Posts filed under 'Friends'
I went to Tenjune on Saturday night. In certain circles, this is supposed to be significant, I gather, and judging by the hordes of Shiny Pretty Things trying to get into Tenjune, those circles are largely under the age of 30.
I am not a club person. I’m not a lounge person. I can on occasion be a bar person but by and large I am a restaurant person. A cafe person. A dinner party person. A hey-let’s-listen-to-iTunes-and-open-another-bottle person.
Some girlfriends and I went out to dinner, and friends of friends came along, and these girls were club people. Upon hearing that I was somewhat newly single (“Ohmigod us too!” they said) they asked, “So where have you been going Out, to you know, meet people?”
The truth is, I haven’t, not really. I have been going to yoga, and Whole Foods, and out with friends to mediocre bars and cheap restaurants. I’ve been to museums and pre-theater dinners with the gays, brunches and birthday parties but I’ve never been and never will be someone for whom “Out” is a destination. So I tried to come up with the name of a place – any place! – where I had recently been. Oh, mostly low-key places, I said, I went to Death & Co…
They nodded and looked across the table towards my friend Sara. Did you say you were down on Stone Street last Thursday? Because WE were down on Stone Street, how did you not see us? We were sitting right outside…you could NOT have been there! We were totally there too! How did you miss us?
I drowned the rest of my red wine as references to Stanton Social and Socialista flew over my head, and before long we were all in cabs, heading west, to the dreaded corner of Little West 12th and 9th Avenue. The cab let us off on Hudson, “I can’t get any closer,” he shrugged, pointing towards the droves of people filling the streets outside the Gansevoort. I shuddered, sucked in my belly and stepped carefully along the cobblestones towards the club. Which one is it? I asked. The one with all the people in front, came the answer. NO, WHICH ONE, I asked again, as the Buddha Bar and Tenjune crowds appeared to be blending into one another; dozens of sport coated-guys and cocktail-dressed girls, all desperately trying not to to smile (or risk looking un-cool) or grimace (and risk revealing just how much it SUCKS to wait to get past a velvet rope).
Somehow we were waived in to the club. This might be because my friend Sara looks like a supermodel, but I’m still unclear as to how me and my thirty-something self got in, considering I was in jeans from Banana Republic and a top from Forever 21 (which I am not, nor do I want to be, god help me the notion of being forever 21 raises bile in my throat). We eased our way downstairs and tried to stake out space on the dance floor (is that what the middle bit of a club is called? the part with no tables? is it a dance floor? people sway and bob more than dance, and crane their necks around to see who else is in the club. that’s what that middle bit is for). My friend T. offered to buy me a drink. I followed her to the bar where she ordered two glasses of Champagne. That will be $38, the bartender said. Excuse me, what? we said. I slipped T. a $20 and said, You can buy me a beer next time we’re out.
Here is something I hate about clubs (and OH, there are so many things to hate!): the music. The constant club mix means that right as you’re thinking YAY I LOVE THIS SONG it changes to something else, and then again, and then again, and the constant WOO-awww-WOO-awww-WOO thing gets old.
One of the girls I was out with suddenly was talking to some guy, and said guy had a table, and before I knew it we were waived up to the little raised area with tables. It’s air conditioned up by tables. I didn’t know that. There is also a huge bouncer standing by the stairs up to the tables, and he kept asking, Which table are you with? and we pointed towards the table belonging to the guy none of us knew, and somehow that was good enough, and just like that, we had table service, or rather, those of us who wanted table service had table service. And by table service, I mean two bottles of Grey Goose and a tub of beers, and by two bottles of Grey Goose I mean, $1000 worth of booze, at least.
I finished my glass of Champagne right around the time someone grabbed my necklace and asked me if I was wearing Mardi Gras beads and if so, would I lift my shirt. Girls, I’m peace outta this place, I announced, pushed my way towards the coat check, and headed for the stairs. Outside T. and I squeezed through the crowd and back towards the dreaded corner of 14th and 9th Avenue, which at 1:30 in the morning was as crowded as the stretch of 5th Avenue near Saks at Christmas. We bolted north, flagged a cab somewhere around 16th Street, and breathed a sigh of relief.
So that was Tenjune, we said.
May 5th, 2008
I think that every single person I know in New York was on the Great Lawn at some point this Saturday. I was there mid-afternoon, so delirious with spring that I ate a popsicle and contemplated kicking a soccer ball around, not so sun-dazed that I actually joined in any of the soccer ball shenanigans going on around me. But all day long I was getting text messages from friends who were in the park, generally of the ALL CAPS and/or excessive punctuation variety, because it really was JUST THAT BEAUTIFUL OUTSIDE OMFG!!!11
My apartment is half a block from the park, and as such I’ve decided that this summer I will make Central Park my backyard and have decided that I will (no really, I totally will) be one of those people who lays on the lawn in her bathing suit, reading and sunning. Public HERE’S ME IN MY BATHING SUIT LOOK AT MY HIPS SEE HOW PALE has never been my thing…or rather, since turning 22 and leaving my swimmer-swim coach-lifeguard lifestyle in my California past it hasn’t. I used to spend upwards of 12 hours a day in nothing BUT a bathing suit; 10 years and a New York pallor have deepened my sense of modesty, I guess.
My friends – especially those of the shore house set – think I am being ridiculous and have been preaching to me that as I’m single, in decent shape and located within a 10 minute walk of the Great Lawn, I need to Get Over It and embrace my inner hottie. They have been shopping for a bikini for me, because left to my own devices I gravitate towards retro one-piece halter bathing suits that are more modest than what girls standing in line to get into clubs on a Saturday night tend to wear. Amy is convinced I need a royal blue bathing suit. She’s one of those people who seems to have a good sense for other people – you know the type, oddly intuitive and therefore completely compelling when giving advice – so I tend to listen to her. Maybe I do need a royal blue bikini! Maybe I can lay on the lawn, surrounded by a bascrillion people, and reveal my belly! Maybe I will be tan this year! Shocking!
Molly, she told me, I mean this in the nicest way, but you just need to fucking get over yourself.
Which is sound advice. And applicable to most areas of my life. Certainly one need not be a supermodel to appreciate the INSANELY ENJOYABLE HIGH that comes from bare skin against grass, the sun above and the towers of tall buildings peeking over the treeline as you lean back and let your belly get warm and lay there, breathing in the season, casually eavesdropping on your neighbors, suddenly madly in love with the city and strangely craving another popsicle.
April 20th, 2008
In high school I wasn’t voted anything, which is okay with me because I’m nothing if not a late bloomer, so not being half of the Cutest Couple, or the Most Stylish, or Class Clown, or Party Animal, or Best Smile doesn’t bother me. My friends were voted all those things: one was Most Likely to Succeed, one was Class Ski Bum, one was Best Personality, blah blah blah, and one was voted Most Likely to Be President, which is apparently NOT the most successful thing one can do and deserves its own, separate category. The girl who was voted Most Likely to Succeed attended – from what I understand – four different colleges but finally did graduate and is living somewhere in the Pacific Northwest and I can’t really attest to her level of success, but I imagine she’s happy so there you have it. The boy voted Most Likely to Succeed went to UCLA and joined an evangelical movement and is – from what I understand – trying to save souls via the words of Jesus Christ.
The Cutest Couple broke up right after graduation and both are married to other people and raising children. The Class Party Animal (female) lives in Spain, the Ski Bum (male) is an engineer with two baby girls and the Class Brain (male) lives in Colorado with the Best Smile (also male).
The boy voted Most Likely to Be President is raising a family somewhere in New Jersey and the girl voted Most Likely to Be President lives in London. She was in town recently and I had tea and Champagne with her at the St. Regis and we were both sort of flabbergasted to realize that while she now lives in London, we overlapped in New York for 10 years. A decade of living within a few miles of one another, and only with the ever-handy passive-and-socially-acceptable stalking tool Facebook did we find one another and realize, Holy Shit, we were both in New York all this time.
Seeing someone you grew up with is the closest thing to time travel I’ve ever experienced. It’s been 15 years since I saw my friend, and upon graduating high school both of us more or less never looked back. I have two dear friends that I’ve known since grade school with whom I’m still in touch, but I rely on my brothers for high school gossip and local updates. On Monday afternoon, however, I was right back in high school – only better, because I’m about one million times more comfortable in my own skin then I was at 16. Maybe one billion. At least.
She had recently visited with another schoolmate who now lives in Paris and is raising a daughter and working for the International Herald Tribune. I never thought that we’d all end up so scattered, but it felt good to hear about all of the alternative lives being lived and appreciate the different ways in which we all sprouted and re-planted ourselves. I don’t know what I envisioned for myself back in high school; I’m sure I had a life imagined and I’m sure it was not all that different from the life I had already been living, only older, with a new address. But things happen. The life I’m living right now has had its fair share of mishaps and wrong turns and yes, heartache and anger, but I appreciate so deeply that I’m living my life, however messy, however detached and however flawed. It’s no Paris-and-the-Intenrational-Herald-Tribune, but it’s miles away from where I, where we, started, and for that I am grateful.
A friend was over on Friday night and we were talking about marriage and relationships and friendships and pregnancy and how hard it is when you realize that despite starting out at the same place as your friends, you are all on very different paths. A few years ago my happy little Brooklyn social network was incredibly symmetrical and easy and any combination of the 10 people (five couples, natch) in that happy little group worked. Things have changed. People have separated, divorced, had kids, moved away, tried to have kids, moved back, moved on, stopped talking. I think we all imagined linking arms and taking the steps towards Whatever Was Next together, raising our kids together, entering our 30’s together, but shit happens and life happens and the balance gets thrown off and there’s not a whole lot left to do except roll with it.
The flip side is that even if your path splits from where you thought you wanted to go, you may run smack into where you needed to be, or at least that’s my hope. It took fifteen years for me to realize that someone I once attended sleepovers with was essentially a neighbor, and she had to leave the country for me to make that discovery. I’m not saying it was destiny or anything as heavy-handed as that, but it makes me wish for a category in our senior yearbook, “Most Likely to Meet For Drinks a Million Years From Now,” because honestly, how cool was that?
February 20th, 2008
In 2000 I had just started a new job in a fashion-y office that was part of a somewhat fashion-y company. We had weekly staff meetings that usually began with a recap of the previous night’s Sex and the City episode as well as a discussion of “who looks good,” meaning which retailers and boutiques we’d visited over the weekend. One morning, a month or so after I’d joined the department, our VP asked everyone to go around the conference room and announce who we were planning on voting for in the upcoming election: Hillary Clinton or Rick Lazio. I blurted out, You can ask us that! and she looked at me and said, I can ask you whatever I want, this is my office. And from that moment on, I was more or less invisible to her (not necessarily a bad thing). I had been raised with the understanding that your vote is private and personal and no one should ever force you to defend your choice, so the idea that I was being asked, in a professional setting, to announce and defend my vote was jarring. As were many other things in that office (closed door meetings about the state of my eyebrows! breast-feeding toddlers in interviews! people crying, nearly every day!)
So I’m not going to tell you who I voted for in the primary and who I am hoping to vote for in November; I’ll just say that while I like both candidates, I voted for the one I feel is better prepared to hit the ground running. I’ve been inspired by one candidate more than the other, and I feel that this candidate is ultimately more capable and better positioned to handle whatever ugly scenarios may arise in the next few months. If the other candidate gets the nomination, that person will also get my vote, but I have much love and respect for the candidate that got my vote last week.
I had drinks with friends on Friday night, and after several glasses of wine, we got to loudly and sloppily discussing politics (also: sex, handbags, cheese). One of my friends was raised in a Communist country, and moved to the United States as a teenager. Hearing her views on American politics was fascinating. I have friends who grew up all over the United States, and I have to say that the regional differences among all our upbringings have been startling, but at the end of the day, we were all raised as Americans. I have one very good friend who is British, and the differences between her upbringing and mine are amusing (car parks and vacations in Austria and favourite colours, etc) but at the end of the day, we were raised with not very different opportunities and beliefs. Communism is different. Talk to someone who grew up under CeauÅŸescu, with food rationing, phone-bugging, no heat, and you will suddenly fall in love with America in all its strip-mall, super-sized glory.
We were in a South African bar and our waiter had moved to New York – from effing AFRICA – two weeks prior. He came over and commented on our heated political debate (read: loud, full of drunk-girl hand waving), and told us how interesting it was to hear three girls (I think he said ladies, actually) out on a Friday night talking about politics. I’m not sure where he was in proximity to us during the, er, adult portion of our conversation, but we did sort of look at one another and acknowledge that Yeah, being able to have these arguments – and having two viable candidates to argue over – was nice for a change. I’m pretty far removed from any sort of political arena (by choice: maybe it makes me a weenie, but I don’t love politics the way people who love politics love politics and I’m one of those people who usually wants everyone to Just Get Along and play nice) but it was refreshing to make it through an entire night without any, “My husband pisses me off when he does blah”, “Can you believe she said bleh”, “I feel fat,” talk.
I still felt fat, because I had eaten probably two pounds of cheese and drank a friggin VAT of wine, but it was happy-fat; I walked home up Columbus thinking both, Gee, I wonder if Magnolia is still open (it wasn’t) and, That was a good night (it was).
February 12th, 2008
I was at dinner with friends the other night and we got to talking about the difference between being hit on by men and women. Everyone at the table was straight, but we were all in agreement about two things: one, that as fantastic as our husbands and boyfriends may be, we need our wives; and two, knowing that a woman is into you can be just as exhilarating as knowing a man is into you.
Oh, I think it’s more intense when I can tell a woman is really into me, S. said. Because then I know she’s really into me. She’s not just trying to fuck me.
We nodded in agreement. When you meet a woman you connect with, you know she wants to know you; she’s into your brain rather than your tits, we said.
I pointed out that the last time I remember leaving a bar with a phone number, it was with the digits of the fun pixie lesbian tending bar at one of my favorite spots. She knew I was straight, she just wanted to maybe go to yoga together! I said.
Yes! my friends all exclaimed, Exactly!
Of course, when I told the same thing to my male friend, he said, And by ‘go to yoga’, you mean eat box, right?
Whereas my wives would all say, Yes, yoga! And then brunch! The more the merrier! Because another advantage to the same-sex-non-sexual flirtation is that monogamy is never a requirement.
December 16th, 2007
I once attended a wedding at which there was no wedding coordinator, which is absolutely fine with me as my philosophy about weddings is that they should be fun, pretty, and involve two people who are in love, the end. (Except that I totally can spend a bajillion hours talking flowers and dresses because Hello, they are pretty!) The thing about this coordinator-less wedding was that at some point, there had been a coordinator, only due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, the coordinator didn’t make it to the actual wedding, and to make a long story short, the bride and groom got introduced by the wrong names and the tables were arranged backwards, placing the parents of the bride and groom in the foyer, basically. It didn’t matter in the end, because Fun, Pretty, and Two People Who Are in Love, but it proved a very important point: some things are only noticeable when they are absent.
Like editing, table service and foundation garments. If executed properly, no one should know that Chapter 11 used to be Chapter 4, that the water glass has been refilled, or that I have on Spanx. They should just enjoy the book, the meal, my sweet, firm ass. I’m not the kind of person who hopes to blend into a crowd, necessarily, but sometimes invisibility is the highest compliment.
I’ve been thinking about that lately, in regards to friendships and personal lives and social lives and job fulfillment and all that crap, and I’ve…well, I’ve noticed that I seem to be doing most of my noticing when thing go bad. And maybe that’s the nature of some relationships; maybe the best friends are the ones who are so much a part of you that you don’t realize they’re there, until that awful day when suddenly, someone is away at a conference and their Blackberry battery needs to be recharged and you can’t get a hold of them and OHMIGOD YOU WANT TO DIE because you miss that person a whole lot. Some people are like an extension of you, or of me, and only when the phantom pains start are you able to look into that blank space and think, Something’s missing.
I’m not saying that’s right, or fair, or even denying a clumsy metaphor. I’m simply saying that whether it seems so or not, I am deeply thankful for all of the people who lift me up and let me lean, who make sure my water glass stays full, who cue the music at exactly the right moment.
November 20th, 2007
The only time I’ve ever been mistaken for a celebrity was when a little girl at the table next to me thought I was Snow White. I was out to dinner with my boyfriend and his parents, now my husband and in-laws, and throughout our dinner the kid next to me kept looking over in my direction. After dinner her mother came up to me and said, My daughter, she thinks you’re Snow White…
Which tells you something about the attention I give towards maintaining a healthy tan, and also the painful process of growing out a pixie cut. It was winter, I was dead pale, and I had bangs; I suppose Snow White was a complement in those dark days.
But I don’t hear a lot of, “You know, you look just like So and So…” Which is fine; I look like me, I like me. And usually looking like me is enough for people to remember me, and I don’t mean that in an I’m So Great way, I swear, it’s just that by this point in my life, I can handle the cocktail party circuit and carry on enough of a conversation with someone that if and when I meet them again, it’s not awkward. Now, I rarely forget either a name or a face, but I know not everyone can say the same (and I am by no means inculpable in this social skill, not like Emilie’s friend Stephanie who really never forgets a name, which – when lining up for Superpowers – isn’t so bad, once things like Flying and Invisibility and Impervious to Calories have all been doled out, after all there is something to be said for the lesser superpowers, things like Never Late, Good at Hanging Art on Walls, and Able to Apply Lipstick Flawlessly), which is why I try not to hold it against someone when he or she (re)introduces him or herself to me for the second or third time. But it still bugs me.
I had brunch at our friends’ apartment earlier today and there was a guy there whom I’ve met four or five times, and every time I say, Hey, good to see you again, and every time he looks sort of quizzically at me and says, Oh, um, have we met, was it as such-and-such party? and then my friend Beck usually says, Have you guys really never met? and I’m like, Oh, um, no, we’ve met, it’s just been a while. Even though it totally hasn’t. And, he has a girlfriend that I’ve met at least three times, and each time I see her now she introduces herself to me anew. And again I make with the, I think we met at blah blah blah bar, good to see you again, and then go back to my mimosa and wonder, What is it with these people and their inability to remember me? If you’ve met me, you know: I’m not one of those invisible people who is there in the hazy background of the goings-on. I am loud and messy and have convinced myself that I’m also quite charming, although that’s not really for me to say.
It’s weird what and who stands out in our memory, though; my husband swears we met months before what I consider to be our first conversation, and on the flip side are the people and places that are etched in my memory in such a way that when I look back it’s as if a glow is surrounding them, telling me, This is gonna be something special. I try to pay attention to things like that; I have to trust my gut and believe that there is some intuitive sense guiding me along the tangled up knots that my social circles have become.
If it’s superpowers we’re talking about, I have to plug Emilie’s: she has an unfailing sense about people. If Emilie likes someone, they are good people. The end. She finds great people, and surrounds herself with great people. It’s a beautiful gift, and I’ve often wished for such clear-sighted social prowess. Although it’s possible my superpower partners nicely with hers; I can broker friendships. If Emilie vets someone, I can introduce them to any number of cool people I’ve met and right there you have the beginnings of great platonic matchmaking service, no?
(My other superpower, mentioned briefly above: I can talk to anyone, about anything. For real, I wasn’t kidding.)
I hate being wrong about people. As my social circle twists to accommodate new jobs and new babies and new relationships, I’m finding my tight little network of friends to be changing shape, and it’s new territory for me. I like to think I’m a good judge of character but every now and then, people surprise you. And by you, I mean Me. For better and for worse, sometimes things are going to get turned upside down and that’s just the way it goes. (Of course, sometimes upside down is a really really good thing and you catch yourself having what amounts to a completely perfect moment, with someone unexpected, and well, that’s just fabulous.) But as I’m clearly no Snow White, and am not interested in fairy tale endings, I’m willing to roll with the punches and hope things will all turn out okay in the end. Frankly, the ability to have faith in things working themselves out is a superpower in and of itself, one I’d be thrilled to have, but I’m not willing to trade my stellar sense of direction or thoughtful gift-giving skills for it, not yet. Until then I’m leaning on my many fairy godmothers to steer me right.
November 11th, 2007
In college, my friends and I were pretty sure we had it All Figured Out. What’s funny to me now is realizing that when you strip away all the annoying catch phrases and teenage pontificating, we sort of did: some shit doesn’t change. It’s not cool to take sloppy seconds. Beer before liquor really does make you sicker. If he doesn’t call, he’s not worth your time. And you can’t find fun, it has to find you.
Take for instance last weekend, in which my friends and I dressed up and went out fully expecting the night to reward our efforts. We had a great time, but if you’ll remember, there were a fair amount of injustices and by midnight I was rubbing my eyes and wondering how we’d get back to our hotel and thinking how much I’d like a nice, sensible cup of coffee. The jukebox was not our friend.
But as any nineteen year old can tell you, the random nights are always the best, and on Friday, the Universe evened things out in our favor. Emilie was in town, and we called Beck to come over as well. We sat in my air conditioned apartment and drank Proseco in pretty glasses and agreed that, Yeah, maybe we just stay here and order dinner, We’re not in the mood to go out, then we ordered sushi and opened more wine and had lots of Adult Relationship Talk and just as we were contemplating putting on pajama bottoms someone said, We could go out for a drink, I guess and so we grabbed our bags and walked down the street to the funny little bar on the corner and sat on barstools for what turned out to be five hours, although it felt like five minutes, and incredulously walked Beck up to Clinton to grab a cab sometime around 3:00 a.m., not sure where the time had gone.
To recap, last weekend we were at bar where:
- Wasted money and enegry on jukebox
- Were in pretty dresses and had birthday tiaras
- Got no love from Bartender
- Also no free drinks
- Had gross tequila shots in plastic cups
- Other patrons maybe hated us
- Couldn’t get cab home
…and in comparison, on Friday night:
- Found seats at corner of bar with view of skyline
- Were in jeans and t-shirts and were hot and sticky and didn’t give a shit
- Drank crazy moonshine lemonade concoction
- Had much better tequila shots in proper glasses
- Captivated Bartender with our Relationship Talk
- Played many songs on jukebox, all of which we heard
- …Jukebox with AWESOME selection, including handwritten playlists for mixed CDs with great songs (to wit: Emilie found Gram Parsons and an unreleased Ryan Adams. She was happy.)
- Other patrons complimented us on the music
- When we discovered that we all picked same song, people were not haters; rather they said, This song is AWESOME, why wouldn’t we want to hear ‘Jane Says’ three times?
- Cute-ish guy in western shirt who used to be Evan Dando’s drummer started talking to Emilie about music
- Some gays told me I had pretty eyes (and Emilie has great jewelry)
- Bartender bought us a round
- Got home easily
My twenty-year old self would have rolled her eyes and said, DUH. Might also mention that the secret to meeting a guy is to go out without having shaved your legs, because the minute you decide you can’t take your pants off, you’re bound to meet someone who makes you think otherwise.
September 9th, 2007
September 2nd, 2007
A few years ago I went to Disneyland with my friend Jay and his then-partner and we had the best day, maybe ever. Disneyland turned out to be one of those things that is way more fun as an adult than as a kid, and two gays and I may not be the “target” Disney audience, but we really did make it a very magic kingdom. Halloween might fall into the same category; I personally loathe the day with it’s slutty Red Riding Hoods and Britneys Through The Years, but I’m comfortable saying that the crowd downtown is having a celebration that puts trick-or-treating to shame.
Along the same lines, I’ve decided that turning thirty is the Sweet Sixteen of my peer group. I think I celebrated turning 16 with some balloons tied to my locker and a bouquet of daisies, but dammit if I didn’t play the princess card two years ago. I turned 30 in style — there was food, drink, a novelty cake and confetti and I’m willing to live with the knowledge that I never had a “real” Sweet Sixteen because I guarantee that anything circa 1991 would have been vastly underappreciated by yours truly.
Not so in 2005, when the first batch of my friends turned 30. I was full of appreciation. Also, proseco and second hand smoke. Oh yes, and of boob cake.
2007 (or really, 1977) is/was another big year; this year marks Beck, Sarah, Caroline, Laura, Emilie, Vanessa and Matt’s 30th birthdays. Caroline’s birthday is actually today (and she is playing Birthday Princess to an admirable degree; someone that works for her knitted her a Gryffindor scarf which is maybe the greatest thing I’ve ever heard) and Kent and I are planning to fete her properly this weekend (read: watch college football and get our nails done before cleaning up for her party. I’ll let you figure out whose nails will be getting did).
If my logic follows, then turning 40 will be the new 21st birthday. And seeing as how I turned 21 on the last night of a holiday weekend, right before finals, with drinks like blow jobs, oatmeal cookies, otter pops and stoplights, I’m looking to upgrade. Right now, frankly, I’m thinking Destination Birthday. I’m thinking formal dress, I’m thinking lots and lots of bubbly…
My parents were in Paris this spring for their friend Mike’s 50th birthday. Mike is one of my mom’s best friends, and he and his husband Brian are my parents’ partners in crime. Mike planned his birthday well in advance; engraved invitations were sent out over six months beforehand. A restaurant was booked for their private party. A band was hired. Shitloads of wine and champagne were purchased. Outfits were selected. There was a videographer and a photographer. And, in the end, nearly 30 people flew to France to celebrate Mike’s birthday (my mother was – to no one’s surprise – seated next to him) and my parents told Kent and me all about it last weekend, and I have to say…it sounded utterly divine. I know the sort of family Mike and Brian have created is not necessarily what everyone traditionally thinks of when they hear ‘family’ but their partnership, their marriage, their friendships and their joy and care and appreciation are the sort of things that warm me and inspire me and – no matter what anyone says – they and their friends are a beautiful, beautiful family.
My mother told us about stumbling home through the 7th, drunk and dizzy at 4:00 a.m., with Brian more or less pirouetting along Rue St Dominique (he used to be a dancer, natch) and I have to say, Those bitches on My Sweet Sixteen are going to be sorely disappointed, because they may have Ludacris singing at their 16th birthday party, in a mall their dad rented out, but don’t you think there’s little hope for them to really do it right at 30, 40, 50?
Anyway, this is all just to say that if you need me this weekend, I will in Delaware, with my nearest and dearest, as it should be.
August 30th, 2007
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