Blogzillas

Last night I attended my very first book-launch party. No, I did not write a book. Someone else wrote a book. And then someone else decided that inviting social dorkwad idiots like myself to the launch party  was a good idea. (Bloggers. We're ruining ALL the best parties these days.)

So. Let's recap the evening, shall we?

5:00 pm Okay. Jason will be home in a half hour to drive me to party. And pick up Bunny, who I am dragging as my plus-one. Plenty of time to put on pretty new dress, some makeup and pull hair into easy half-up, half-down, pulled-back-bangs look.

5:01 Notice red scaly patch of eczema-like rash on cheek. Random! Weird! Apply lotion and plug in curling iron.

5:04 Remember to turn curling iron ON. Whore.

5:05 Notice red scaly patch on cheek has morphed into some kind of angry red hive. Itchy. Ignore.

5:06 Start curling hair. Achieve perfect half-up, half-down, pulled-back-bangs style on first try.

5:07 Remember dress has to go over head. Dammit.

5:10 Notice hives all over neck and chest. Dying? Ignore.

5:20 Hair not cooperating. Each attempt at half-up, half-down, pulled-back-bangs style getting poofier and ridculouslier than the last.

5:21 Apply makeup. Hive on cheek practically glowing in dark and developing opposable thumbs.

5:28 Put on awesome shoes that Bunny patiently approved on Monday's playdate when I carted eight pairs of shoes into living room and made her see how each and every pair looked with pretty new dress, which I also made her approve at the store. Wonder if I maybe get on her nerves a little bit ever.

5:30 Check on Noah, who has wandered away from the television and is in the backyard. Bad television babysitter, bad!

5:34 Jason arrives. Collect child from backyard, purse from under couch, head out to car, trip and eat it on the pavement.

5:45 Pick up Bunny, who emerges wearing a perfectly executed half-up, half-down, pulled-back-bangs hairstyle. Whore.

6:00 Arrive at party, which is taking place at Ralph Lauren. As in, Ralph Lauren The Store. Where there are clothes. Expensive clothes I cannot afford.

6:01 Expensive clothes I cannot afford + me + high heels + wine + social dorkwadocity = oh, fuck.

6:02 Wine.

6:03 Bunny and I cower in corner by some polo shirts.

6:05 We discuss what kind of reaction we'd get if we each grabbed a nearby mannequin and made them fight each other.

6:10 Wine.

6:11 Oh look! There's champagne! Can I have that too?

6:15 We notice two girls hovering nearby and wonder if we could try to make friends.

6:16 "But what do you say?" Bunny wonders. "Hi! Wanna hold hands? Wanna make out? DO YOU LIKE MY SHOES CIRCLE YES OR NO?"

6:20 The girls wander away, probably to talk about the two snobby girls by the polo shirts.

6:22 Catch glimpse of legs in mirror, count fourteen bruises in about three seconds. Sexy.

6:23 Red hive on cheek still there, is now walking upright and upgrading my RAM.

6:30 We decide to wander into the back room where the author is signing books.

6:31 We back out of the room in terror, since it appears the party has been segregated into the Thinnest and Most Gorgeous Women Ever Who Also Wear Chanel Couture and...the rest of us.

6:33 Bunny asks me to explain for the millionth time how exactly I got us invited to this?

6:35 Whatever. The front room is where all the wine is.

6:36 It occurs to me that I may be the only person eating the twee and delicious bite-sized hors d'ourves, and also that I am okay with this.

6:37 - 7:59 Wiiine. Blleee! Blooog! Shooes. Sssbaby. Talk talk talkity am brilliant witty thin. Also probably can fly. Wheee!

8:00 Party over. Gift bags. Bunny and I head out to go eat some damn pasta and cheesecake. I think I cry at some point over something. Possibly when there is no more cheesecake. Hail cab, sucessfully navigate our drunk asses home.

7:30 am Wake up, filled with vague sense of a headache and that I embarassed myself in front of the wife of the guy from the Thievery Corporation because she's probably a little sick to death of the goddamn Garden State soundtrack, and also that I accidentally gave the cab driver bad directions back to Wisconsin Avenue. I hope he is okay.

Edited to add: Hey look!

Sunglasses. On the top of my head. ALLNIGHTLONG.

Things!

1) Hey! Localites! Next year you MUST attend the Share Our Strength/Taste of the Nation event. Was a great party. Great! So great that now, many many hours later, the only word I can think of to describe it is...great. Well, that and...fuzzy. Wine-soaked. Creamy polenta served with braised shortribs and some kind of mystery fried foodstuff on a stick that I kept seeing people with but was never able to locate, which pissed me off because one of my guiding culinary principles is FOOD + FRIED + STICKS = AWESOME.

2) Also awesome was the fact that Jason and I were invited as (bwah ha haaaa) press, which meant we were tagged with the Yellow Wristbands Of I'm So Blogging This. Didn't stop one cute little old guy from scolding me about my hair ("You have gorgeous blonde hair and look what you did to it! Why? Whyyy?"). But after I explained the whole Pink for the Cure thing, he graciously asked for my site address so he could donate. Which is when I realized I had no business cards or even a damn pen. MOST. AWESOMEST. NETWORKER. EVER.

3) Also most awesome: mah shoes.

Yeah, I was totally bleeding into the ankle strap by the end of the night, but they were worth it.

4) Hey! Look!

This was a total shock, actually, and I actually froze the first time I saw the logo projected on the massive screens around the event and just stood there pointing, all "eh eh eh hey!" Jason donates all his ad proceeds to different hunger-related charities every month -- and apparently his small check was enough to get him classified as a local sponsor.

That makes me kind of...sad, actually. It's really humbling to think about how much money we spend on food every month and how far the cost of just one meal out could go towards helping hungry children in our very own city.

*hangs head in shame, mumbles something about the getting the shoes on sale at least*

5) SPEAKING OF CHILDREN, here's a lesson for everyone: if you are going to have a conversation about how your child has never even attempted to climb out of his crib yet, about how it has never even occurred to him that it's an option, don't be all shocked when THE VERY NEXT MORNING you wake up to hear a terrific thumping sound, followed immediately by the wails of your baby who just fell ass-over-teakettle over the crib rail.

(Edited to add Thing #6: Mamapop. Argh. ARGH! Our server went boom. Or almost went boom, and then our host went GAR! SMASH! and yanked the site down and won't put it back up, or something like that. I couldn't really follow the whole story because my head exploded HOURS AGO. Basically: we're too sexy for our hosting provider. Also too popular. And way too obsessed with liveblogging Anna Nicole Smith babydaddy news. So the site will be moving to a shiny new server this week, and I could not love my safe little world of Typepad more at this point, because they never make me deal with scary things like server load times and CPU storage and blah blah talkyspeak blah.)