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My post from earlier today might have given the impression that last night was all doom and gloom. Not so! The visions of nuclear holocaust in Kent were merely a blip on an otherwise fine evening of celebrating Rick's birthday in WXDU style. Viva and MOD provided music and tons of XDU folks were there. I must say, I haven't been at a party like that -- way too many people crowded into an old house, drinking and talking over the music, the floor shaking alarmingly from the dancing, until the wee hours of the morning -- in a while, but I had a great time.

The theme of the evening was "what was I thinking?" and everyone was supposed to wear clothing that illustrated this concept. Lisa, Christa and I weren't totally down with this, as we've all been working on eliminating the "what was I thinking" clothes from our closets. So we decided to ignore this instruction and dress really brightly and stylishly. Sort of, "what was I thinking, looking so great?"

Lisa and I both ended up in bright pink outfits -- me in the Ethel dress, her in a striped pink, orange and purple sweater and pink skirt. The funny thing is, these two outfits were tonally almost the same, but quite different in hue. (Alicia commented that looking at both of us at the same time made her eyes hurt.) So we looked like we had tried to match, but failed miserably. I kept telling people that we were twins. Because in high school, that's what my friends and I would say when we wore matching clothes.

I'm not so good at small talk, especially when the music makes it hard to hear people. This became apparent when a woman came over and started chatting with us. She asked us what we did, and Lisa replied "I drink," then pointed to my bottle of Perrier and added "She drives." (I rarely drink anyway, so I had agreed to drive everyone home from the party. Lisa had kindly provided me with a pack of lime Perrier so I wouldn't be drinking tap water all night.)

Then the woman told us that she's a grad student in cultural anthropology. There was this horrible silence while Lisa and I both searched for something to say, then Lisa blurted out "That's great!" There was just something about her tone that made me laugh so hard, I literally (yes, literally!) had to turn around to avoid spitting lime Perrier on them both. I swear, I can't remember that last time I laughed that much. It would have been better though, if the other woman had also found it funny. As it was I was basically laughing in her face about her profession. Which, unfortunately, I didn't realize until it was too late to tell her that wasn't what I meant. I was just laughing because it was so awkward, not having anything at all to say to a cultural anthropologist, and Lisa's "That's great!" just blew the lid off the tension in a way that was very funny.

Later in the evening we were talking with Rick's housemate Lauren, and Lisa again refused to answer the "what do you do" question, telling her that she was a cultural anthropologist (and again making me laugh my ass off, but at least this time no spit take), and also that she played soccer, designs Tarot cards and drives an art car.

I wish now that we had let Lauren in one the joke; she knew obviously that Lisa didn't do all those things, but didn't realize we were appropriating each others' lives. (I wish I had thought to say that I'm a New Beetle expert!) What would have been really funny is if she had seen us get into Undersea Mah Jongg, which was parked right across the street. Then she might have believed that Lisa really is a cultural anthropologist who plays soccer and designs tarot cards.

But the fun wasn't all about messing with people's heads. There was also lots of talk about Buffy; Christa trying on someone's very cool teal suede boots (and too bad they didn't quite fit!); Georg's very dramatic polka-dotted shirt; a woman explaining that she was addicted to "shaking her ass," i.e. dancing, then proving it by jumping up and shaking her ass quite a lot right in our faces as we sat on the couch; watching a full cup of water spill just a few feet from me, but not a drop spilling on the Ethel dress; being chided for leaving so early at 12:45; and general party goodness.