The day began with too much plunger coffee and breathless, shaky, caffeine induced almost-arguments, tiptoeing through plans to decorate the house and shop for supplies. I loved her, but Fran was driving me nuts; knowing well enough that she couldn’t be convinced otherwise once her mind was set, I felt my tolerance for gentle persuasion becoming stretched. We began our mission to the supermarket early enough, as we knew that we would have to carry everything for miles due to our lack of car, but mostly because our resolutely useless male flat mate had made himself scarce as soon as the threat of work appeared - he was skulking in his room, either reading Hemingway and musing on the relationship between Life and Art or fantasizing over the enormous nipply breasts of his European girlfriend, luridly pictured on the wall of his room.
From the very first cup of coffee of the day I was aware that I was martyring myself somewhat. Resolutely stoic in the period after the Moping Self Pity of breakup, I was trying to distract myself by planning to have a really good time. I was going to amaze and shock with my abilities to emerge from my chrysalis of Pain and Drama; butterfly-like I would Flirt, and ultimately, Seduce. Hah! Take that! I hypothetically thumbed my nose at the Recent Ex.
At present the focus was on the more dull aspects of party preparation, especially dull because of our attempts to remain within budget. Thus, a brittle bulk market discussion, where while skirting various potential tiffs, Fran and I were discussing corn chips.
“So you see”, Fran said, “We could get a kilo box of cheese flavoured chips for six dollars, or two packets of three hundred grams for two-fifty each. If you work it out that saves us…” vague fluttering of hand… “Oh, dollars”.
“But darling, then we have to carry home and, more importantly, eat an entire kilo of cheese flavoured corn chips. I can’t imagine that we’d eat that much tonight, because, you know, eating’s cheating…”
“Yesssss…..”
I jump in before the ‘but’: “And, don’t get me wrong, I adore buying in bulk - but we need to shop within reason, don’t you think darling?” I am gushing to over compensate hollow gut, but it’s effectively boosting my mood.
The negotiations have exhausted me, and by the end of the episode I’m direly short of caffeine, desperate for some kind of cheesy carbohydrate snack and borderline panic attack on the basis of the general hostilities of the supermarket. Furthermore, our trolley had swung out uncontrollably in the seventy-nine cent tinned tomato swarm, and I’d inadvertently bashed the shins of a nearby Croc-wearer and nearly bowled over their matching, smaller Croc-wearing child.
It was with some relief that I arrived home, without having committed hari-kari and despite arms stretched to orangutan-type lengths by reusable supermarket shopping bags. Next on the list are decorations – fairy lights, taxidermy. The Male Flat mate surprises us by helping, pushing the chairs around while Fran and I direct. Fran then spends the next twenty minutes untangling two plastic bags of jumbled fairy lights. I create a playlist, arranging and rearranging, self-consciously aware that I am trying to pre-construct the party through music. I want the ultimate successful fantasy party: witty repartee amongst the exceedingly well dressed. I am determined there will be no music to make me maudlin. I cut any songs played to me by the Ex. I wonder if we have enough corn chips. I make gin punch.
Later, we two girls are sitting in the thresholds of our respective bedrooms, slurping gin and tonic. Fran is illustrating her madness with a vignette: “And then I imagine myself, dancing in a very seductive manner, ‘Whatever Loooooola wants! Loooooola gets!’ and so on. I suspect I’m wearing something red and have very high heels. Anyway, it’s then that he cannot resist me for a moment longer! He falls for my charms! And finally we can stop arsing around with all that moral bullshit that he keeps giving me.” She finishes in an unnecessary whisper
I snort with laughter, missing my toenails and slashing the doorframe with red polish. The air between the two of us felt fifty percent less tense than it had been that morning, and my heavy stomach feeling was dissolving in the shared sense of anticipation. Two glasses of punch were boosting my cheerfulness, and had done such a good job of impressing my cheerfulness on to my flat mates that I was beginning to believe it myself. Also, I felt like a rock and roll superstar in my black velvet 80ies dress.
A trickle of guests arrived, earlier expected and oddly, given the general predilection towards Fashionably Late. My nail polish was not quite set while I ladled gin punch into paper cups and gushed at the arrivals, overcompensating once again. Fran is absent, not entirely ready, but Male Flatmate has emerged and is attempting to entertain early arrivals… poorly. He is mostly alienating them with his opinions on the difference between grass and lawns. I’m hoping he’ll get stoned soon and melt into a corner somewhere.
Fran materializes, glass in hand… the room is filling rapidly… Soon enough I’m having a disappointingly familiar situation with a male acquaintance, who tends to repeat his one ‘daring party conversation’.
“Of course, I like to be dominated. There’s nothing like a really tough woman. I want to be told how bad I am.” I am smiling and nodding. “You probably find me quite odd”, he adds. Smarmy fuck.
“Oh, no. Each to their own, my mother’s always said”. Can he not see how false my smile is? And what kind of a comment had I just made anyway? Jeebers.
“Well yes, I believe that Nietzsche said something similar”. I agree. I don’t know anything about Nietzsche. And how do I know this pretentious twat who is so clearly full of bullshit? And more importantly, did I actually invite him or did somebody else? This was not the witty repartee I was envisioning.
Escaping S&M Man, I make polite small talk to an old school friend about her PhD. This is possibly fascinating but it’s impossible to discern the topic above the din. I allow myself to be swept away again, a moment with someone I actually want to talk to, “How are you darling?” I ask. But her response is inaudible above the rising sound of the crowd; shrieking, gabbing, gushing over one another; a wall of frenzied gaiety.
I periodically catch Conspiratorial corner hissing: “…take her out and let her get her away from his sulk…” “…some kind of existential crisis, all perfectly self indulgent…” “… two Farmers and a pharmacy before I found the nail colour I wanted… tangerine darling…”
Somewhere in this room there is bound to be someone who hates irony because it’s so common.
My carefully cultivated cheerfulness is becoming increasingly strained and I’m beginning to feel a vague sense of hysteria, frenzied and false… I’m laughing a little too loud at jokes, swaggering with a swagger that I’m faking. I’m swilling gin punch and gushing “Darling!” at people I barely know.
This Good Time is becoming unbearable; critical mass on the deck and the dance floor. Through the window I can see the exiled smokers, conversation punctuated with cigarette waving. It’s becoming apparent who wants what from who: those on the prowl are bearing down out those men and women who have come single and have similarly decided on A Fuck as the ideal ending for the evening. Fran is on Hyper-flirt, her fingers flying over her cellphone as she stores names and numbers of vaguely interesting men, before pashing a previous dalliance as he leaves and beginning a new flirtation thirty minutes later.
Sunk in one of the chairs, I am watching the room spin around me and cynically reflecting on the desperation I have decided is inherent in my party invitees. I can hear what I have decided is the Social Hysteria of the Young, the Overpaid and creatively and intellectually Underemployed. My new status of observer is less to do with any kind of profound revelation and more to do with my self-pity. I’m so fucking bored, and I want someone else to fix it for me… the rush from reciprocated desire, the quick release of the one night stand and the moment of warmth and companionship before the Other becomes too sticky, too warm, takes up too much room in the bed.
I have drunk too much, maudlin on gin… my mind is drifting to previous parties where I had masterminded brief escapes with the recent Ex: a locked ensuite bathroom, queue outside, my head pushed against the door and feet scrabbling for purchase on the tiled floor.
The dancing is beginning but I’m taking my self-pity to bed. A haze of alcohol muffles the relentless gaiety and I pass out, fully clothed.
Comments/criticism warmly received.
