Gin And Toilet Paper

before i say anything else about our little blog-party shindig, i want to first show you a picture of all my Imaginary Internet Friends together for the first time!:


get it? they're invisible!

(right. that's just a little running-on-three-hours'-sleep-blog humor for ya'. because i fell asleep at 4:30 a.m. because sometimes i talk too much to boys on the phone. this is not the point.)

so i just want to say that all of you who have blogs should totally have blog parties because people are awesome and not actually totally imaginary and not only do they show up but they buy you gin and bring you gifts. GIFTS! (and then you cry because they are so sweet and you are a total dork. and have had gin.)

here's how the party went.

i arrived and the first people there were my friends from real life. (i do actually have friends in real life, which is something i feel i should point out because this wasn't always the case for very tragic, married-in-the-suburbs type reasons.)

here are RiseyP and Serre.


you might note that Serre has a floating kitty head next to her. she didn't actually have a floating kitty head next to her at the bar, but i wanted to show you in an especially artistic way that Serre has just adopted two adorable kitties and they are amazing and wonderful and the cutest things EVER.

and in case you're wondering what the lovely RiseyP (pronounced Reese-ee-pea) is doing with those chopsticks and odd piece of graph paper, i will tell you that you are silly. those aren't chopsticks, those are knitting needles. duh! and that is the beginning of a beautiful ribbed scarf! also duh! (honestly, did you really think it was graph paper??) isn't the ribbing impressive!?

(in actuality, her scarf is not red, but i liked that color in the palette and therefore used it. because accuracy isn't exactly of paramount importance here, you know?)

anyway.

immediately upon our arriving we snagged the corner table (made, it would seem, for little people) and ordered drinks. i asked the waitress if i should go with gin & soda or rum & diet coke. she suggested gin & soda, so that was my drink for the evening.

because why not take advice from a waitress with no short-term memory, poor hand-eye coordination and no fewer than three facial piercings? this is san francisco, kids.

and to clarify, here is what gin & soda looks like (as rendered in powerpoint before i gave up and waited until saturday morning to finish this entry):


after RiseyP, Serre, and i were settled in, we were joined by some of the singers (see how our mouths are open, ready to sing?) in my a cappella group. here we have the beautiful Melody Of The Crazy sporting a lovely hair scarf. we also have B-School (who is leaving us to go get a fancy-schmancy MBA) in a very cute ponytail.


and with them we have GeekLove (who is adorable and shares my adoration for sexy geeks) who was wearing the prettiest rose-colored shirt (featured) and also brought along darling CuteButQuiet who had adorable rosey cheeks.


and then it happened! we were joined by no-longer-invisible internet friends! and they were interesting and cute and fun and funny and liked (shockingly) the cocktails!

the first person to introduce herself was Sari. she figured we were us because we were a round table of women and included a knitter. we were impressed with Sari's deductive reasoning skills! and also her totally fabulous flashdance-y shirt.


after Sari, we were joined by E&M. E&M drove from far away to be with us, and i'm pretty sure they are the cutest married couple to have ever walked the face of the planet. see?


and what's that on E's arm, you ask? why, a super-fly (fake) tattoo. and do you know what makes it so cool? it's a WINE tattoo. from a winery! and you know what else? they brought me one! i need an occassion to wear it! (my b-day perhaps?) and E even posted about the evening on her beautiful drink-filled blog. (ignore my chins, please.)

we were then also joined by WordyNerd, who, as commented, engaged me in a very intellectual and challengingly philosophical discussion on the cultural impact of the hit song, "Funkytown." or something like that. plus there was conversation about wine country. most importantly, WordyNerd was wearing a tie, which was cause for great concern among the more casually dressed.


i do not know why he does not have hair in this picture, but i have artistic license, so shutup.

moving on, we also got to meet Shull o' Fit, my token lesbian invisible internet friend. she was awesome and sported uber-chic eyewear and found the Bathroom Incident (to be detailed on page 826 of this entry) almost as funny as i did.


also i love her because she would do things like say, "um, KRISTY IS TRYING TO TELL A STORY" when everyone was ignoring me because they were engaged in actual conversations with each other and i, true to form, was babbling endlessly about absolutely nothing. and then i would have to apologize because people should not have to listen to me go on and on and on and on (and on) because i do not have the ability to filter or use the backspace button when i speak and it's a really good thing i do in writing, you know?

and now we come to the part of the story where i meet B of the Boxed Wine.

at one point i was standing near our table, and was approached by the cutest, shyest man you've ever seen, who had a big brown bag with him. and yes, in it was a big beautiful black box of wine. with a gold bow. from him and his colleagues (none of whom could make it, so the poor man was left to deliver the box to our gaggle all by himself) as an early birthday present. which made me cry. and then he apologized for not being able to find a straw big enough! a straw!! too sweet!!! and so because i was on gin number 46, also made me cry.

here is what the box of wine looks like, when opened (which it's been, of course).


and here is B of the Boxed Wine, who is my new best friend (he also shares his fries, by the way, which don't have carbs if you snag them from someone else):


but what would a night like this be without incident? of course there were incidents. i mean, a night like this doesn't get by without a few precious moments of breezy elegance.

for example, there was the Waitress Situation.

for some inexplicable reason, the castle -- which is huge and often very busy -- only has one waitperson at a time, and one bartender. and no matter how talented the waitperson might be, it's too big a job for one person. in particular, our evening's waitress pretty much just melted down. she forgot things, she got many things wrong, she wasn't in a good mood, and eventually just dropped an entire armload of pint glasses on the floor. and they shattered all over RiseyP and B of the Boxed Wine.

and you know what? the brown bag that the wine came in was extra heavy-duty and came in handy for sweeping shattered glass into.

this is why boxed wine should be brought to every event. you just never know how it might save the day.

but wait! who is this?


there was an odd moment when i was in the middle of babbling about god-knows-what and looked up and noticed a familiar face at the bar and for a millisecond thought nothing of it and then realized it was not normal or expected.

TheBoy decided to stop by to see how things were going.

notice how TheBoy is not smiling in the picture except a little? that is because he has a very dry, very dark sense of humor and is especially wry and sarcastic.

so when i approached him and said, "um, what are you doing here," he said, "i finished packing for my business trip and remembered your thing was tonight and thought i'd stop by. how is it going?"

and i said, "it's great. a very interesting mix of people."

and he said, "they have YOU in common. what did you expect?"

um.

and then before leaving he made a joke about how he should have/could have brought a date. it was VERY FUNNY.

whatever.

then at one point i made a new friend, not blog-related at all. i was in the ladies' room which is small and has two stalls. and i was in one and someone i didn't know was in the other. and um, you know, it was quiet. and then all of a sudden there was a HUGE (and quite startling) CRASH from inside her stall.

then silence.

and i was thinking, "um, what do you do? should i say something? what on earth could have--"

and then she started laughing hysterically. and then so did i.

it turned out she had reached for the toilet paper and the entire dispenser just fell to the floor.

she thanked me for laughing with her.

and that was an awesome opportunity for me, filled with gin and stolen fries and the intoxication that comes from socializing with lots of interesting and genuine and funny people, to explain that actually, i am sitting with an entire group of people who understand just how hysterical rogue toilet paper dispensers are in the grander scheme of things.

and in fact, that's why we're all here.

cheers.