Party What? Is it Hearty or Hardy?

(March 29, 2002)

"So how'd it work out with your friend and...you know...that girl," asks Jim. The shaggy bass player and his housemates are throwing this very nice party, and I'm fixin' to git myself some alcohol. The drink table is a tumble of bottles and ice and various citrus orbs that all look the same in the near-dark. The only illumination is staccato, pink, green, strobe, courtesy of the DJ spinning techno dance tunes in the next room. The light show makes everyone's faces look like Gene Wilder in that boat ride scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Is it raining, is it snowing? Is a hurricane a-blowing? "That girl?" I answer. "Oh...dude. Yeah, it did not go well." Jim's asking about a matchmaking attempt of mine that didn't fly, mainly because I didn't realize the chick was such a tramp. I thought I was setting up a NICE GIRL with a NICE BOY. Instead it was like getting Angelina Jolie to click with Greg Brady. I explain, "I didn't realize she was so open to being so...OPEN." Jim laughs. Jim's also a nice boy. Knows where the line is between "Miss Congeniality" and "Most Likely To Need Antibiotics." He hands me the biggest Tequila on ice I've ever seen. And it's Tequila Blanco, meaning it's clear like harmless li'l water. For the next hour when I walk around the party, people will assume I'm not drinking. But oh baby. Am I ever drinking.

I'm going to finish this drink, then get Hub and go to another party. But first I need a cigarette, as always happens whenever I drink. In this house, it means I have to go to the basement. Den of Iniquity. Through a door in the kitchen, down some dark stairs, and join a more subdued gathering in a fog of all kinds of smoke. I feel so boring with my plain old Kool. My cell phone beeps. The display reads 2 Messages.

That's bad.

That means I have to find Hub to a) unlock the phone and b) access the messages. My fuckin' phone. Hub recommends I lock it so it doesn't accidentally call someone while it's rolling around in my bag. Fine then. But every transaction on this phone requires a degree in electronics. Hub's explained it to me a million times and it always sounds like, "Press star and then pound, then punch in the number and your PIN number, then then pound twice and VM for voice mail, then enter your password which is kinesthesia spelled backwards with number 1's where the I's would be."

That's not really what it is. But it might as well be. So I can either lug around the manual, or lug around Hub. Luckily I'm lugging Hub tonight.

Ten minutes later he's done pressing buttons and he hands me the freakin' thing at the point in the process where all I have to do is press 1 to listen.

BEEP. "Lexi, it's Baldino. Call me. I just got physically ejected from the party in Davis Square."

Hey, that's the party I was about to leave here and go to. It's kind of an illegal underground thing. You need a pass to get in, plus five bucks. Ejected, huh. Well this ought to be good...