Where's Your Head At? (Sleep Where You Fall Remix)

First of all, shouts out to the new readers I'm getting thanks to the courtesy of the ever-fab PsychoToddler, who has added me to his blogroll. Also to the folks who are coming here through JewLicious...this is not a kosher place, exactly, but we try to keep the monkey business to an absolute minimum.

But the Loyal Readership has only one question, burning with the force, if not the discomfort, of a urinary tract infection: How did CDHSarah's 21st birthday bash go?

The answer, in short, is "Better than expected."

1300 hours
The Artist walks in my apartment door as I am vainly struggling to get my ancient computer to cooperate with the task at hand (burning party CDs). We swap hellos and how-are-yous, watch Bubba Ho-Tep, and, much to my pleasure, the Artist took over the CD-making duty. Like many things, he excels at mixmaking, a skill in which I am mediocre at best.

1600 hours
I have to take off to an appointment before meeting the crew chez Sarah. I leave the Artist in nominal charge of the house while he completes the pre-DJing of the evening.

1800 hours
Necessary tasks completed, I head over to Sarah's. Some of the crew, including Don Shiftador, LadyA, and Andar, have already made their appearance. However, the shopping for the party is not entirely completed, so I book out of there fairly quickly, trying to get a decent parking space (i.e. a parking space for which I am not required to pay), a task that is hardly impossible on a Tuesday night, but gets harder the further you get from 6 pm, when the meters turn off.

1820 hours
Sweet success; a District parking spot, same street as where I'm headed, four blocks up on the non-hilly side. Thank lucky stars. Even though I am more than a half-hour early, head down to the Emporium to visit Jimmy at Patrick's place.

1845 hours
Go and settle into the seating area at Cafe O2. A few minutes later, Matt, my chess nemesis and bartender-for-the-night, comes down, also early. We settle in with the Weekly World News to wait.

1900 hours
The lovely Kara shows up and shows us how to open. We get things set up for the party. Then we wait.

Meanwhile, Sarah and the rest of the crew are eating dinner at the excellent Big River Grille. Due to the size of the party and the fact that the place doesn't take reservations, they end up waiting a while, which means Matt and I do also. Read Ben Stiller & Janeane Garafolo's "self-help" parody. Read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. Light candles. Refresh the flowers around Ganesha.

Find out that the local about-town free paper is sending their photographer tonight to get shots to promote 02's upcoming art show and charity benefit (Aug. 5, proceeds to the Nashville Lost Boys of Sudan), and that the in-house photographer whose studio adjoins O2 will also be taking publicity shots. Start to get nervous.

2045 hours
The first partygoers begin to arrive. Kara and Kevin are generally delighted. All is going smoothly and Matt refuses to let me lift a finger where the register is concerned. The word spreads quickly among the partygoers that the photographers are coming. Makeup is retouched by those who wear it.

2130 hours
The photographer shows up from the paper and gets some great shots, although none of yours truly (which was fine, as I didn't look nearly as sophisticated as the rest of my more femme-y associates). Run hither and thither. Smoke a lot. Dance some.

After this the timeline breaks down entirely, but here are some of the evening's highlights:

*Kevin, the Artist, and Don Shiftador talking about hyperspace/n-dimensional geometry
*Matt's pre-interview for a slot in the Terrestrial Navy, and the great honor done by his regular interview being scheduled with me and not the Fleet Commodore
*the arrival of Patrick, so late we had almost given up on him, and his subsequent and genial presence
*the random arrival of a drunk 17-year old, also celebrating her birthday, and her six closest friends, all of them hot and attired in black formals. Sadly, we had to kick them out, as part of the conditions of a private party is that liquor = guests of legal age. Several of us, however, were quite sorry to see them go; however, Kara apparently arranged to throw that girl a late birthday bash on a normal, all-ages night.
*Kevin taking me aside to tell me, variously, how great a time he was having, how he loved all my friends, and how he loves my taste in music (with nods to Evan's mixmaking skills)
*repeated plays of Where's Your Head At (a me and Sarah favorite since we watched the episode of Kingdom Hospital that features it) and The Motorcycle Song
*loud singing of Waltzing Godzilla while dancing arm-in-arm with CDHSarah
*the mob scene in the boutique that was ten people singing along to The Cheat Is Not Dead at the top of their lungs, including an energetic Pentecostal-inspired "got-the-Spirit" dance led by the Artist during the closing thereof (and if the photos of that come out at all, y'all will see them)
*being told "Great party" by just about everyone there

At some unspecified hour of the morning, around 1:30, the party broke up and made a half-hearted move to Sarah and SFGod's house, but, mostly due to the necessity of the sober drivers running cars back in from downtown, that really never took off. It ended with Sarah in bed, while me, Dave Not O, and the Artist argued the finer points of Heinlein and Asimov with a vigor until 5 am, when DaveNO had to get home. (Before that, the Artist indulged in a little prophecy, but due to his wishes, I will not publicly share that. He never remembers after, and prefers not to be reminded...and while he doesn't read over here often, I respect his wishes absolutely in that vein.)

I passed out at CDHSarah's from sheer exhaustion, despite the fact that my own house and bed are literally around the corner, a decision I sort-of regretted when the day ended up starting at 11 am...even though the "day", such as it was, consisted of sitting around, them hung-over, me be-migrained -- the heat has given us a respite, but only because there's a rain-filled pressure system sitting over the Tennessee Valley -- none of us able to do much more than watch a movie, smoke too many cigarettes, and munch on subs. I passed out again on the floor before time for meeting, a not-particularly organized one where we discussed business (last meeting of the month is schedule/group project discussion time), death and dying in our particular paths, and then had a short remembrance of Alice.

After that I rolled out to the Burrow, to return various articles left at Sarah's during the afterparty to the Don, while the Artist played D&D with the birthday couple. I probably won't see him again until Monday, and after that probably not again until Yule.

I still feel kind of crappy, and probably will until sleep becomes more regular, but I have one thing to sustain me: after years of trying, I finally threw a party (with help, but this was essentially my baby in terms of facilitation) that went off. Now, if all those people plus a few more will just show up to MY fast-approaching birthday (with the exception of the Artist, who will have to be back in Pensacola -- he wouldn't have been here this week had he not had the responsibility of walking his sister down the aisle, as well) with the same party spirit. A place I love got the kind of positive word-of-mouth (the party won't be in the article, except maybe in the captions of the photos) that will do them lots of good, as some of the people there were older than us -- a friend who works for one of the Networks plans to start bringing her editors there for after-work drinks, and all the rest of the folks have said "We'll be back and bring our friends," not just to the owners, but to me privately. Ganesha sustained us, both our friends who stuck their necks out to host the first-ever private party, and myself and Sarah.

Still, I am exhausted. Throwing an awesome party may be an ego boost, but it takes it out of me.
The rest of this week until the weekend is pretty busy, but I should be around. If you don't see the birthday girl herself, it's because she took her vacation time to get the rest of the week off and won't have regular Internet access. I myself will talk to you once I've returned to town and have 2 seconds to rub together...