Thursday, December 13, 2007

Fifty First Dates

As a follow-up to my last post, another piece of clothing that the other ten percent have completely hijacked and that I think kicks ass is the striped boat-neck shirt: totally not historically gay. I don’t own one, but only because I’ve never found one in my size that I like. Picasso made the style famous, and I’d wager that he crushed more ass than Sinatra in his day.

So Frankie and I went to the Fulbright scholar’s cocktail party last night. She was still a little cold – despite the fact that she invited us to the party. It wasn’t like we crashed it or anything, even though that’s not beyond us at all. In fact, we brought a bottle of Junipero gin as a gift, and shook up a couple of killer martinis. For the first hour or so following our arrival, there were only two other guests there. They were, however, a completely cool husband and wife who were totally interesting and engaging and a pleasure to talk to. In fact, if I were to have a party at my place, I’d track them down and extend an invitation, though, I’m ambivalent about whether or not I’d invite the Fulbright scholar at this point. I probably wouldn’t.

I had pre-soaked with two vodka sodas before we arrived, and was three Dos Equis lagers into the party by the time the other guests began showing up. The highlight of the night hit early, as the fifth guest to arrive was a woman that Frankie had made-out with for a while at Melissa’s Tropi-Christmas bash. We realized this immediately before she did, and called an audible: feign complete ignorance of who she was. It helped that when she approached Frankie, she said something to the effect of “Don’t I know you? Isn’t your name Bert?” Of course, Frankie’s name is not Bert, and he had proof of that, so when we both told her that we’d never met her before she had to believe us. She was looking pretty good, and we talked with her for a while. Whoever said you never get a second chance to make a first impression never plugged alcohol into the equation.

By the end of the evening, around 11:00, there weren’t many people left at the party. Some engineering type who was talking about – I am not making this up – how the elements on the periodic table got their names ended up cornering our new friend out on the patio. We thought about running the cock-block on him, which would have been easy, but decided, instead, to just slip away into the night . . . . we had succeeded in being good, interesting (I think), and memorable guests at the party, and we had made our positive impression on the crowd. Like the gambler, Frankie and I have learned that the secret to surviving is knowing what to throw away and knowing what to keep – ‘cause every hand’s a winner and every hand’s a loser, and the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.

3 comments:

Andi said...

I bit my tongue over the turtle neck (I'm not a fan of them on anyone, straight or gay), but I really have to say an emphatic no to the boat-neck shirt.

Jack Gordon said...

LOL. It's definitely a bold move, Andi. There may be a reason I can't find them . . .

Anonymous said...

"Im all lost in the supermarket,
I can no longer shop happily,
I came in here for that special offer,
A guaranteed personality"

-The Clash