Dresses

Yesterday we had a Super Bowl party. I called it our Extra Large Super Bowl Party given the fact that this year's Super Bowl was, well, number 40: XL. I'm suspecting many others picked up on this characteristic of the 2006 Super Bowl as well. Parties are monumental events to me. They are opportunities for me to introduce friends to friends, to see friends, to make friends happy, and, in Aries fashion once again, to be seen by friends giving me a deserved moment to be the center of attention. And Craig. He gets to be in the limelight, too. Nevertheless, it was smashing fun and success. I woke yesterday morning at 7, excitement overruling my ability to sleep in as Craig chose instead. He had requested breakfast, because we had sausage and potatoes that needed to be eaten or else pitched, plus eggs and toast, so I hastily did that for him because I treasure him so. During that time panic was rising in me. Craig kept reminding me gently that I had like 7 hours before anyone would be arriving. After we ate, I felt a fresh wave of calm and began my kitchen activities. I didn't really go overboard, just made a few types of dip, sliced some vegetables, and so on. Craig began his chili around 1. I must admit, watching him concoct anything in the kitchen is nearly as fun for me as preparing food myself. I suspect we each have our own little Food Network Envy moments; whether or not we acknowledge them fully is altogether irrelevant. But he's good at chopping things, he's cute when he throws a bunch of ingredients into one pot. My appreciation for him heightens only that much more. Anyway, we managed to get through our morning and early afternoon and everything was finally ready for party attendees. First to arrive was our young male co-worker. Midstream welcoming him, my phone rang and the caller ID read "791" as the area code. Flabbergasted, but unwilling to let it go to voicemail in the event it was a newcomer to the Mansion (our building's residents' loving nickname for our building) I answered: it was LT! Phoning from London! LT, to whom I haven't spoken voice to voice in, well, undetermined amounts of months, possibly years (I'm not sure if we ever spoke on the telephone while I was in Atlanta). She's an amazing friend and we could go absolute light years without speaking and our conversations just pick right up as if we were neighbors. But I was having a party! What's a girl to do with a pending party and longtime best friend calling from International location? I chatted with her briefly, then assured her I would set aside phone time for her the next random time she calls. LT and I go all the way back to dorm life together, where she lived exactly across the hall from EL and me on 4th floor of Collins-Ed. I was not on her top 10 list of favorite people, because I, at 18, new to college, new to everything, really, had just met a deliriously fun girl further down the hall, and this fun friend and I would stomp madly and happily down the hall screeching mid-afternoon, which was LT's select naptime. (Who naps in college at 2 p.m. anyway??) But as my freshman year unraveled, I was an aspiring poet shuffling poems into the college lit mag world and her then-boyfriend just so happened to be editor of one and he happened to see some talent in my poem-writing bones. So as happy accidents would have it, LT and I were forced to reconcile our differences and we were famous friends from then forward. Our only obstacle as friends has always been geography (first her move to San Francisco post-college then her bigger one to London), nonetheless we pick each other's brains for intellectual stimuli via the internet and the occasional ill-timed phone call. And the rare but always momentous encounter in Broad Ripple where her mom lives if LT and I both find ourselves in Indianapolis at coinciding times and with free schedules. Shifting back to present day from my London friend tangent, people finally began to arrive to our party. I just love it. I love people standing around, or sitting around, sharing stories, cracking jokes. The most unfortunate yet most apropos term I can borrow as identification for this sort of event is fellowship. But it's true, it's what that is. And all day as badly as I wanted to pull out one of my lovely party dresses for the occasion, it was, after all, a football party, and dresses don't exactly blend into the sporting event atmosphere. So I opted for jeans and a shirt. We had a great time and there was so much food I couldn't believe my eyes (or stomach). I couldn't have asked for a better turn out, or a better group of people, sincerely (although I did genuinely miss my B's and the R's from Atlanta; they would have been the icing on the proverbial cake!)*The image above is one I discovered while searching for the Klimt in the previous post. The artist is Michael J. Austin and the painting is titled, simply, "Red Dress". What struck me the most is the complex range of emotion this image reflects: despair, solitude and a heavy sad exhaustion, or maybe she's just leaning this way with her weight uncomfortably held in that chair thinking of her next poem. I love the amount of expression in the veins of her hand. If I had been able to wear a dress to my party, this would have been my dress of choice, and this wary way she sits in the chair could have been me at the end of a long party. Not feeling necessarily pensive, nevertheless very tired. Today in the aftermath or afterglow of a quality party, I'm very tired.