mint drink that may or may not have been alcoholic, and I mixed it with a Stewart's orange cream soda. I may not be as good a cook as some members of the family, but I am no less creative.

But the food is not the appeal of the cookouts. Alex and Nat invite all their friends, and encourage them to bring along anyone else. We're about four or five weeks in, and we had a dozen people tonight, four or five of whom I've never met. Of course no one comes every week, but you get a good group each time out, and you make a whole lot of new friends. The two of them have already made plans to continue Tuesday nights even during indoors weather, so who knows how long this kind of event will last.

Really, though, it's a smart move for anyone: hold a weekly, low-stress, low-obligation event, and don't hold it on a weekend. That way people can come without worrying about a whole lot of other plans, leave whenever they feel like, and you get to make new friends while keeping up with your old ones. Plus, since it's happening already with a group of people, you can invite new friends into your life without having to make a big deal or setting a date or changing your plans for them. (One guy I met tonight had been in a class with Alex three years ago, and then ran into him at the supermarket. What are you supposed to do, invite him out to a movie?) I really think this would work for most people who have a core group of three or four friends they could start with. So I think I'm going to give it a try this fall, even if it's for something as lame as study groups. It's a good idea.

Also, today Scott McClellan refused to answer any questions on Karl Rove being the Valerie Plame leaker, not once, not twice, nor thrice - but 35 times. Is the wall closing in on Karl Rove? That would make me even happier than fulfilling my plan to punch Scott McClellan someday when he returns to the private sector. Not as happy as the grilled provolone made me though - you can put oregano in it, and it becomes transcendent. I'm not making this up.

(If the title above sounds a little strange to you, it's from Jimmy Eat World's awesome "A Praise Chorus." Nice, huh? And sorry about the UFOs in the photo.)