I. I have. I have been to.
And in the hour or so between opening the shop and the first customer, I will tell you about it.
We had planned to all go together, Ash and Jon and I. It was a friend of her friend's party. But Ash has stomach flu. I, bummed, went to Shades in search of some kind of social action. I was not there five minutes before one of the most reliably social people I know walked though the door, gloves in hand and hair swinging. Warren Corlett. Good old Warren. It took little to no convincing to get him to go with me to try and find the/a party. After a few worried warnings from Mother Melinda and a couple americanos, we were off. We hopped into
Warren's car and headed over to TU.
Skip ahead. We're at Ashley's friend Sophie's apartment. It's her friend Jared who is having the party. Here is where the college starts. We are "pre-partying". I have a vodka/cranberry juice in a plastic cup in my hand, Warren has his bottle of wine (which just happened to be in his car at the time, he had not planned to go to a party) still unopened, for lack of a corkscrew. Besides Sophie and Warren, there are about seven other people whom I do not know. We are playing a game which involves saying the word "penis" and taking a drink when you make a mistake.
Minutes later we are back in the Ghia, noisily jetting to my place with
a girl from my Latin class/of myth in the front seat. We get a corkscrew fom Warren. Katie loses her phone in Warren's seat. Drunkenly, she panics slightly. We laugh much. Here begins much talk of Warren's erotic encounters with Katie's feet.
Back at Sophie's, the pre-party is in full swing. (If you know what I mean. What are the protocols when it comes to illegal substances on weblogs?) More people have showed up, less people are sober. It is less akward. Sophie has good taste in music and I am talking to people who are interesting. Warren is drinking his wine out of the bottle and rapidly loosing touch with his dignity. (I love you, Warren.) No one is making me play games or talk about genitalia.
This is fun, I think,
I can do this college party thing.
Fast forward again. Warren is far to drunk to drive his darling coupe, so we ride to The Party in Katie's car. Sophie rides with us. We listen to
music and drive around the block to finish the cigarette and the song before we get to the house where the party is going on. Warren is repeatedly asking for more foot action and more alcohol. Both are denied him. Katie knows all the words and Sophie wants to see a movie with me this week. Again I think,
I can do this.
At the party the first words I hear are, "Yeah, the cat ran away. It's that kind of party." At what kind of party do we nonchalantly talk about our pets disappearing? No kind of party I want to be involved in, I later discover.
It is not a wild party. It is, really, a rather tame party. It is also not quite midnight when we get there, thus probably not in full swing. But there is a keg in the kitchen and people are playing poker. I know one person who didn't come from Sophie's. I am afraid to have another drink, since I have to open the shop. Warren (charged by Melinda "to take care of me") is far gone. Sophie, who walking in to the house had asked, "Are you anti-social like me? We'll stick together," has found people she knows and is happily chatting. I stick with Katie (entirely sober now) who is sticking to Warren to keep him from drinking. Stick like slightly nervous and intimidated glue.
This is a good time to remind everyone of
this.
I chat briefly with the one person I knew there, who's name I've now forgotten, and listen to Katie and Warren's conversation with someone they knew. I am standing near a bookshelf and I eagerly read the titles, the way Americans in a foreign country flock to a McDonalds. Kant's
Critique of Pure Reason and Jon Stewarts
Naked Pictures of Famous People. Big Mac and fries. The house is normal for young people in 2005. There is a wrought iron baker's rack holding cookbooks and framed snapshots in the kitchen (next to the keg) and knickknacks from Target. Poster of Marilynne Monroe. DJ equipment. Books with bright orange "used saves" stickers on the spines. The walls are gray. The furniture, dark wood and unmemorable. As I stand there, more people seem to be trickling in, filling the house with voices and movement and unfamiliarity. When we arrived, the people from Sophie's more than doubled the population of the party. Now I can't even find the rest of the people from earlier. The conversation I hear is ridiculous. The people I see are wasting their time. All I can think about is my to do list.
Scrapbook found objects from shop
build mobile
watch "Adaptation"
I ask Katie for her keys. I want to get my purse from her car and walk to Taco Bell, call John and go home. She won't hear of it. It's raining, it's not safe. She is my new friend. She makes Warren come along so he doesn't drink himself stupid unsupervised. As we walk out, the second most adorable kitten I've ever seen hops up the porch steps. "She came back!" someone says. I can barely control the urge to scoop the little tabby who looks like Benjamin's little sister up and run off with her, whispering, "You'll like my house, we never drink domestic there."
Katie drives me back to my car. We listen to The Decemberists "Red Right Ankle" as we drive down Peoria. That song will forever hold the power to soothe and the conotation of homecoming now.
A quick drive through the rain and an atlatl song later, I'm unlocking the front door to our building. The silence of our stairs and the glow of our wood floors is a welcoming hug from my life. I reach number five, I walk inside. Joe, John and Jon, ibooks and cigarettes. The window is open, there's a mess, Ben is attacking my leg. No place like home.
