thediastema's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Office Xmas Party Entry '02 I've seen Two Towers. Please cash in on, or pony up (as the case may be), any those wagers you made about me seeing cinemas other people actually see. ~~ O, yeah. I liked it fine. ~~ Today's party at HRH's place bore what appeared to be a fistful of freakish similarities to its predecessor two years ago. More on those later. Because it also offered a number of departures from tradition. For instance, this year I brought pop. This year someone else brought the veggie tray (heh heh heh). About damn time. The veggie tray (heh heh heh) and its bearer arrived in front of HRH's place just a few seconds after Hamilton and I pulled in; I got out of my car only after finishing the song on the stereo. I saw him through his car window and realised that the two of us had both missed last year's party but remembered way too much about the one the year before. Yuppie ambled over to where I was parked, offering to tote my boxy gift-exchange offering ("Can I shake this one?" "I dunno...") atop the tray of veggies which people would not eat, so I'd have arms free to tote three two-litre bottles of pop which people would not drink. I accepted gratefully and proceeded to absently stick all the pop back in the car for no reason, which he found funny. He pointed out that my driver-side safety belt is fraying. He has a thing with seatbelts. I guess it's understandable. We rang the doorbell and HRH greeted us as a unit, then individually. Heh. We were the first to arrive. We broke the ice by telling stories about cars loved (he'd been asking about the origins of H'ton's name for a while, and I finally explained it) and cars lost (Nissan compact pickup trucks rolled violently in Nevada; boaty Oldsmobile Cutlass Supremes inherited from deceased great aunts at the age of fifteen). We exchanged tales of scars acquired (boating accidents, ironing accidents, sherbet-related car accidents, sports accidents). We sipped my Coke offering and nibbled his carrot offerings. Finally M2 arrived, new boyfriend in tow. Once again she's the girl who's always had a boyfriend, who doesn't want a relationship, who's pursued by droves and finally won over by the pick of the litter; she's reluctantly lucky in love;. The guy's in med school, oozing with charm. In the mock prime-time soap that would be my life on TV, he would be played by Tom Everett Scott. We shall call him That Thing M2 Does! or TTM2D for short. Soon after, ONC arrived, nursing a coffee and marvelling at the sight of the world as it appears before her usual waking time of 1300 hours. She was followed almost immediately by Molly and Mr. Molly. Polly arrived, having left her husband asleep at home, in the clothes she'd later wear to church. After thirty minutes' wait for Tex, HRH rolled her eyes and ordered us to load up our plates. As we noshed, Tex began making frantic phone calls asking where the place was and how he could get there from the intersection of Totally Lost and Not From Around Here. Oy. He and his long-suffering new girlfriend (quite nice, very pretty) finally turned up another hour later, after we'd shared news of flights home to Chicago for the holiday (M2) and new apartments in the same damn neighbourhoods as our parents (Yuppie) and The Lady Who Got Angry With Me At My Window Yesterday And Pressed Her Head Into The Bars In Frustration, Then Continued To Rant With A Giant Dent In Her Forehead, Unbeknownst To Her, While I Had To Keep A Straight Face (me). We discussed, also, Gnome Darts, and my inexplicable ability to get along with my polar opposite, Olly. "We're like brother and sister." "I know, and you don't agree on a thing in the world." "Except Gnome Darts." "Ah, yeah, back to the Gnome Darts..." We discussed criteria for admission to The Lousy Handwriting Club (myself and the males). We discussed Tolkein. Oddly, I think Yuppie and I talked a lot less as part of the group than we did when it was just us and our cokes. Polly, M2 and TTM2D took off early, and the rest of us continued with the gift exchange. Mr. Molly won the draw to select his gift first. He picked mine (stupid mug full of stupid chocolates with stupid mix CD which doubles as a stupid coaster). Molly herself picked what I'm 99 per cent certain was Yuppie's offering, a Swiss Army Knife with every possible attachment known to man. (Someone flouted the $5 spending limit. Okay, so I did, too.) My gift was a hideous reindeer-sculpture candle holder with a harmless peach pillar candle inside. ONC received Tex's gift of socks. Tex received someone's book of "Stupid Questions" which was penned by someone named Klingsporn. Mr. Molly was going over his liner notes and chuckling at the wording. Once again this year, the gift was initially blamed on Yuppie. "Why do they always assume my gift is from you?" I asked the only other person at the party who had a damn clue what I was on about. "Good question," he said. "It's because you're so much alike," Polly commented. "See, Erin, you get along with Olly like brother and sister, even though the two of you are night and day. But you and Yuppie bla bla bla bla bla..." We both became uneasy somehow. I made some dumb remark about mixing concessions and cage work to cover the awkwardness. Just as I'm paying it too much attention now, I paid too much attention to his posture all afternoon. Tense as hell. The party just sort of ended by its own hand, during daylight hours -- the first time I recall such a thing happening at HRH's home. ~~ I drove straight from there to Bountiful to hang out with JCGB and Pelican. A Canadian and some cheap laughs perked me up, and again, they dragged me to 2T, which I'd not have seen of my own accord (because I basically just don't go to films of my own accord) but quite enjoyed (as is often the case when I am force-fed my cinemas). Pelican talked about Dimples. As tends to happen on days when I've been associating with her Official and Unofficial Favourite Men, Dimples had indeed e-mailed from Korea by the time I reached home. I think I have inadvertently convinced her that I am gay by use of poorly-constructed sarcasm. As if I needed to furnish her with more misconceptions about just exactly what my heart and gonads are fixated on these days. Hey, she's back two weeks from Tuesday. By then I'll be 21, and she says I'm going out for drinks with her the very night she touches down, whether she feels up to it or not. I have a feeling I'll explode from guilt the instant I see her, no matter what doesn't happen with Yuppie. Whose last shift is Saturday, closing night. ~ETK Second cup of coffee, I love you like a digestible brother. --Heidi 00:43 - 23 December, 2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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