10:57 p.m. - 2004-10-24
speaking of tube tops
Speaking of tube tops...well, Michele was. It seems Katie Meyer is going AS one for Halloween. When I first read this on Michele's blog, I though it said Katie was going to WEAR a tube top for halloween, and I thought to myself "My gracious the world has spiraled into irreperable (sp?) immorality and lack of taste." Even on halloween, I do not expect such things from my beloved Katie.
Now, here is a related story. Oh dear, oh dear. So I got invited to this "Fall Cider Party" by my friend Kelly's friend Lisa. Kelly who is a year older than me, lives in NYC. Lisa is Kelly's age and lives in Ann Arbor; Kelly hooked us up, etc. So I chat with her on the phone a bit and she confirms what her email had said, reiterating the FALL and CIDER parts of the party title. So, with full confidence, I dress in cropped jeans, brown and heeled boots, a maroon long sleeve tee and a green sweater. I'm feeling very fall and very ready for cider. When I get to the apartment building, I ring the buzzer and some guy answers and basically screams into the phone or the intercom or whatever, and buzzes the door open. I make my way down the hall, and this tall girl in a sparkly tube top and tight black pants comes walking down the hall in th eopposite direction, toward me. I do the obligatory I'm-passing-you-in-the-hall half-smile, and she kind of stops and I kind of smile in what I hope appears to be a friendly, curious way. I'm all set to tell her what time it is, or explain that I don't live here, so I probably don't know the answer to her question, as I assume she might be a lost, forlorn college student on her way to something called "The Autumn Fling" or something. "Are you Jessi?" she says. No. No. I am not at this moment Jessi. I was wishing to high heaven that I was someone else. OK. OK. Shift into "everything is fine even though it is so, so NOT fine." "You must be Lisa." Smile. Smile. I follow her to an apartment filled with size 2 sequined tank tops covering some parts of lots of Cameron Diaz look alikes. There were also a lot more tube tops, and a lot of shimmering, tan skin abound. And a LOT of very very dangly earrings...so dangly that the earlobes of the wearer sort of hang down low, and it looks almost painful, as the earrings brush against the person's shoulders. I'd like to see Kelly Cooke in such an outfit. Now that would be amazing. A tube top and earrings that touch her shoulders. Anyway, back to the party...Boys look the same everywhere you go; khakis or jeans and a sweater of some sort...which is exactly why you CANNOT rely on men to clue you in on what type of event this is. Apparently you can't rely on things like Fall and Cider to clue you in either.
Needless to say, I was mortified that I looked like somebody's MOM compared to these girls, but also needless to say I got over it and had a really good time, despite feeling a tiny bit like a small joke had been played on me. Did your crappy friends in junior high ever do that to you? Tell you it was like "wear your sweatshirt inside out" day, and then told everyone else it was dress-up day? Yeah, my group of "friends" did that regularly to whoever they were mad at.
Well, there were actually some nice, intelligent folks there and a few engaging conversations were had. Though there was this one girl that was extra, extra blonde and every time I said anything the slightest bit funny, she would squeal in this really high pitched tone and grab me and say to whoever was around "I LOVE this girl. I LOVE her!" It's great when someone's enjoying you, especially when you don't know anyone and you're dressed like you're supposed to be at a farm while standing in a crowd of sparkles, really nice actually, but how does one react to that? Sheepish shrug? That's what I went with.
Anyway, it was a reasonably fun event, all things considered.
Tonight, I had dinner with Matt and Bev and Steve and Simone. Simone is from Jamaica. Her friend, Anna, who grew up in Uganda but lives in Detroit now was there too. And so was a couple named Rico and Meriam, who was visiting from Frankfurt, Germany. Rico spoke only a little English, so his wife, Meriam had to translate back and forth. We had a really lovely conversation about the sort of things you talk about when you have such an interesting mix in the room, especially when they all happen to be evangelical Christians from so many different cultural backgrounds. It was really quite precious and I enjoyed their observations about American culture. Note to interested parties: If you ever have Germans visiting you, they may miss eating sausage and cheese and german bread every day, so keep that in mind. That's what Meriam said anyway.
That is all.
