The Dress, part 3

[...continued from Thursday April 06, 2006 ]


I arrived at the party with both Kelly and Lindsay, which either means I arrived at the party stag or with two girls..
...I think you know how I chose to perceive it.

It was a swank little yacht club out in Wilmette, two levels boating pictures everywhere, a piano, ice covered lagoon, a bar, tables with bowls of grapes and strawberries and so-on you get the picture.
Its nice.
We arrived through the back entrance (the kitchen), which was cool in a Goodfellas kinda way. Almost immediately upon arrival, Lindsay's mom sends both Kelly and myself outside to direct the incoming party traffic. This may sound like a bum deal for a party guest, but not for me. Sure, it was chilly outside but I didn't really know too many people inside and I didn't want to stand around like a hump with too much grease in his hair.*
At least directing traffic gave me momentary direction.
So there we were, wondering why in the hell we were standing outside when no car was stopping long enough for either of us to direct them.

Eventually, Lindsay demanded that Kelly and I come inside and stop this nonsense of trafficking the area. Unfortunately, the damage had been done. Not only did I look awkward with my coiffure and dress shoes, but now the wind had chapped my lips raw. By the end of the night, I looked like a child who had just finished a glass of cherry Kool-Aid. The bright pink ring around my mouth not only caused several people to ask if I was wearing lipstick but then, even after I answered that I was not wearing lipstick, nevertheless caused me the unfortunate side-effect of feeling quite effeminate, or at best hideous.

Fantastic.

This dress-shopping thing has really, really blown up in my face.

Don't get me wrong; I was having a ball. Early in the evening the DJ played Springsteen's Hungry Heart and followed later in the night with Pink Cadillac. It was during this song that I realized whatever cool points I had accumulated over the first half of the party (not many I'm sure) would soon evaporate and I'd be right back in the red.
I was right.
Not in a long time had I seen so many people give themselves over to joy and fun so effortlessly. Everyone, young and old (especially old), seemed to want to party and no one cared how silly they looked doing it. Everyone danced, many of the ladies, I would like to point out, danced shoeless.
See? I told you.
Eighty bucks. Wasted.
While picking up after the party, I ended up having to match fifteen pairs of shoes together! At one point I had six or seven heels in my possession and all I could think was, if I gather these up and sell them, I've just made, like $450!

It'd serve you girls right.

But if bad karma hits women, it must hit men too, because something odd happened to me out on the dance floor. In the privacy of my bedroom I enjoy dancing. I dance at work too. I dance to almost everything I do. My bosses makes fun of me for dancing everywhere. And up to this point I assumed I could dance pretty well. But here there I was in the middle of the dance floor making my body move in ways that I never intended and wouldn't wish on even my bitterest enemies and all I can think is, what the hell happened to my moves? In my room with the door closed I'm a hairy version of Shakira.
A taller Timberlake.
A pale Usher.
Now, all of a sudden, I'm on the dance floor like a wet ferret! I didn't know what the hell I was doing and it really threw me off.

In between fits of fanciful dancing, Kelly and I relieved Lindsay's sister Jamie and her boyfriend from bartending duties. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I am the last person that should be behind a bar. I don't drink, or at least not much compared to many of my friends and therefore I know nothing of mixing drinks or pouring them for other people.
I'm not kidding.
A guy came up to me early into my bartending venture, and asked if he could have a G&T ("gin and tonic", I quickly learned). I looked this man directly in the eyes and asked him what was in a gin and tonic. Can you believe that you know someone that damned dumb?!

God, I still can't believe I asked that guy what was in a gin and tonic.

But the worst part was when he blinked at me for a second, realized I wasn't joking and then slowly pointed...
...first to the gin...
...then to the tonic water.
Ugh.
I felt two inches tall. From that point on I pretty much let Kelly handle the liquor while I refilled water glasses, sodas and ran to get more ice. Eventually I pulled myself together and we developed a rhythm. We rocked the teamwork angle and danced up a storm behind the bar. Had we set out a tip jar I'm sure we would've been up five hunny (a hip way of saying five hundred dollars) by the end of the night.
I was like Tom Cruise in Cocktail with less bottle flipping and absolutely no knowledge about alcoholic beverages.

All my running into and out of the kitchen refilling ice buckets and fetching clean cocktail glasses did allow me to make friends with one of the dedicated ladies working for the kitchen staff. Her name was Gina and she had a daughter. I remarked to her that she and the entire kitchen staff were doing a wonderful job and she thanked me. I also explained to her that my hair didn't usually look so bad, to which she replied that it looked perfectly fine. I thanked her for her charitable opinion and grabbed three more wine glasses. It was a special give-and-take between someone who probably didn't belong at this party and another whose job it was to remain invisible at it.
I felt that I didn't belong; not uncomfortable per say, just out of place because this whole event seemed like a big deal. There were friends and family that, I didn't get the impression, saw each other very often and that I was fairly certain I would never see again. By the end of the night, I felt constantly desperate to withdraw myself from the picture so that the tears of having to say goodbye could be dealt with in private, amongst people who earned the right to shed them. I had fun, but I was much more comfortable directing traffic, organizing stray pairs of high heels, talking with the kitchen staff and tending bar. I was made to feel very welcome by Lindsay's family, but I nevertheless wondered if I shouldn't have come at all.

* * *

Being at that party and then reliving it again here, I've finally figured out what made me feel both extremely happy and simultaneously very out-of-place. The last time I was surrounded by such love and camaraderie was back in my old days as a kid with my own family. Not for a very long time have I been a part of something this palpable with affection and warmth. More than once I caught myself staring out of a wide window overlooking a frozen lagoon. I wondered: do people notice the warmth of family when they are a part of it or only when they are not? The warmth of the hootenanny rubbed off on me so completely that I felt more like a part of the party than I was. I was an outsider and immediately felt guilty because of it, as if I had sneaked into the clubhouse of a gang that hadn't accepted me. It was a wonderful evening, but one that transcended my simple expectations. What happened to me was bigger than necklines and neckties, bigger than purses and shoes and the differences between men and women.

I wanted a piece of the party's warmth to belong to me.

As the night drew to a close, Kelly and I hung around to help clean up the yacht club long after most everyone else left. It was a relatively painless cleanup and one that garnered me more thanks and apologies than I have ever been lavished with before. Everyone associated with Lindsay's family felt bad for making me clean up. Had they only known how little I minded, they'd probably have demanded that I do more!

On the way home, I was instructed to drive. Lindsay slowly slipped into a funk at having not only to get up at the crack of dawn for her flight back to Boston, but for the fear that she could very well be doing so in less-than-perfect health. Meanwhile Kelly thought it a tad safer if I drove instead of her. Ironically enough, it was I, the sober one, chosen to drive that snapped back Kelly's driver side mirror after hitting a few low-slung tree branches. This, I thought, was a bad omen. Luckily the mirror was a breakaway and no damage was done.
On the trip home I did learn that women, at their bachelorette parties, want facials and pedicures. Essentially, they want to get a jump-start on their wedding day. Men however, want sports and booze and maybe even a stripper: a man's way of subsequently halting the impending doomsday as long as possible. I also stuck my foot in my mouth while discussing why short guys are not attractive to women. It was an interesting conversation that kept all of us from falling asleep.
Unfortunately, it is not appropriate for this particular story and you'll just hafta use your imaginations.

I bid adieu to Kelly and loped up the stairs to my house. As the clock chimed twice, I entered my living room, then my bedroom (which was still in shambles from my Affleck hair debacle), stripped off my suit and my shoes (oddly enough, in that order) and fell into bed.

The next thing I knew, it was 9:17 A.M. The sun was shining brightly and all I wanted was to start it over again.

The End.

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* It was at this point in my life that I began to suspect that I had some sort of mild social anxiety disorder. Since this event, I've come to be positive of such a hypothesis.