On Saturday night a friend of the GF’s had a birthday party at a “club” downtown, where we could get free drinks for the first hour after opening. Ordinarily, I’m not much of a clubbing sort of person, but I figured that it would be a good opportunity to do something different with my weekend.
The first problem is that I never know what to wear to clubs. I rectified this quickly however by wandering between the bathroom (where the GF was getting ready) and my closet (where all my clothes are) while making uncomfortable-looking faces and occasional “hmmm” sounds. Mercifully, the GF eventually picked up on my incredibly subtle signals and asked if I needed help. When I said yes, she sashayed over, pointed to a short and slacks, and then retreated to the bathroom to finish up. God, she’s good. It would’ve taken me hours to assemble the same outfit. Left to my own devices I would’ve come out of the closet wearing cutoff jean shorts, necktie around my head, and a garbage-bag poncho shirt.
When we arrived at the club of choice, we met M (the GF’s friend from work who I call that because I don’t remember her last name, not because she is James Bond’s boss). M is totally fun and neato, and her boyfriend works at the club so he got us in for free. Then we were ushered (ushed?) into the back room where we got our free drinks and chatted. Throughout this whole process, I kept noticing the wide variations in what people viewed as “club-appropriate” attire. While in line I saw someone in a trucker hat, and inside was all manner of variations on the “untucked button-down shirt with jeans” look for men. Women could pretty much wear whatever they wanted, provided it was tight or showed massive cleavage. This led (of course) to a few colossal muffin-tops, but for the most part it was a lot more dressed down than I thought.
I mentioned how funny it was that these folks paused before the mirror on their way out to say to themselves “Oh yeah, I look good!”. Of course, the hypocrisy of my saying such a thing, when only a few hours before I’d been unable to dress myself, was lost until just now when I wrote this. Umm...yeah...anyway...
The rest of the evening was fun with dancing (or, at least, my attempts at dancing; also occasionally serving as drink-holder and coat rack since as a straight guy I'm not allowed to raise my arms above my shoulders while dancing) and people-watching in the most diverse group of people I’d been in since moving to Chicago. There were blacks, indians, asians, whites, latinos, you name it. That was maybe the best part of the evening actually. It was like our own little United Nations of Funk. But as the night progressed, the sight of watching more and more men vying for fewer and fewer women on the dance floor got a little tiring, so we adjourned after giving birthday wishes.
Sunday is not worth mentioning. The Vikings lost, my fantasy team lost, and I got a migraine. It was such a crummy day that I think I’m going to skip watching football and read books instead next weekend in hopes that will reinvigorate my teams’ lust for victory. No better way to get them to want to make you happy than to ignore them, right? Just like in 7th grade?
The first problem is that I never know what to wear to clubs. I rectified this quickly however by wandering between the bathroom (where the GF was getting ready) and my closet (where all my clothes are) while making uncomfortable-looking faces and occasional “hmmm” sounds. Mercifully, the GF eventually picked up on my incredibly subtle signals and asked if I needed help. When I said yes, she sashayed over, pointed to a short and slacks, and then retreated to the bathroom to finish up. God, she’s good. It would’ve taken me hours to assemble the same outfit. Left to my own devices I would’ve come out of the closet wearing cutoff jean shorts, necktie around my head, and a garbage-bag poncho shirt.
When we arrived at the club of choice, we met M (the GF’s friend from work who I call that because I don’t remember her last name, not because she is James Bond’s boss). M is totally fun and neato, and her boyfriend works at the club so he got us in for free. Then we were ushered (ushed?) into the back room where we got our free drinks and chatted. Throughout this whole process, I kept noticing the wide variations in what people viewed as “club-appropriate” attire. While in line I saw someone in a trucker hat, and inside was all manner of variations on the “untucked button-down shirt with jeans” look for men. Women could pretty much wear whatever they wanted, provided it was tight or showed massive cleavage. This led (of course) to a few colossal muffin-tops, but for the most part it was a lot more dressed down than I thought.
I mentioned how funny it was that these folks paused before the mirror on their way out to say to themselves “Oh yeah, I look good!”. Of course, the hypocrisy of my saying such a thing, when only a few hours before I’d been unable to dress myself, was lost until just now when I wrote this. Umm...yeah...anyway...
The rest of the evening was fun with dancing (or, at least, my attempts at dancing; also occasionally serving as drink-holder and coat rack since as a straight guy I'm not allowed to raise my arms above my shoulders while dancing) and people-watching in the most diverse group of people I’d been in since moving to Chicago. There were blacks, indians, asians, whites, latinos, you name it. That was maybe the best part of the evening actually. It was like our own little United Nations of Funk. But as the night progressed, the sight of watching more and more men vying for fewer and fewer women on the dance floor got a little tiring, so we adjourned after giving birthday wishes.
Sunday is not worth mentioning. The Vikings lost, my fantasy team lost, and I got a migraine. It was such a crummy day that I think I’m going to skip watching football and read books instead next weekend in hopes that will reinvigorate my teams’ lust for victory. No better way to get them to want to make you happy than to ignore them, right? Just like in 7th grade?
Comments
Midway through Sunday's game, The Pack was far enough behind that it seemed safe for me to watch and giggle. Of course, as soon as I did, Favrvrvre completed 14/15 passes and the comeback started. Disaster was averted, though, when I decided to take a nap.