Monday
Jun252007
A Brief Stop at El Club on Un Dia to Remember
Posted By 
Noelle | Monday, June 25, 2007
Noelle | Monday, June 25, 2007 A Vintage Post, retrieved from Scrubbed Innocence
The other night, a friend invited me to a graduation party (shall we say) at a downtown joint that’s uber-hip, by which I mean it demands an exhorbitant cover charge. I wasn’t in the mood for party talk (i.e. horse shit), having spent the earlier part of the 
evening engaged in playful sincerity with some lovely lady friends of mine. But the guest list for this haughty hoo-ha included a beloved friend who I had been missing for a long while. And also I was wearing a hot dress and feeling really hot and thought it might be fun to strut my hotness for a minute. I feel I should take advantage of these moments while I can, while my face is teen-smooth and my rear still perks. Of course, Pride is one of the seven deadly sins.
So is the free parking lot, seven blocks from my destination.
I do not believe in a cover charge, and when I discovered it, I was prepared to give a heartfelt ‘sorry’ to the guest of honor and march myself right back out the door. BUT then some A-hole who’s been trying to get in my pants for the last 3 years came out of the line and dropped a bill on my behalf. I couldn’t muster an excuse. I went in to the dim hole, full of dim bulbs and grim futures.
I smiled. I acted interested. I drank water.
One of the party-goers happened to be an old associate of mine—not the kind I had ever seen nude, but the kind I had worked with on some artistic extravaganza. Let’s call him Meat Gooberie. Meat hit on me shamelessly in a way I found condescending and unoriginal. He was amazed and fascinated by every god damn thing I said. He touched my arm and whispered in my ear, and I shivered like someone trying to sleep in a house with a loose snake. He flashed his teeth and laughed the playboy laugh. I had to roll my eyes. I rolled them so frequently, it must have appeared for some length of time as though only the whites were showing. This apparently just turned him on. He kept talking to me. Meat Gooberie spits a lot when he talks. I got so much spit in my eyes, I have surely contracted all his varieties of HPV.
I finally wriggled away from the snake and attempted a French Leave. If you have not yet discovered the beauty of the French Leave, it is this:
Originally, the custom (in the 18th c. prevalent in France and sometimes imitated in England) of going away from a reception, etc. without taking leave of the host or hostess. Hence, jocularly, to take French leave is to go away, or do anything, without permission or notice. (OED, 2nd Ed., 1989.)
I exercise the French Leave whenever possible. Party goodbyes are a waste of time—no one remembers them anyway. But if someone recalls not remembering your exit, they will naturally conclude that they were too intoxicated or absorbed in the delights of the moment to take notice of your exit. SO, the French Leave has the side effect of bestowing upon the remaining guests the retrospective impression that they were having a better time than they may actually have been. Alas, my French leave was thwarted by someone holding a drink for me. I sucked it down in five minutes flat and took leave Scrubbed Innocence style, which is to say, ‘fuck this, I’m leaving.’
I gave hugs. I said “I have to go.”
Eventually, I landed in front of a fire pit, smoking a cigar and drinking wine and talking with a fine young gentleman about Chinese hookers and fire and the ethics of reproductive rights and the culture of illusorily invincible individuality and the moribund art of conversation, an art we were resurrecting right then, deliciously so, and with ease. There, next to the fire, I felt a kind of dopaminergic endorphin tide swell in my cells, and it hasn’t yet ebbed. I’m sure there is a scientific name for it, but I haven’t found it yet.
evening engaged in playful sincerity with some lovely lady friends of mine. But the guest list for this haughty hoo-ha included a beloved friend who I had been missing for a long while. And also I was wearing a hot dress and feeling really hot and thought it might be fun to strut my hotness for a minute. I feel I should take advantage of these moments while I can, while my face is teen-smooth and my rear still perks. Of course, Pride is one of the seven deadly sins. So is the free parking lot, seven blocks from my destination.
I do not believe in a cover charge, and when I discovered it, I was prepared to give a heartfelt ‘sorry’ to the guest of honor and march myself right back out the door. BUT then some A-hole who’s been trying to get in my pants for the last 3 years came out of the line and dropped a bill on my behalf. I couldn’t muster an excuse. I went in to the dim hole, full of dim bulbs and grim futures.
I smiled. I acted interested. I drank water.
One of the party-goers happened to be an old associate of mine—not the kind I had ever seen nude, but the kind I had worked with on some artistic extravaganza. Let’s call him Meat Gooberie. Meat hit on me shamelessly in a way I found condescending and unoriginal. He was amazed and fascinated by every god damn thing I said. He touched my arm and whispered in my ear, and I shivered like someone trying to sleep in a house with a loose snake. He flashed his teeth and laughed the playboy laugh. I had to roll my eyes. I rolled them so frequently, it must have appeared for some length of time as though only the whites were showing. This apparently just turned him on. He kept talking to me. Meat Gooberie spits a lot when he talks. I got so much spit in my eyes, I have surely contracted all his varieties of HPV.
I finally wriggled away from the snake and attempted a French Leave. If you have not yet discovered the beauty of the French Leave, it is this:
Originally, the custom (in the 18th c. prevalent in France and sometimes imitated in England) of going away from a reception, etc. without taking leave of the host or hostess. Hence, jocularly, to take French leave is to go away, or do anything, without permission or notice. (OED, 2nd Ed., 1989.)
I exercise the French Leave whenever possible. Party goodbyes are a waste of time—no one remembers them anyway. But if someone recalls not remembering your exit, they will naturally conclude that they were too intoxicated or absorbed in the delights of the moment to take notice of your exit. SO, the French Leave has the side effect of bestowing upon the remaining guests the retrospective impression that they were having a better time than they may actually have been. Alas, my French leave was thwarted by someone holding a drink for me. I sucked it down in five minutes flat and took leave Scrubbed Innocence style, which is to say, ‘fuck this, I’m leaving.’
I gave hugs. I said “I have to go.”
Eventually, I landed in front of a fire pit, smoking a cigar and drinking wine and talking with a fine young gentleman about Chinese hookers and fire and the ethics of reproductive rights and the culture of illusorily invincible individuality and the moribund art of conversation, an art we were resurrecting right then, deliciously so, and with ease. There, next to the fire, I felt a kind of dopaminergic endorphin tide swell in my cells, and it hasn’t yet ebbed. I’m sure there is a scientific name for it, but I haven’t found it yet.
1 comment:
My darling scrubbed innocence. I think what strikes me most about your posts--i would hardly say the scathe of them, the scathe of them is like a wienie roast among the clumsy (hard to miss) but beautiful drunk and delicious, biteful--is that you have such a burly, barbed HEART. The people and mannerisms you scorn so wittily make your reader immediately nervous--have I??? do I????--but then, to end, upon a note, of, of all things, romance.