Y: 3/4/03

Work Diary, 3/4/03

Last night I watched a movie called "The Rules of Attraction." I'd read
the book in college and thought it was horrible. The author, Bret
Easton Ellis, feels it's his best work. He may be right. Either way,
the movie was better than the book, even if the teen angst factor was
in overdrive. The sex bits caused me a twinkling of lust while
alternately grossing me out - like, totally, dude. Still, it was a good
chance to finish off a pint of ice cream and cut my toenails.

The movie reminded me of parties I've had and parties I've been to. My
last party was New Year's eve, 2002, when I forgot that if you buy too
much booze, the party will never end. The trick is to run out of booze
and people will start trickling out the door. Sometimes they don't even
say good-bye, such is their need to find the next watering hole. This
is fine with me; it's a good opportunity to start some preemptive
cleaning.

A brief history of my past partying:

1. One of my earliest memories is a birthday party that involved a huge
sheet cake depicting a car-racing scene. I was furious when my mother
cut into the perfect green and blue smoothness of the surface, the
knife knocking over the cars as she sawed off pieces for my greedy
family. I ate my own share, of course, and still prefer cakes with that
cheap whipped frosting, dyed with food coloring and so sweet it hurts
the roof of your mouth.

2. In the third grade, I went to a Boy Scouts party. No one told me it
was the night they were handing out badges for such notable
achievements as knot tying and fire starting. My mother was off
somewhere so I walked to the "lodge" by myself, only to leave within
half an hour, crying and pissed off. On the way home, I decided to cut
across a dark field that had a trail of sorts. Some bigger kids from
the neighborhood spotted me and chased me all the way back to my
apartment. Once inside, I stripped off my ill-fitting uniform and hid
it in the back of my closet, never to wear it again.

3. In junior high I went to a party held by a Christian girl whose
parents refused to let us watch "On Golden Pond" because of the bad
language. We watched an episode of "Little House on the Prairie"
instead, then stood around eating potato chips while the girl's mother
vacuumed the carpet. No one ate the chili con queso I had brought,
saying it was too spicy. The mother commented on how "exotic" it was
and wouldn't I like to take it back to my own family?

4. When I started to drive I got invited to a party that introduced me
to new wave music and the need to cut one's hair into odd patterns. The
party food included cheese spread on a toilet seat and non-alcoholic
punch with Barbie Doll heads floating in it. I fell in love with a
blond haired boy with perfect skin who ignored me, further weakening my
knees and causing me to lay my head in a friend's lap while I pondered
my loneliness and despair. Later I heard him talking. His voice was a
cross between Paul Lynn's and Elizabeth Taylor's, and my crush
evaporated by my ten o'clock curfew.

5. In high school, I went to a rich kid's party and watched people
furtively drink 3.2 beer while waiting to pair off with the opposite
sex. Later, the bushes - of which the rich kid's house had plenty -
shook and shimmied as the partygoers engaged in sloppy groping and even
sloppier French kissing. The girls shrieked; the boys guffawed. I drove
home, hoping everyone had noticed how I'd cinched my jeans in just the
right way.

6. During the summer break between high school and college, I bought a
fake I.D. at the flea market and got myself into the "Come One, Come
All Party" at a gay dance club that would later burn to the ground
(from fire, not the clientele). I hooked up with a med student who
asked me dance and got me so drunk that I initially didn't notice he
was wearing his stethoscope the entire time we were making out back at
his place. When I did notice the stethoscope, along with his
mauve-colored sheets and the Nagel prints on the walls, I made a quick
exit under the pretense that I had to be up early for my job as a shoe
salesman at the mall. "How old are you, anyway?" he asked, as I slipped
out the door.

7. In college, I was invited to a party of proto-queens who were mostly
gay but still deciding if a life of Erasure albums and hair gel was for
them. The air was thick with clove cigarette smoke and Obsession
cologne. The main bathroom had been commandeered by the cocaine
brigade, so I made my way to one of the host's bedrooms, having been
told by a wide-eyed straight boy that I could find "another crapper
thataway." I did find it, along with a laundry basket, on top of which
sat a pair of white briefs destroyed by skid marks. Clearly, my host
hadn't made it to this crapper in time. In an act of humanitarian good
will, and knowing how fragile the psyches of young gays can be, I took
a toothbrush and gently poked the offending evidence down into the
basket. Satisfied my host's momentary lack of control wouldn't follow
him through his college career, I did my business and left.

Parties since those days have pretty much been one long segue of the
same people getting older and fatter. People have gone from talking
about their new bright red convertibles to their new duplexes and 401Ks
and timeshares in Hawaii. They have careers now instead of jobs. Some
have children and disappear into a world of parent/teacher conferences
and tap dancing lessons, never to be seen again. Occasionally I get
drunk and fall into the crowd - embarrassing everyone but myself, it
seems - but mostly I just sit and watch.

And watch.

And watch.