Uuuggghhhh. I'm sick and don't think I'll ever recover...
Let me explain. Yesterday was really really fun. Anne has finished university for the summer and has every Friday off from the two jobs that she works. So, after an intense morning crafting the perfect party playlist on iTunes, I invited her over for lunch and we had a really nice time, eating a fancy lady salad and chatting.
Anne was grateful for the lightness of lunch, as she went to a wedding last night and was planning to wear an outfit so figure-hugging that it wouldn't allow for underwear, let alone a big lunch beforehand.
However, when Anne went to get said outfit out after lunch, she discovered it was all dirty, so came round in a whirl of panic, needing advice as to what to wear. She showed me her prom dress (which she can still fit into, the beast, and which looks a lot like a dress Julia Roberts wore to the Oscars the year she won - distinctly un-poofy and prom-like) and also an amazing lace teadress that used to belong to her grandmother but is still in beautiful condition. Apparently there's cinefilm footage of her grandmother wearing the dress, aged about 18, which must be amazing.
Anyway, it wasn't appropriate for the wedding, so I ended up bringing over all the dresses and fancy tops I have with me and Anne ended up borrowing one and the day was saved. Hurrah!
That disaster averted, I could get back to the extensive preparations for our housewarming party last night which was to double up as a belated 30th for Maxy. Max sent out the invitation and didn't really give me an idea of how many people he'd told or how many had replied, so I was a little bit shooting in the dark as I made THREE trips to the supermarket for food and booze (ugh).
My baking mojo deserted me once more as I made krispie marshmallow treats that were all krispie and no marshmallow, the icing for Maxy's cake looked a little it had been through the digestive tract of a living being and the corn syrup with which I had to panic-strickenly improvise because America doesn't 'do' golden syrup simply wasn't doing the job.
Everything just seemed to take ages and when Maxy's friend Mat arrived from New York, I was still tearing around the kitchen, trying to make sticky sesame sausages from a combination of recipes I'd found online - none of which agreed or were quite right - and with the closest things to sausages that I could find that turned out to be more like frankfurters. What's wrong with this country - would a straightforward sausage be so difficult?!
Fortunately Maxy came home and the two chaps help me whip up a greek salad and potato salad and we created a mighty table of supplies, with all the food (including little tortilla 'scoops' - crisps shaped like a teeny bowl, with which to scoop up salsa!) and drink anyone could ever need (complete with picnic cooler turned into an ice bucket and bowls of lemon slices and lime slices!). And I still wasn't convinced that more than 4 people were going to turn up...
But people turned up in their droves, led by Erik Love and his placid friend Kim. Fortunately Mat was an absolute star at holding the hosting fort while Max and I put the finishing touches to the food. Then Patrick and Leanna came, Whitters and some other BBC folks turned up and Alison came with her flatmate Emily, who we'd heard lots about but hadn't met before, a fun friend called Kara who was taking a break from her three kids for the weekend and a very boring chap called Stephen who looked far too much like my ex-boyfriend Gavin to be pleasant.
We were also graced with the presence of Paula from upstairs (the faux-Stompy! So embarrassing - she was so super-nice and even bought Max a present) and Giles and Dan from downstairs, all of whom we'd only 'invited' by way of letting them know there'd be noise going on, rather than expecting them to come. But Paula in particular seemed especially nice.
Ooh! And I completely forgot to reveal who the real Stompy is/are - it's only Giles and Dan from downstairs! Not the clompy footsteps - that must be Paula's neighbour - but definitely the loud TV and stereo noise and men's voices. I think I just assumed that the noise was coming from upstairs, but they had their garden door open the other day when we were being assaulted by really loud music and I put my head out of the window and worked out the music was coming from their apartment! So mystery solved. And Giles was kind enough to ask whether their noise disturbed us, so I could say most definitely yes. Woo - the future is bright! The future is quiet!
Dan inexplicably thought it appropriate to bring their two 'monkey-faced' (Max's expression) dogs with them, which was weird. And the very first thing he said to me was, 'do you drive?'. Thinking that he was going to give me tips for weekend getaways, I said that we don't but we hire cars from time to time and he said, 'Good - we can have your parking space then'! The cheek. Giles is in IT at the Discovery Channel and Dan is a pharmaceutical lobbyist. They were actually both very friendly and said we're welcome in their garden whenever we see them having cocktails.
Dan and Giles brought with them another of our downstairs neighbours called Kimber - a woman with the most drawly southern accent that she's quite hypnotic to talk to. And Max's friend from the Guardian - Oliver - also came and he seems really really nice. He also just interviewed Snoop and Marlow from 'The Wire' and has a preview DVD copy of series 5, so it was excellent to talk to him. I hope we see more of him (not just because he can supply us with 'The Wire').
Ailsa - one of the party stalwarts from the BBC bureau congratulated us on managing to have a party where BBC guests were outnumbered by real DC folks and it did feel really nice to have such a large and varied group of people there.
The party was a real hit, mainly thanks to the gargantuan amount of gin, vodka, rum, beer and wine that we put on and was duly necked. There was a healthy din of chatter and the music went down well but the AC struggled to keep things cool, so we had to bring in the fan, which made all the girls look like they were in a J-Lo video, with their hair flying everywhere.
I felt a little bit like I hadn't got much party time, as I was making pizzas in the kitchen and stuff, but had loads of fun and was just excited to see the flat getting so warmed by so many new friends. Emily is particularly nice and told us of the hilarious faux-English accent her boss inexplicably puts on, so we rang her answerphone to have a listen (it is indeed hilarious) and Erik Love just kept haranguing me to put some Usher music on. In fact he and Emily got quite militant as the evening wore on and I had to stand guard of the computer, to stop them messing with the meticulously crafted playlist.
Midnight came and went and there were still quite a few people here as the dancing began. I have vague memories of doing an interpretive solo dance to 'Flashdance' and have only discovered since going through my photos that Erik Love - esteemed PhD student and all-round funster - bore his midriff (right).
By about 3am, most people had left, but Ailsa and a strange man from the BBC were still here as Max and I started pointedly clearing up around them. They eventually got the hint and, with an unnervingly clean post-party flat, we hit the hay.
Then I hit the bathroom.
So I hadn't been that drunk. Fun, but not crazy, falling-over-being-inappropriate drunk (it really doesn't take much to make me do interpretive dance). Because all the preparations overran so much and once the party started I was forever running around topping up glasses and plates, I didn't manage to eat (except for a half hour towards the end, when I cradled a massive bowl of Cheezits in my arms and compulsively hoovered them up. Not so delicious and certainly not nutritious...). But I didn't get that drunk. Sure, I remember one moment when I took a swig of my red drink (I was on the red gin cocktails) and spat it out, convinced someone had put vodka in it, only to have Mat taste it and explain that it was gin but that I'd yet to put mixer in it, which is why it tasted funny. But I wasn't that drunk.
But I was that sick! Eeerrrggghhh. I just threw up for ages and ages. Max was really kind and stayed with me and, when rubbing my back made me feel worse, he just chatted to me. Though his conversation was limited almost exclusively to, 'wow! you're so tanned! I've never seen you so tanned! You have such a good tan!'. Which was nice to hear, but there may've been more appropriate moments than when I was barfing.
Ugh. I felt so extremely unwell. And then I woke up this morning and felt even worse. By that time, it was Max throwing up in the bathroom, and then I took my turn, too. We were meant to spend today taking Mat to the vineyard in Virginia where Alison has a Saturday job, but just the idea of being surrounded by alcohol all day made me want to cry. I have never EVER felt so bad in my life.
The usual course of action here would be to sleep it off and spend the day on the sofa, but things were complicated by Alison having left her car here last night, so that we could drive over to pick her up this morning and then all head out to the vineyard. She still had to go to work, so I had to get the car to her. Uuugghh.
I seriously don't have the words to describe how difficult Max and I found it to drive half an hour across town. For a start, I had to ring Alison to find out how to work the car and she had to remind me that the clutch is on the right. Then we just had to go really slow and keep breathing and keep the windows open and hope very strongly that we'd get there soon.
Alison was out to breakfast with Kara when we arrived, so we sat on her doorstep like a couple of crumpled casualties, which amused them both a lot when they got there. This really wasn't any normal hangover - those are sometimes almost quite fun in how rubbish you feel. This was some manner of poisoning, I tell you. I may even have been heard to ask whether I should go to the ER as we stumbled away from Alison's flat.
The metro clearly wasn't going to work for us, so we got a taxi. Unfortunately I didn't last so long in the swervy moving vehicle and we had to bail halfway home to let me sit on a bench and hold my head for some time. When we finally got a second taxi to take us the rest of the way, I did all I could to employ mind over matter, reminding myself that people in far worse situations do amazing things with the power of thought. But unfortunately my mind is weak and I threw up again as soon as we got home.
Mat had yet to surface when we returned from our tortuous voyage and I promptly passed out and slept for three hours. When I woke up I felt slightly better but distinctly shaky. Max and Mat had installed themselves on the sofa and were watching the Democratic Rules & Bylaws Committee on TV, deciding how to apportion the disputed Michigan and Florida delegations to the Democratic convention. It was exactly like far less geeky men watching a sports game, with Mat and Maxy shouting at the screen and getting childishly excited. But it was politics.
Seeping onto the sofa, I bravely flicked through magazines while Maxy fed me with restorative bagels. I was very grateful that we'd cleaned up so thoroughly last night, as there was no lingering alcoholic reminder of what caused my severe condition.
Once the politics geeks were satisfied, we sloped up to Adams Morgan for drinks on the roof of The Reef and then some comfort burgers (the boys managed Bloody Marys, too) across the road at a nice diner before coming home for some comfort 'West Wing'.
I am never drinking again.
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