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2004-09-29 - 10:41 a.m.
housequake
On Sunday my friends Mat and Emily threw a housewarming party, and I was more than happy to make the drive down to D.C. to celebrate with them and check out the new house, which they’ve been in for a couple months now but I hadn’t seen yet. I was on call at work for the weekend, so I had to go in and take care of some things at 1pm, but it took a lot less time to do than I thought, so I was able to get on the road pretty early and got there before 3. The new house is literally a block away from their old place, which I’ve visited a lot over the past year recording with Mat, so it was pretty easy to find. When I got there, I was only the 3rd guest to arrive, and the first 2 were Joey O and Mike, who drove down together. Joey came all the way from Philly, and met up to carpool with Mike, who now lives only a few blocks from me in Cockeysville. It was good to see those guys and I probably spent the majority of the party hanging out with them. Joey is a fount of obscure pop culture trivia, and it’s always fun to make geeky references to Bill Brasky and Ghostbusters 2 in person, which is only slightly less geeky than doing that online like we usually do. Mat gave us the grand tour of the house, which already looks great and has their personal flair all over it. They have a ton of cool unique furniture and curtains and stuff, much of it supplied by Emily’s addiction to eBay. They painted every room before moving in (a lot of friends came and helped out, although I have to admit I had a heavy work schedule at the time and so was a bad friend and didn’t come down to help), and each room is a different color, which is a good look. Their house is full of all sorts of novel little details, like AM news radio constantly on in the bathroom. Mat and Emily were pretty much constantly cooking for nearly the entire duration of the party. It was kind of hilarious how Mat kept giving tours of the house while cooking, so I kept seeing him walking around showing off rooms while stirring something in a bowl. There were all sorts of snacky snacks and treatie treats present. Mike and Joey and I hogged most of the blue chips and dips (Emily’s homemade guac is aces) before most of the guests even got there, but there was also fruit and BBQ chicken and 2 kinds of potato salad. Emily was working on and off on her potato salad for roughly 4 hours throughout the party and when it was finally ready for consumption, and when it was finally ready, I partook and I could TASTE THE LABOR! There were lots of familiar faces in the house. Mat’s neighbor and childhood friend Eric was there (and, when asking for my input on a matter, coined the phrase “what’s the Alpinion?”), as well as many other folks that I’ve known mainly through various Mat parties and social functions. There were some absent that were missed, but it was still a pretty hoppin’ place. Mat and Emily sent an Evite out before the party, so when I looked at the site to confirm, I got to see who else was coming, and there was one person that I noticed was coming that I hadn’t seen in a while, but I didn’t really think about it much until I was actually at the party and saw her there. A few years ago, Mat kind of set me up with a friend of his, Lisa (aka Awapy), and after a prolonged flirtation, we went out on one ill-fated date. It wasn’t that bad, but after a month or so of build-up and anticipation, the lack of sparks was I think disappointing for both of us, and we both probably took it badly. In fact, that experience was kind of the reason why when I met J.G. about a year later, I was kind of wary about someone liking me so immediately again, and it took me a little while to really let my guard down. But really there were no hard feelings with me and Awapy, she was just on break from school and I think was about to leave for a semester abroad, so that probably wouldn’t have really worked out anyway. But I always felt bad that we weren’t able to stay friends after that. Before seeing her at the party I don’t think we’d really talked directly much in 3 or 4 years. But it was good to see her again, it wasn’t really awkward and it was good to catch up. Apparently she just moved back to the area after living in Seattle for a while. She’s still very cool and funny. As the party wound down and it started to get dark out, the number of people gradually narrowed down until it was just a group of us hanging out on the back porch shooting the shit, and things finally settled down to the point that Mat and Emily could actually sit down and enjoy themselves. It was around that point that Emily broke out the chocotini’s which were delicious and very very strong. I’d already had several beers at that point, so I made a point of sticking around for a couple hours after that to sober up for the drive home. As the group of stragglers got smaller and smaller, the conversation got more and more weird and personal, which probably also had a lot to do with the chocotini’s. There was a lot of very funny and weird sex talk, and then the discussion turned to religion. Even when everyone’s friends and getting a long, topics like that are always sensitive, so I didn’t really say much and tried to keep the mood light when I did talk. Things started to get heavy between a couple people, and then I got up to go to the bathroom and get some more potato salad. When I got back, the conversation had evidently gotten confrontational and someone was crying and was about to leave. Everyone felt really bad and tried to make them stay, but it was late and they had to go anyway. It was almost 11 when the last handful of guests finally got on their way out the door. I was one of the first 3 guests to arrive, and one of the last to leave -- I opened it up and I shut it down! I would’ve been the very last to leave, but on my way out the door, Lance came back in to use the bathroom. He was just trying to steal my spotlight, I know it. But anyway, it was a great party and the house is awesome, I’m so happy for Mat and Em. You can see the pictures here. -al
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