new year’s shocker!

Well the New Year’s Eve party was certainly a grand spectacle, to say the least.

Note: This might be my longest entry ever! This one just had a lot of details, because a lot was going on, and a play-by-play description was necessary to avoid (hopefully) further questions. People have been asking me for an account of the party, so here it is!

I spent the days before the party going to the grocery store to pick up food, getting noisemakers and other NYE party accoutrements at the party store, making appetizers, decorating the house, constantly giving late RSVP-ers the party details over and over again via email and text messaging, etc. Dan cleaned his house, moved furniture, assembled the fire pit, and painted the curb across the street so that the handicapped woman across the street wouldn’t call the cops on any of our party guests for parking in her very special spot. Music was playing, candles were lit, and photo flashes were flying during the first couple of hours of the party.

The first guests to arrive (in a large clump) were some of my closest friends, so immediately the atmosphere was relaxed and cheerful. I am constantly raving about how good Angie and the two Katies always look, but NYE was their finest triumph in terms of hair and dress…and their male counterparts looked very well too, and were in wonderful spirits. We all poured drinks and then suddenly, the house was packed as more and more partygoers assembled. Almost every single person I wanted to see in Richmond was there having a good time and doling out hugs. Certainly it was the perfect party.

But shortly before midnight, an influx of unwanted guests occurred. Suddenly people we didn’t even know were spilling things everywhere, so Dan and I got trash bags and started straightening up. We were able to make some progress and rang in the new year with kisses and loudness from all our friends, and then we went back to trying to offset the growing mess.

By this time, tons of people started showing up who were (1) not dressed up, and (2) acting like wild barbarians fresh from the wilderness. Let me say that these people were sure as heck not invited by me or Dan, and that we certainly wouldn’t have opened his home up for this party had we any inkling of just how low the standards of invitation would be. I can only assume that most of these barbarians were called up during the party by actual party guests and invited to just come on over. Keep in mind that the actual party guests received printed invitations to themselves and 1 guest, with stipulations to be formally attired and to bring either 1 bottle of liquor or a couple bottles of champagne. Any deviation from this plan would have been rudeness in the highest degree, and I only know of one person specifically who was excused by Talia ahead of time for not being able to be correctly attired. But the story’s not over yet! More adventure ensues…

Within roughly the next half hour, several appalling discoveries were made:

• Mud or dirt of some type had been wiped on a cabinet and on every single wall downstairs, as well as the stairwell walls.
• Someone had vomited on the wall next to the stereo.– Full bottles of champagne and wine were being spilled on the floor and kicked around instead of being picked up. None of us were alerted to these spills by the spillers.
• People were going into the cabinet and taking out wine glasses to use, despite the fact that there were plenty of plastic cups all the way up until this point.
• People had thrown all of the towels from the bathroom (some of which may have been used to clean up spills) into the bathtub, and were now wiping their hands on the bathroom curtain.
• The bathroom window screen now also resided in the bathtub.
• Our friend Lindsay witnessed a guy walk into the front door, throw a full beer on the floor, and kick it underneath the couch.
• I witnessed a girl wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants walk into the party empty-handed, walk over to the drink table, and start picking up open bottles and drinking straight out of them.
• People were smoking on the stairwell and in Dan’s room and putting the butts out wherever they liked.
• One girl (holding a wine glass owned by Dan) continually turned up the stereo after Dan had just turned it down in order not to bother the neighbors. When the party was over and Dan said “Hey guys sorry but the party’s over, you’ll have to leave,” she responded with a very uncreative “F— you!” Charming. Classy.
  
• Almost none of the unwanted guests brought any drinks with them. At one point it was thought that they had brought beer (which was totally NOT one of the things people were asked to bring), but upon further inspection it seems that with the exception of a few six-packs, all the beer in the house was just beer left over from Dan’s housewarming party.
• It was originally thought that a bottle of wine was stolen from Dan’s room, but luckily it turned out that C-therine had gone up to get it (she had brought it in the first place), so that was accounted for.
• Dan’s favorite white mirror was broken on accident by the awesome Fred, who insists on repaying it or at least bartering for it with tattoos, which is very agreeable to Dan. Also broken was a tumbler which can be relatively easily replaced.

The kicker for me was when I apprehended a guy coming into the back door wearing jeans and a backpack. Here’s what transpired:

Tess: “Hello, were you invited to this party?”
Dude: “Uh, what?”
Tess: “Were you invited to this party? Did you receive a printed invitation in the mail?”
Dude: “Uh, yeah.”
Tess: “Okay, who invited you?”
Dude: “Alright, no, I didn’t get an invitation. This guy invited me” (points to a guy in a blue flannel shirt).
Tess: (turning to the flannel shirt guy) “Who invited you to this party?”
Flannel shirt dude: “Talia.”
Tess: (turning back to the original guy) “Please leave.”
Dude: “Well excuse me for the crime of not knowing anyone!”

And with that and a few more colorful exclamations, he exited.

The thing is, you’re not in a public space where anyone can go. You’re waltzing into the private residence of someone you don’t know, into their private party to which you were not invited and totally not wanted. Talia, the originator of the party idea, had said “I want to have a New Year’s Eve party this year. But I want it to be really formal, and really give us a chance to get fancy.” Knowing that nearly any party that’s too large can get rather gross, I said “Okay we can have it, but only if it really is very fancy and very formal…then it can get pretty large and allow us to invite all our friends, but without us having to deal with a rager.” This (the invitations, the attire expected, the atmosphere created, etc.) sets the standard for how people are expected to act at the event.

This worked with everyone that I invited who did attend, much to my happiness. My friends are people who dressed up and brought drinks and conducted themselves politely not because they didn’t want to get in trouble, but because they wanted to have fun and because they knew what a blatant insult it would be to me if they showed casual disregard for the demeanor of the party. If wearing flannel shirts to completely kill the mood, drinking all the drinks and not contributing to the pool, and behaving in a manner worthy of only 18-year-old college students was going to be deemed acceptable at this party, trust me, we wouldn’t have opened Dan’s house up for it. Or mine. The reason we had no problems with throwing a party was because we were assured it was just going to be all people that we or our roommates specifically invited. Of course, that would be fine. I wouldn’t go into my friend’s house and wipe cupcake frosting all over the outside of their cabinets, and neither would you. But clearly a lot of guests don’t understand the concept of courtesy, which would seem to insist that they not call all their friends currently stored in their cell’s address book as “drunk loser #1, drunk loser #2,” and so on, and so forth. I would like to acknowledge that out of all my guests who showed up, they all (to my knowledge) cleared any guests they were bringing with me before the party, and made sure that they were aware of the details.

At any rate, somewhere between all those bullet points Dan started to understandably lose it, and since he didn’t really know what else to do he just kept telling me each time he would see something else happen or make another unpleasant discovery. I knew that assuaging the problem was futile as long as the influx of unwanted guests continued, so I didn’t know what to do. I kept suggesting we kick them out, but we didn’t really know how to go about doing that without disturbing our actual, real friends and ruin the flow of the party. Dan’s mood darkened and I couldn’t find anything else comforting to say as I picked up beer can and beer bottles, so I started hyperventilating, and that led to Dan kind of grabbing me to see what was wrong, which led to me crying at the sheer embarrassment of causing a scene. Finally, this alarmed my friends, who immediately surrounded me like a ready army to accomplish any task I named.

Let me say, this party was such an awesome, eye-opening experience because it really drew the lines as far as friend groups go. If you know me, you know that one of the main things I complain about is never having enough time to hang out with all the different groups of people I’m friends with. I like them all, and I thrive on their diversity. But this means that instead of spending one solid afternoon per month with each of them, I end up spending one 5-minute conversation with them per year, screaming over the noise at a party or a show. I always kind of wish I could just spend more good, quality time with each of them and get to know them all better. My friends’ mobilization at the party gave me a very clear picture of just who I want to hang out with in 2008: the people who were there for me when I needed an army of supporters.

Specifically, these are incredibly beautiful people. Going back to what I was talking about in my last entry, with getting to this point in our lives where we have to budget our time and decide which friends we’re going to take with us into the next phase, these people have my mark. There’s a sizeable list, but mostly it feels good to release myself from the obligations of hanging out with anyone outside of this group. That means I can spend more time with the people who count.

• Angie and the two Katies and all their guys and K-thryn were super helpful the whole night, and they were the ones who set the tone of fun for the first couple of hours of the party. They didn’t leave until they were absolutely sure beyond the shadow of a doubt that I didn’t need any more help. We already probably spend more time out with this group than any other, and I look forward to continuing that trend.
• Eric Weinraub came dressed to the nines and definitely helped a ton. He repeatedly came back to me asking if I needed help with anything, and his loud voice was instrumental in finally kicking a lot of the people out. He knows when to stick up for me, and heck, I still love him after all these years. Need to see this guy more often.
• Mandy & co. This girl’s smile and her always-calm good nature will carry you through any crisis. I spotted her with a trash bag, collecting cans in a corner. This group of friends is one I want to see more of.
• WELC: you know who you are. Moral support in large quantities. So necessary.
• Modern Chris: I miss this guy. We don’t get to have our Innsbrook lunches anymore, but we need to start making a point to have dinners or something. He’s always there for me. He made pumpkin bread just for the heck of it and brought it to the party, and it was much appreciated.
• Last but not least, Miss Lindsay / Gee, who was the first person to report some of the mishaps to us, and who was the last person to leave after hanging out and helping for a long time. She’s one of my youngest friends and yet seemingly one of the most mature…very wise beyond her years. I know I will see much more of her this year.
• Amanda and Ash were pillars of grace and beauty as usual, but we really needed it that night. I’ll definitely see them often, because you know everybody has to get a vegan caesar salad sometimes.

Lots more thank-yous deserve to be chronicled, but those are the specific ones I can think of this very moment. I think a small dinner party for all those people, to make up for them having to help out at the end of this party (they should have been just chilling and toasting the new year, like everyone else!) would be appropriate once we’ve all recovered from this last event. But a very, very grateful thank-you goes out to anyone who picked up after mess that was not their own, stopped something from being broken or a drink from being spilled, or just had fun at the party without bothering anybody else or destroying anything (shouldn’t that just be the default?).

Lessons learned:

• Never assume that your friends’ friends have manners. Your friends might, but there’s no telling about your friends’ friends. What was deplorable about the party wasn’t the costs incurred by its cleanup or replacement of broken items, but the straight-up disrespect, rudeness, and childishness of some of the guests there.
• Don’t let your friends invite people over to your house. Rowdy, obnoxious people might be all well and good, but…perhaps in the person’s house who invited them? A way better idea.
• Dan’s space truly is a great one, and I think all three of us (me, Dan, and Silas) are excited about throwing smaller, better events there in the future. Game nights (Katia, you know this is for you), movie nights, dinner parties, etc.
• People who didn’t RSVP at all to let me know whether or not they were coming are never, ever getting invited back to my parties again. They are inconsiderate and naturally I don’t want any further association with them for fear of their evil ways rubbing off on me. Scoundrels!
• People who RSVPed to say they were coming but didn’t end up showing up (except for a couple of people I know were sick) are never getting invited back, just because it’ll be easier to leave them off the invite list.
• People who RSVPd at the last minute, weeks and weeks after I sent out the invitations, will of course be forgiven, but possibly not invited back. Come on, people! Do you want to help your friend Tess, or make her life more difficult? RSVPs make life easier, and parties are way better planned when you know how many people to expect. Nothing in the universe is more obviously, plainly rude than waiting forever to RSVP to an event. I remember that Jenny O received an RSVP or two, AFTER she got back from her wedding. WTF, people. Those things are already stamped and everything. It shows how much you don’t care, that you didn’t make the effort to walk to the mailbox and drop the darn thing in, for weeks on end (or in my case, sending a little email).
• People who didn’t RSVP and showed up anyway because they felt like it at the last minute: don’t even get me started on these.

Aftermath:

When most of the offending parties were gone, my friends went into rapid cleanup mode, and after another half hour there wasn’t a bottle, cup, or can in sight. All the trash had been taken out, and all the recycling had been stacked neatly near the front door. My friends then sat me down on the couch for a little bit and rested with me until finally trotting off to Empire to continue their partying Phase 1 of the party cleanup was done, and it was VERY helpful that it got done that night.

The next morning, Dan, Silas and I had a fair amount of work to do.

• Laundry (dirty towels, rags, placemats, etc)
• Sweeping
• Mopping the entire house
• Steam cleaning the carpet (this required a trip to rent a steamer at Kroger), which worked very well
• Spot-cleaning the walls all over the downstairs and stairwell, and one spot in Dan’s room. FYI, 409 worked very well for this
• Still-edible food to be wrapped up and stored, inedible food to be gotten rid of
• Dishes, dishes, dishes
• Surface cleaning of every surface you could possibly set something down upon in the entire downstairs

So a lot of stuff, but not too bad for three people. Really I should have been cleaning it all up myself, since it was mine and Talia and Brandi’s party, not Dan and Silas’ party. But the boys are awesome and glad to help, and of course we probably wouldn’t have been satisfied with the cleaning work of anyone else except each other, so we were better off that way. I’m really lucky they wanted to clean, because I was totally out of it for the whole day and really tired and dizzy. But I cleaned what I could, and the peace and quiet felt good, and it was nice to wash away the ickiness of the party. And Dan brought me some roses, which smelled lovely and sent exactly the message intended…that he’s amazing and that he cares about me.
Dan and I spent the rest of the evening lounging around, watching Ratatouille (it’s cute, watch it), and making dinner (tofu / broccoli thai curry with basmati rice). I was still exhausted this morning even though bedtime was very early, but I know that it’s because I’ve had like 10 straight days of not chilling at all, and just going from place to place and task to task constantly. It’ll take a few days (I’m hoping for weeks, though) of refusing to make plans and devoting my life to sewing and chilling out in order for me to get back up to my usual energy level.

I will post photos when I’m darn well ready. Right now I am going to make little pita pizzas.