beautiful girl, love the dress

"Beautiful girl, love the dress, where she is now I can only guess."

Morgan, who's been gone so long that I had to look up her pseudonym, came back to party on Monday night. She alerted Coraline & Little Spider, who alerted me (thanks to Coraline's strong associative link between partying on Monday night & me). So we had a Ladies Night.

I need a second for that to sink in. I, the girl who doesn't do female friendships all that well, had a Ladies Night. (Oh, what a night.) Weird.

The night started at Future Bakery, where we smoked cigarettes, drank beer and gossiped. I was surprised to see Little Spider, who was grieving the death of her grandfather. (I gave her fresh banana bread, not because it would make everything alright, but because everything is better with banana bread breath.) We all talked about Facebook, and the people we've met (and rejected) on it. So right away, the night started with a satisfying amount of cattiness. And I found out a few new people to add (ok, it was just God In An Alcove. Don't judge me; this is what Fb is for.)

By the time we got into the Cave and checked Morgan's wheeled suitcase (and after Coraline had a chance to sing the theme from Midnight Cowboy as interpreted by George Costanza), the place was starting to cook and Shannon was the heat under the grill. It's been a sweaty pig of a season, and I had been helping my dad clear away brush on the fence line earlier in the day; yet I sweat more on that dancefloor than I had all week. And unlike clearing-brush-sweat, I revel in dance-sweat, which was a good thing because I made an awful lot of it. My usual early warning system (i.e. I get so winded that I start to black out) wasn't operating; I have to conclude that a year of yoga has sculpted me into a lean, mean, retro-dancing machine. Honestly, that may have been the best part of the night, because I haven't had this kind of club stamina since my early twenties.

But probably the best part of the night was the way that all four of us enjoyed ourselves completely unselfconsciously. We sang along at the top of our lungs and bopped in place when the song needed it, we danced like dervishes when that was required, and we met the other people during periodic social smoke breaks. (Hey Pixie, Jeff M. was there. He continues to be batting zero on remembering me, which meant that I got to play with his head. Again.) Favourite songs: "Gone, Daddy, Gone" (of course), "Raspberry Beret" (the first time I've ever danced to a Prince song in that club without some stranger attaching himself to me for the duration), "Girls" (there is nothing better than hearing the whole club yell "checking Mike D to my dismay") and the classiest anthem ever, "Baby Got Back."

"You don't understand," I yelled across the booth when Morgan laughed at me, "if there's one thing my husband wants, it's for me to dance to this song!" And so I did.

Morgan broke out the air guitar during "I Love Rock & Roll," an activity that she felt required a footnote. "Thanks, Morgan," I replied, "if you hadn't told me what you were doing, I would have wondered how you got a whole guitar into this booth." And she laughed. She was in great spirits that night, as always. She and Corona finished the night drunkest, with LS pretty immune to the beer (most likely due to sorrow) and me stone cold sober.

Surprised? Under strict instructions to keep the drinking to an absolute minimum, I instead focused on smoking, making sure to sample the packs of all the other ladies. This, plus the fact that they were drinking light beer which minimized the booze every time I took a sip from one of their drinks, left me far more sober than I have been after any recent outing. Hey, look: I'm getting my responsibility back! Ain't it grand?

I got in at 3:20 in the a.m., later than I've ever approached the new house and late enough that the ladies' incessant talk of pizza was making me ravenous. (I drove them from the Cave to LS's apartment, and I had to state unequivocally that I was "busy driving the car and not the drunk-girl pizza-getting machine." Which is an awesome claim to make. Try it and see.) When I got home, my pizza options were slim to non-existent, so I made myself a midnight picnic: feta cheese, hot yam soup with cold sour cream, a toasted bagel with cream cheese, and my lovely new copy of The Neddiad. I guess this must be heaven.

"Somebody leave the light on, just in, just in case I like the dancing, I can remember where I come from."

Labels: dancing, friends, outings

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- Rocketbride's adventure of 7/11/2007 04:05:00 p.m.