Holiday decoration party - Sunday December 13 1998    

A mild Santa Ana condition assured yet another beautiful San Diego day. It's really not especially hard to plan outdoor events in this town.

Again Kim was the slave driver and Rory and I did what we could to look busy in preparing for today's party. In the process, Rory did most of the work necessary for the making of the jambalaya.
Kim and I set out to pick up her attractive Swedish friend Christina, who lives in Mission Beach. I was looking forward to the prospect of various men trying unsuccessfully to seduce her at today's jambalaya party. More important than any one single blond girl, of course, was the quarter keg of Karl Straus beer, which we picked up at a Party Shoppe down on the south end of Ocean Beach. The guys were so friendly there that I'm encouraged to have another party soon just to give them more business.

Back at our place, my co-worker and co-party host, Kevin, was in full effect to help with the preparations. There really wasn't much left to do by this point. We put chairs in tables out in the yard, tapped the keg, and kicked back in the bright sun. Today was one of the warmest days I've yet experienced in San Diego (since early September) and it was almost too warm in the sun. The weather made the stockings and Santa Hats look especially quaint and out of place. (Though I'd done a good job of personalizing them with names written in gold glitter.)

There was a plump 11 year old boy named Aaron from one of the courtyard apartments who was taking an active role in the festivities. He kept doing a magic trick of reading our minds:

Pick a number
Double it
Add twenty
Divide it by two
Subtract the number you originally had
The number you have is ten!!
I read your mind!!

I suggested to Aaron that he make more of a show of "reading" my mind, for example, by making use of a long dramatic pause and simulating deep, concentrated thought.

People began to trickle in: co-workers and co-students of both Kim and myself, as did Scott and Justin (a woman) & kids (the young family from down the street who sold us our teevee cabinet). Joe, the alterna-outdoorsy guy who lives next door, heard we were serving jambalaya and beer and joined in, along with his blond former girlfriend. Jason Meyers showed up, but he was very subdued. Also Genevieve and Frank (remember them?) materialized, and I chatted with the latter for a time about the relative strength of our respective computer hardware. His machine, he told me, is "only 300 MHz." Somehow I got away.

At a certain point I discretely led a group of co-workers back to the bedroom to smoke pot. It's devilishly empowering to orchestrate the revealing of subcultural aspects in one's colleagues. Later on my boss even came by, followed by a couple of girls from work (along with their dogs, fresh from an exciting afternoon at nearby Dog Beach).

The jambalaya was good even if it was a wee bit burnt. The fact that it was mostly made straight out of the box was both well-concealed and unimportant. We made exactly enough, too.

The party was remarkable mostly for the fact that it came off without a hitch, though it mostly lacked interesting details. The only real disappointment was the overall lack of single women. I've always taken pride in the fact that my parties are well stocked with ladies, but since meeting Kim, my ability to forge connections with women has not been what it once was. And though many of my male friends are single, Kim's female friends aren't, for the most part.

At around 4:00pm, the party headed to the beach where a good number of us smoked more pot and watched the sunset. On the walk back home, we all stopped in at Scott and Justin's house where Scott filled our cups with his own picobrew and proudly showed us all the improvements he's making to his place. I take it back; by this point the party had developed some interesting details.

But I don't remember much of what happened next. We all went back to my place and watched teevee: America's Funniest and The Simpsons (more pot was smoked of course). Eventually I stood up and played the role of a human sample machine, doing various loops with the song "Hark the Herald Angels Sing (Glory to the newborn king)."

The idea of eventually moving the party to Kevin's place in Mesa Mirage, which had seemed so original and brilliant back when we were sober, was laughable by this juncture of the evening. So Kim refunded Kevin's share of the keg and we agreed he'd have to throw his own party some other time. The keg ran out at precisely the right time. Everyone but houseguest Rory had departed by 9pm and it was time to gratefully pass the fuck out.