PG-13
I'm all partied out.

Last night started out slow, a few friends from work showed up pretty early and it took a while for the rest of the crowd to get here. Justin and I both agreed that hosting a party where noone shows up is one of those fears we've both retained from a childhood as somewhat social rejects. That, and we put a lot of effort into making things run smoothly. I guess getting food was pretty pointless (though $3 for like 9 years worth of pretzels at Costco wasn't bad) but some of it got eaten. The rest, I beg of you, take away before I eat it....

I guess we needed to hit up Albertsons and the Liquor store anyway for the *ahem* "social" lubricants. Good sweet Christ, liquor is expensive. I think we spent $60, all told, on Skyy vodka, Tequila, Smirnoff Ice, and some (bleh) Corona. All this for a party that we wanted to be based in some good, old-fashioned non-drunken fun. Riiiiight. Well, we still felt like what we'd gotten might be too little, but the group of people who came was pretty small and all close-knit so it went just far enough. It's a good thing, too, considering the hassle that we had to go through to get it:

While we were at Albertsons, a few rather nerve-wracking things happened. First, while buying vegetables (in a completely non-alcohol related tangent) I overheard a couple talking to one of their friends. All of the speakers seemed to be pretty young, probably early to mid twenties, though I could be wrong. In any case, what I deduced from the conversation was that they were talking about their and their friends' new babies. And apparently one of their friends had four kids. For all I know, this friend is 40 but I somehow doubt it. Looking at these people who were all somewhat near my age and hearing them talk about their new children was the first of many sinking feelings that I know will grow in size and frequency over the next few years as more and more of my friends drop off the map... yay. Anyway, back to the alcohol.

We grabbed the Smirnoff and Corona and a whole cart of groceries, only part of which was for the guests. Justin got into line behind me in the checkout to get the booze because I'm not yet "of age." While I've seen parties of people carded for buying, I didn't think they'd card by association. I almost sent him to another line just to be safe- but I'm glad I didn't. I ran all the groceries through but my damn Debit card got denied while trying to pay for them. I didn't think there was any way in hell that I had a balance smaller than $75 so I chalked it up to machine error and had Justin pay. It was too embarrasing to really make a scene out of it and I'd just made a $225 deposit earlier that week so I knew there was money there. The problem was that after he paid for my transaction and attempted to purchase the booze, the checkout chick wouldn't let him buy without carding us both. So that went straight to hell. I tried insisting that we'd come separately but she wouldn't believe me. Yay her. Good luck to all of you of-age kids who happen to talk to your minor friends in the supermarket checkout line while buying alcohol. Der...

I went out to the car and loaded it up, mulling over where my cash was, and Justin went back in for another go-through. He came out successful but looking perturbed. He told me that he'd gone to a line three down from the nazi-chick and while he was fumbling for his card, the checkout guy said "I'm sorry man, I can't sell these to you, you were just in here with a minor." So he kind of freaked out but when he looked up, the guy was talking to someone a few people back in line from him. Ironic, ne? As for my cash, it turns out that I'm just an idiot and I made the deposit into my savings instead of checking. Whoops.

We made two Boboli pizzas, which I'm convinced Justin ate most of, and listened to some music while tormenting poor Rupert whose brain had gone into sensory overload from all the people showing up. Once we had a substantial crowd (read: 10 people total) of people who knew each other we had a really great time. There was, of course, way too much food and drink as is always the case when I overestimate how much people will want. But the food was still around in the morning; the drink wasn't. Yeah, I went into all of this determined to have a party powered by something other than booze. I wouldn't say that we failed, but we did give in. I've always struggled to understand why college students need alcohol to have a party. I think that, primarily, it's because they don't know how to entertain people, much less themselves, for any given period of time without an altered state of mind. Sadly, it also seems that it's more or less the only way most people can really let their guard down and feel comfortable schmoozing without masks. I wanna know why I can't lay in big pigpiles with people and talk about really whack kinky stuff while I'm sober without feeling bashful. It's lame. But that's besides the point, we all got really trashed and it was great. We were really feelin the love. Granted, at times, it degenerated (was it really a degeneration? maybe not...) into a sort of PG-13 rated orgy but eh, nothing I'm cringing about now. In fact, I'd love to have the same group of people over more often! It was fun to poing about like idiots and to get to know everyone... better. Though I really question what was up with the "no aliens" note left on the post-it note pad and all the 4s and 8s written on it. I also apologize if my tarot readings were a little too infused with spastic insobriety...

"I'm not Zen, I'm drunk!"

I woke up this morning feeling really good (Actually, "morning" is a relative term... after a brief stint of consciousness around 10 AM I fell back asleep until 3. Heh.)... drained of all energy by tequila but *really* happy. I'm glad to finally feel that I have a comfortable group of friends. I'm thankful that I'm not lonely and I'm proud to say that it's been a while since my emotional crash this winter and I think that I've finally let go of all my past baggage. This really feels like a new beginning- the freedom of being in control. I woke up with my friend and my lover in a place still warm with the good, old-fashioned drunken glee of ten uninhibited college students. I still feel surrounded by love. For the first time in a long while, I feel like I have everything I need. I am satisfied.

I'm glad everyone came and had fun, and I'm happy I have affectionate friends. Our "house" has been warmed... well. We can call it the Magic Porn House now! ; )

If you were there, thanks for coming- if you weren't; you missed out. And hey, I remembered well enough how to use the digicam so I have fun blackmail/souvenir pictures. Muahahaha.... beware!!