is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.
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Nothing Wrong At All.
We didn�t go to spread eagle village, at least not literally. Yoktan and I did manage to have some bad suburban Thai food and a good time on Friday night. Wendy didn�t make it out until Saturday morning because she had to be on a television show at the last minute, because she is Wendy. And so Y and I spent an evening alone looking at ducks and geese, wondering whether Yoktan could succeed in killing one of them if he tried, walking around the campus and seeing how quiet it is even on Friday night, admiring my 2nd favorite random fire hydrant, and then waiting for stars to come out. We met Wendy and Linda at Jones around 1pm on Saturday for a yummy brunch that included TATER TOTS and a perfect mushroom-cheddar omelette (for me, and then for everyone else when I didn�t finish my food). Then we went to the Mutter Museum and looked at crazy historical medical specimens. This made Linda and Yoktan very very happy, and kept Wendy and I fairly entertained.
On the way back to QB from Philly I was driving Jeremy�s car and got lost. Or at least semi-lost, though heading in the right direction. But I kept getting phone calls from people who were already at my house, which was slightly stressful, so I requested that Wendy mapquest our position with her sidekick, but apparently she is not as used to doing that as I am, so it wasn�t working, and then when it did work she kept silently reading what the screen was saying and not telling me, so that I had no idea what was going on, and then I almost fainted. While driving. I am not sure why. In retrospect I think it must have been all the pollen. There is So Much Infernal Pollen flying around here this week and last. And we had all the car windows open. There seems to be no other reason why I would suddenly feel like the car was tipping over when it wasn�t. Anyway I pulled over and made Wendy drive and we got home and found Trip, Greg and Caroline waiting for us. I used my inhaler, and laid down on the floor for awhile, and then ate some food, and things were fine again.
Then it was time for a PARTY. I wore my fabulous new black satin dress with feather hem and the Prada miracle shoes. Trip and Greg had arrived with lots of expensive cheeses and loaves of bread already cut in to pieces and bottles of gin and bourbon and 24 wine glasses and a gift of candlesticks for me, and also various chocolates. Their traveling bags were magical, like Mary Poppins� carpet bag, so much came out of them. I made three cakes�chocolate, white spice, and almond�and savory snacks and dips were strewn about liberally. People began to arrive and the New Yorkers began to mix with the professors. At some point Yoktan said to me, �I am in a room full of professors. How can I get them in touch with the flesh?� Me: [raised eyebrows.] Him: �Do you think I can get them to make a human pyramid?� I said, �You go ahead,� thinking that would most definitely not come to pass. Fast forward two hours and there I am on the top of a human pyramid realizing a bit too late that in a crouching position like that my dress was a bit too revealing in the direction of the director of the Humanities Center (home of all my funding). Ha! I think that will be OK, given that he had chosen to stay at the party late into the evening, and thus had probably consumed liberal amounts of alcohol. What matters is that IT WAS A GOOD PARTY, and I think it will go down in history as the only QB party to feature a human pyramid. (In fact, all day Sunday and Monday I kept laughing roughly every three hours to think that there had been a human pyramid at my professor party.) People stayed until 3 am. Then there were still lots of people here, because Linda, Wendy, Yoktan, Caroline, Strauss, Trip and Greg were all staying overnight!
Trip and I got to have two or three fun slow dances, with good conversations punctuated by twirling maneuvers. We discussed how long we had known each other, and how glad we are about that, and how funny it is that when we first met we almost went on a heterosexual date (something he would never do now, iykwim). In fact he told the story in a way that brought back to me how much more blunt (aka insensitive) I used to be about things. He said he asked me out and I said, �You have the WORST timing. My boyfriend is coming back from France tomorrow!� Ha. I probably could have chosen better words? However Trip insists that those words were fine, that he understood exactly what I was saying.
In the meantime, David K. (from Brooklyn) shows up with Gayle (from Princeton) and a bottle of absinthe he ordered off the internets. I can�t answer the questions about whether it is �real� absinthe or what-have-you. All I know is that there was constantly a crowd around him in the kitchen as he burned sugar with some magical fluid in a spoon and then made magical drinks that made people happy. I had a small amount of one of those drinks. And then I found myself at the top of a human pyramid. But I think that Yoktan is more of a causal factor in my actions than absinthe. That has often been the case in the 16 years I�ve known him.
Gayle brought me a mixed CD of sad songs, and since she has impeccable taste in sad songs, I am looking forward to hearing that CD. It went missing for a day or two and I just located it this afternoon�.
My colleague Cristina brought a multi-colored spinning disco light to get the dancing started. The party didn�t end up being as much of a dance-rager as hers was back in January, but there was some dancing, and plenty of boozing and hijinx. It was good to feel that I could have a real party here (as opposed to: only in San Francisco). And it was especially good to see how many of my out of town friends were willing to make the trek out for my birthday.
Yoktan, Wendy and Linda even managed to secure a cake that I had not baked, and some candles, and then get them lit and walk them into the room with some birthday singing for me, without me suspecting anything. I was thankful that they chose four candles instead of forty, given the whole almost-fainting thing earlier.
In short: there was absolutely nothing wrong with my weekend, nor with my party, nor with my east coast birthday. I feel lucky and loved, and it�s a happy feeling.
On Sunday I woke up around 11 and made eggs and pancakes for everyone. We did some cleaning. Greg and Trip took off. Strauss, Linda, Wendy, Yoktan, Caroline and I took a walk around campus. Then we came back, ate some more, read some magazines, listened to some music, and everyone got on the road. They have jobs, you know? I went to a bbq picnic for the Philosophy seniors and immediately encountered two hungover professors there. I had a beer and some tasty food and then came back home, where I got stuck to the couch. Except that I had promised my students I would join them for a drink at a bar down the road because one of them was turning 21. There I was on the couch thinking, �I cannot do this. I said I�d do this. I must do this. I cannot do this.� Etc. So I got up, found the ipod, picked some good music, and took what ended up being a delicious walk (the evening was just the right temperature) down silent route 30 to Roache�s bar.
When I got there, 45 minutes late, I found only two students? Who quickly explained that we had to move to another bar because even though usually you are allowed to drink when your birthday is at midnight, apparently that rule had changed at this particular bar, and etc., and the rest of the students were outside in the alley waiting for me. Doh! And one of them was holding an impromptu reading of Wordsworth to keep them entertained while they waited. His reading was actually quite good. I�m told he is a local poet. So there I was in an alley outside a suburban bar with a girl who can�t get into the bar because she is not yet 21. How long has it been since THAT happened to me? Hahahaha. We went to another bar and all of a sudden there I am drinking pitchers of beer and taking shots with 22 year olds. You know what I learned? I learned that I do not have to worry about being drunk in front of my students because I could easily outdrink any of them! But don�t tell them I said that. It would make me seem like an old lush.
The conversation moved back and forth between stories about what happened at the professor party (they were sad to have missed the human pyramid, and strangely fascinated by the idea of drunk professors, and wanting lists of who attended) and philosophical questions (one of my students, really one of the best ever students, and one of the most ethically serious thinkers I have ever met, student or no student, was there, and he kept steering the conversation that way, while others were tending toward the types of stories one usually hears in a bar) and comments on age (�isn�t 40 a lot closer to death?� �perhaps, but there is so much about being 40 that is better than being 22!� �is that why you drank your shot slowly instead of quickly?� �the best thing about being 40 right now is that I am indifferent to your censure!� and so on, all jokingly and funny-like). My plan had been to show up, have a beer and go home. But I ended up hanging out with them for two and a half hours. At midnight I went home, because I wanted my 21st birthday student to be able to get crazy drunk without professor panopticon there. And I�m told that is exactly what she did. Yay for her. Yay for all my lovely students, who for some reason wanted their professor to go out with them.
Today Evany emailed me to say she is writing the invite for my party in SF! Just in time to wear that feathery dress again.
12:42 a.m. - May 10, 2006
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