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lame student Halloween party
Saturday, October 28 2000
Owing to some insurmountable compatibility issues with Windows Millennium edition, today when I went to Bathtubgirl's house, the main goal was to get her machine running Windows 98. It was a lot of work reinstalling all the software from scratch, but it all went unexpectedly smoothly. I was aided substantially by the fact that the machine already contained a couple unused hard drives that I hadn't even been aware of.
Bathtubgirl and I managed to get along fairly well throughout the bulk of my visit. Indeed, things started out with something of a bang, a little throwback to the most redeeming aspect of our erstwhile relationship. It's not healthy, I admit, but this sort of thing is to be expected.
Later, though, even as I grew weary from the hours of continuous work, Bathtubgirl slipped into full-bore slavedriver mode, requesting all sorts of unreasonably large additions to her site. From their our fight degenerated into a pitched shouting match on the subject of the money I still owe her. It got so bad and irrational that I found myself hurling gratuitous anti-semitic epithets at her, mostly for shock value. It's not exactly my usual method for winning arguments.
I'd originally planned on going out to a rave with my erstwhile boss Linda, but my time at Bathtubgirl's house dragged on longer than expected and by the time I made it home it was too late to get in touch with her. Besides, my lack of motorized transportation effectively limits my recreational options to those falling within my home territory. (Mind you, this limitation is more of a handy excuse than it is an obstacle. For the most part I don't even want to leave my house.)
I found John hanging out with the wealthy (and hapless) scion Farley back at my house. It was the first time we'd seen Farley in weeks. Just yesterday John and I were discussing our fears that he'd either fallen down a well or been cut up into tiny pieces by his money-obsessed stripper girlfriend. Instead, he'd had a rather nasty bout of the flu. "People have been writing me nasty emails about my website," Farley informed me (with a completely non-ironic and slightly disappointed look of surprise).
One of John's old college buddies now lives with four or five other people down Centinela a few blocks. Tonight he and his housemates were having a Halloween party and John (and by extension, Farley and I) were invited. About his college chum, John had these words of warning, "He's a really nice guy, but he's not all that cool."
John and I decided we should throw together costumes for ourselves, so he went upstairs and painted a greasepaint mustache and goatee on his face and stuck a little notebook in his pocket, complete with poetry. "I'm a beat poet!" he announced. Later he described his decoration as a "Dirty Sanchez," which he described as a kind of greeting in which a guy shoves his finger up a girl's ass and then paints a mustache of her fecal matter on his upper lip. For my part, I decided to be the priest of an as-yet unfounded religion, one whose principle icon is a metal bowling trophy statue, worn around the neck like a priestly crucifix.
As we drew near, the party looked promising. At least it had chicks. We'd been somewhat concerned that it might end up being a sausage party.
Once we were inside, it was clear that this wasn't exactly our scene. Though most everyone was dressed up, the costumes were nothing special. None of the people were smoking cigarettes and I never smelled even a hint of marijuana. And it's always a bad sign when you realize you're at a party where absolutely nobody has tattoos or facial piercings. Even Jenna the German Girl, Schtevette though she is, has tattoos (SS lightning bolts?).
If this party had contained my sort of people, I could have expected a few heartfelt chuckles at the story behind my bowling trophy talisman. The two girls to whom John and I explained it had a reaction of "Oh. I. see..." I don't think I've dealt with such weirdness-shunning cluelessness since my days waiting in the high school lunch line.
God knows, John tried hard to interact with the people at the party. But they didn't know him and it was pretty clear that they had no interest in getting to know him. Farley and I just sat back and watched. If John wasn't making friends, what was the point in our trying? Amongst the chicks present were one Dorothy and at least two ladybugs having identical cardboard & plastic wings. Later in the evening John jokingly suggested that he should walk up to some girl and say "Let me see, you must be Toto!" This one girl there would have been a complete dog if she hadn't been dressed up as a French Maid.
So eventually we split, stopping for hot beverages at the Café on the way.
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