I was made to plan my company’s holiday party against my will. Apparently having a holiday party at all is a rarity in NYC–New York magazine reported that 2/3 of them have been canceled–but having a holiday party after a huge layoff must be even rarer. I wasn’t pumped to plan this bitch in the first place, but once my best work-friend, Sonya, lost her job and I lost my party-planning partner, I was done.
So I naturally hired someone else to do and told her just to make it all go down right there in the office. The woman came in today with her $2500 worth of decorations with the intent of turning the reception desk into our open bar. And then corporate HR called and told me that events held in the office can’t involve alcohol.
Dr. Boyfriend and I faux-carve the letter B onto our faces and give ourselves faux black eyes a la this girl and head to his law school friend’s party down the street. We drink some punch, make a few 9th-Circuit-Court-of-Appeals-related jokes, and head home to stuff ourselves full of candy pumpkins (and maybe some candy corn, even though everyone knows it tastes entirely different) and watch loads of horror movies (but only the cheesy ones from the 80s, ‘cause otherwise I get too scared).
Instead, I went to my friend Emily’s house, where my friend Beth and I helped rip up her Little Red Riding Hood costume and cover it in blood to turn her into Little DEAD Riding Hood:
Reeeeeeeeal scary, huh?
Then a couple of her friends came over, and we all took one look at their costumes and were like, “ . . . ? . . .” But then someone said, “Oh, Royal Tenenbaums!” And it all made sense. The costumes were brilliantly done, actually, even though poor Gwyneth shrank a bit:
Then Emily’s roommate, Michelle, came out in her homemade Geico Gecko costume, and the cuteness wholeheartedly abounded:
We piled into the train at 10 so they could head off to an all-you-can-drink loft party and I could head home to . . . my sleeping boyfriend, who had to be at law school for a seminar at 8 the next morning. LAME! No party, no law jokes, and most importantly, no candy pumpkins! But at least I have this video of Michelle ravaging Emily’s costume with a gigantic kitchen knife that she seems to have absolutely no control over:
Luckily, tomorrow night is my dance-a-thon fake-birthday party with all of my co-workers, and I’m pumped to see someone get down in a way so awful we’ll all still remember it come Monday morning. And I’m expecting that that person to be me.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, my friend Sonya and I are off to buy some gold lamé tights for the occasion.
My dear Dr. Boyfriend has a series of uplifting catchphrases, my favourites being “everything’s coming up Kamran” and “it’s your world, squirrel”. For my birthday today, he sent me this:
And while I have no idea who invited the guy in the cowboy hat to my party, I appreciate the sentiment.
But I’ll tell you what–it’s rough having a birthday when you’re lactose intolerant. As you may remember, I’ve been working on becoming lactose tolerant, and while I do believe I’m making strides, what’s coming out of my bum today smells nasty. I keep running out of the bathroom as soon as I’m finished, because I don’t want to hang around and have to explain to my co-workers who weren’t in New Orleans with me this week, “I’m lactose intolerant, but there was an ice cream bar at lunch yesterday, and what was I supposed to do?! It’s my goddamned birthday!”
I'm Katie, a farmgirl originally from Ohio who moved to NYC in 2005 for no apparent reason. I like vintage-looking things that are actually new, filagree everything, people who don't make me feel awkward, meaning it when I say "no sleep till Brooklyn", and not trying too hard.
