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Saturday, February 28, 2009 - 22:40:06
Nothing Quite Like Southern Hospitality
New Orleans was amazing. My friends John and Randy were fantastic hosts, and they knew some of the best places to watch the parades. I discovered that I catch beads like someone who was traumatized by them as a child with a lot of flinching and looking away at the last minute. I got hit in the head more than once as a result of some long strands of beads and my overall poor form.
We dropped in on a lot of their friends, and everyone was incredibly generous with their food, booze, and conversation. I can get a little nervous in situations where I don't know a lot of people. I tend to hang back and try to get a feel for the situation instead of jumping in with both feet. But when we visited a man named Tony, he insisted that I get something to drink. "Eat something," he said when he noticed I didn't have a plate. And since the potato salad looked amazing and there was king cake, that was a pretty easy order to obey. I was constantly overwhelmed by everyone's hospitality.
Parade Float.
Sunday night, John, Randy, and I were going to a party, and then they were going to leave to go to the Bacchus ball. So, they were in nice suits, whereas I was dressed to go to a street parade outside their friend Lisa's building. In the lobby, Randy got a call, and when he hung up, he waved at me, indicating my jeans and Converse sneakers, and asked, "Can you turn that into formal wear in 20 minutes?" They'd gotten an extra ticket to the ball.
Thursday, February 19, 2009 - 23:31:58
New Orleans, Baby!
I'm going to New Orleans this weekend for Mardi Gras. There's a certain embarrassment that I feel about saying that, like maybe that's a ritual I'm too old for. As if I said I was going to spend my 31st birthday on Spring Break. So, I hasten to add that I will be going to stay with friends, check out some parades, and see the city. I've never been to New Orleans before, and I'm not planning to spend my first visit (or any subsequent ones) showing my breasts to strangers and trying not to get thrown up on amidst a crushing throng of drunk people.
I don't do well with crowds, especially drunk crowds. Outside of my brother and my kindergarten arch nemesis, I've only hit one other person, and it was at a concert in one of the smaller bars on Dixon Street. Everyone was crammed together and a guy tried to get closer to the stage by more or less crawling over me. Seems he was just desperate to give the lead singer a hat. See, that struck me as kind of stupid, but I would have overlooked it, but for the crawling over me. I was also taking kickboxing classes that summer, which made me more aggressive. I backfisted him in the face. Just a little bit. Practically a love tap right below the eye. But it was enough to convince him to find another path to the stage. So, as the date approaches, I'm getting a little nervous about picking this particular weekend to make my first trip to the Big Easy.
I'm staying with my friends John and Randy, though, both of whom are tons of fun. Randy and I once played an intensely competitive game of Taboo against a guy our age and two children under the age of 13. If memory serves, we were on fire with one of saying "Edie Sedgwick" and the other responding with "Andy Warhol." We creamed those kids. The guys assured me that they do a more laid back version of Mardi Gras, so I'm going to head down and see for myself.
Thursday, February 12, 2009 - 21:02:09
Single Mingle
Tonight my friend Jill and I went to a single mingle at our apartment complex. Single. Mingle. I can't stop saying it because I think it sounds hilarious. Lookit, I'm a bit of a commitment-phobe and like many members of my generation, I have trouble looking sincerity directly in the eye. I'm all about irony and things that are awesomely bad, so the idea of a "single mingle" is compelling because it promises to be deliciously awful.
I admit that I was a bit curious to see the kind of crowd that would show up. When I moved into the complex, Vicki, the woman who runs the complex and also hosted the event tonight, told me about the tanning beds and all the attractive single guys who lived here. I suspected the latter was an overstatement at best, but since I moved in for the gym and the good internet access, I didn't sweat it. This seemed like a good opportunity to see whether or not Vicki had lied to me.
I also thought I might learn the names of some of the people I've seen around the gym. Like this guy who always seems to be there whenever I go in. One night he decided to run on the treadmill next to mine, only it had slipped off its thick, rubber mat. There were several other machines open, but he decided to just wrestle that one back into position. It took a few tries and what looked like considerable effort, but he got it. I'm not sure he's my type, or even if he's single, but you see a guy go toe to toe with the gym equipment, you wonder who he is. I didn't solve that mystery tonight, but rest assured, I'm working on it.
I liked to think of what we were doing as an undercover mission of sorts. Jill actually has a boyfriend, but she was game to indulge my curiousity and be moral support. A single mingle doesn't seem like something I'd be up for on my own. Improv comedy? Rock climbing? Those things I could do solo, but this was the sort of thing where I'd need a partner in crime.
We arrived late, and I quickly noticed that the men sat at one table and the women at two others. For a single's event two days before Valentine's Day, it seemed ironic that everyone avoided members of the opposite sex like we were at a seventh grade dance. I also couldn't help but notice there were roughly a dozen women and only five men. The 2:1 ratio doesn't necessarily prove Vicki lied to me. It's circumstatial at best. Still...it seems noteworthy. We made our way directly towards the food table, and in keeping with the pre-existing group dynamic, I didn't make eye contact with the men's side of the room.
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