BennyEast.Com/Blog The official blog of Kenny West

Food Truck Fest

Food truck fest was fun.  Basically went all day.  I had two friends meet me there.  Or come find me.  So, I guess people are starting to be interested in meeting me at events.  Not working so great for finding love... But it's working as far as something to do.

Before the food truck fest I did chores, I went to the bank and paid the school tax bill.  I was HOPING there would be either estate funds or trust funds released to pay that.  It was just shy of 5 grand.  Still waiting on that money.  So instead I took care of it myself from my personal savings.  I look at it like this... Okay so the one tax bill now is 5 grand.  The other in the spring is about 1200.  So that's 6200 bucks.  Basically then there's homeowner's insurance at about a 1100 a year, and finally the bills and maintenance of the house.  People have bills anyways even if they rent.  There's electric and gas and cable, and whatever else.  So that cost is the same if you rent or own.  But given that there's no mortgage on my house, I only have taxes, and then insurance.  Actually even insurance is still the same for a renter because if you rent you buy renter's insurance.

So basically.... My "rent" is my tax bill.  So I look at it like, I'm paying about 6 grand a year to "rent" an entire 4 bedroom house in the suburbs.

Which is pretty good if you ask me.  So, that's 500 bucks a month rent.

Try finding 500 dollar a month rent in the Philly area?  Try finding a 4 bedroom house with a driveway and a yard for 500 dollars a month.

So, that's why even though no money has been released yet, I'm fine paying this "rent".  The thing that's different is that you pay it all at once instead of once a month.

And since it's real estate... Over the long term, this property goes up in value.  So each year that I stay here and hold on... when I do finally sell it, this property will sell for more money.

When you move out of a place that you rent... That's it.  You just move out.

Anyways so, I paid the tax bill and it was fine.  I'll just start saving again to save back that money.

 

So I went to the festival.  It was fun.  I just hung out and had wine and ate small snacks from each of the trucks.  Some had these huge orders that you could do, but I just stuck with single little tiny things, since I'm single.  So, that works.  I got a taco here, an empanada there, a milkshake here... Etc. etc.

Every time I was in line at a truck, it was an excuse to talk to people.  I used to hate waiting in line, but here's the thing about waiting in line... And about things going "wrong"... it's an excuse to talk to people.

Chaos is the ultimate ice breaker.

My plan anymore is kind of how one of my co-workers told me to do it.  So, my coworker told me that the best way to date or find someone is to go into a club... And just smack every girl's butt that you see.  He said "sure, most of them will turn around and scowl at you and maybe slap you in the face back.... But if you slap enough butts, eventually one of them will like it.  And she'll turn around and want to dance with you."

So, I won't ACTUALLY be slapping butts.  But it's a good idea.  It's that "It only takes one" saying.  SO instead, you just talk to EVERY girl you see.  You talk until she walks away.

When waiting in line at the food truck, just talk.  Just talk to the people next to you.  Just keep trying to start a conversation.  Most of them will yawn and look the other way.  Most of them won't be interested.  But then ONE person... Will talk back.

Or, okay so... here's how this went yesterday...

So yesterday, just like every day now... I pretty much say "yes" to everything.  Comedy improv works on this premise.  You have to say YES AND... And then you go with whatever happens.  You don't shoot anything down because you don't know where it might lead.

You just follow the yes.

So, YESterday... I was yes-ing it up.  First my one friend Kirsten, who I know because I met her at the Lock and Key event thing... met me in the morning.  We had some food truck food and a glass of sangria.  In the email I received they said there would be wine slushies... Apparently the machine was broken though.  So they had sangria instead.

Then she left.  Well, right as she was leaving... my one friend Tom showed up.  I met this dude when out writing one night in Phoenixville.  We just started chatting while sitting next to one another.  We kept meaning to make plans but they always fell through.  I met him at least 3 or 4 years ago when I first started the book.

So, we were hanging out at one of the food trucks to get more stuff.  Then we started chatting with this girl behind us.  But I think the conversation started because of something Tom said to me.  Then she commented on it.  So if Tom hadn't showed up we might not have been in that line with that girl behind us and she might not have commented on that thing we said...

Then because we all started talking she said she was going to the tour at 4.  I had no idea there even was a tour.  SO we went on the tour with her and her friends.  Then in the tour... This one girl fainted.  SO then while she was being helped and we were in a second room giving her space and what not...

All of us started chatting with one another.  Rewind to a half hour earlier... Could I have told you I'd be in the wine cellar room at Chaddsford Winery talking to people I normally wouldn't have talked to or had a reason to talk to because a girl in the other room fainted, probably because she was dehydrated or from the heat?

I couldn't have guessed that.  Anyways the girl came to and she didn't want to go to the hospital, she just wanted to drink water and eat food.  I think she should have gone to the hospital anyways but she said it was just because she didn't eat enough and she didn't have enough water.  You can't force anyone to get medical help.  So she just went upstairs and got food and water and stopped drinking wine.

We finished the tour.  But something was different about that group.  It wasn't a normal tour, it was... Wait you were in the tour with us when that girl fainted!

Now you have something that binds you together.

And that's the secret to friendship, or connecting people.  Or one of the secrets.  When you go through some sort of chaos... You connect more than if nothing happens.

Maybe that's the point of bad things happening, is to connect people together.  If only good things happened... It might change who we know and all that.

Well anyways, so nothing really came out of it.  Except who knows... Maybe at one of my next events I'll be waiting in line for something and I'll be like... "Oh, a few weeks ago I was at Chaddsford Winery and this girl passed out."

And someone will be like... "OH MY GOD... THAT WAS MY FRIEND!!!"

And then maybe me an that person will start talking.  And here's the interesting thing...

When you have something in common.  Or you have something that you went through... WITH SOMEONE... You are way more willing to talk.

"Wait... YOU went to that college too?"

"No way... You're also from that area?"

"You know so and so?  I KNOW so and so!!!!"

I've found this to be 100 percent true.  If you're at an event where you no nobody there and you strike up a conversation with a random person and you find out a commonality... The conversation is propelled to a new level.  It goes from... "Who the heck is THIS random person?" To... "WAIT... LET'S BE FRIENDS!!!"

I'm not like this... I just try to be friendly to anyone and everyone without having that... But most people seem to need some kind of way to figure out how they can "let you in".

If it's dating... or friends.  There's a huge wall you have to break down.

But I figure that's how I'm going to meet her.  It will be completely random like that.  I mean I COULD have met her on the tour.  That's the way I look at it.  She could have been standing next to me on the tour.  But why did I even go on that tour?  Because of the girl in line to get ice cream/milkshakes at the one food truck.  And why did that girl and I even start talking?  Tom showed up.  And why did Tom show up?  Because I met him when I was out writing.  And why was I out writing?  Because of Miss Daylight and this book that she inspired.

Obviously the love of my life wasn't on the tour with me.  But, who knows... Maybe one of her friends was.  Maybe she was AT Chaddsford Winery but I just didn't chat with her.  Or maybe she had a boyfriend at the time.  And then maybe in 6 months or a year they break up... and we meet at some other thing and say "Oh my God!  You were there too?!!?!"

That happened on Thursday night at Nightscape.  I was standing in line to get a beer and I mentioned that the girl playing, had a full band the last time she played.  Then the girl behind me said that she was there earlier in June.  I said for the Wine and Jazz fest?  She said YES!  Then we started chatting, so its possible that the love of my life could have been at Longwood Jazz Fest... Because there were a lot of people there that I didn't talk to.  Well, so THEN I went over back to her table with her and was chatting with her and her two friends.  Turns out her two friends weren't her friends at all.  She was just talking to these two girls while waiting for her other two friends to show up.  Then her other two friends showed up.  I kept chatting with the two girls that this other initial girl had  brought me to.  Then we all did Nightscape together, the three of us.

But the "connector" girl was long gone.  SO, I think some people and events are just put in your life to connect you to something else.  It's like everyone and everything just is to lead you to the next event or person.

It's all about timing I guess.

And talking to everyone you possibly can.  Just say YES to everything.  You never know where the love of your life might be.  If you say no to something, you could be saying no to love.

So, I'll just keep going out to things and saying yes to anyone and everyone and as my co-worker puts it... I'll be metaphorically slapping every girl's butt that I meet... Or in real life, just striking up conversations at every chance I get, because you never know when that one girl might turn around and then THAT will be the one that I end up marrying.  Which is the ultimate goal of all this going out to events anyways.  It's just to find that one that matters.  That forever person.  That one that you grow old together and sit on the couch together watching reruns.  Or you sit on the front porch in rocking chairs together.

The one that you say I DO to... and it's the best day of your life and you get that photo of the two of you kissing at the wedding framed and it hangs on your wall in your home.

That's the WHOLE point of all this going out.  But for now I just have to keep going out.  Keep going and going and going and talking and saying yes to the next event and letting it lead me to the love of my life.  Letting it lead me one day to a wedding day and vows and all that.