Why I love to party

In the past ten weeks I have thrown the following parties: Bachelorette Beach Weekend, Stock-the-Bar & the-Game-Closet-couples-dinner-shower, & a last-minute quarter-century games in the park birthday bash. I decorated, baked, made costumes and cleaned up the mess afterwards. OHHH, I LOVE a good party!

Yes, the planning & Excel spreadsheets involved in throwing a successful party are right up my alley; however, there's a deeper reason I love getting a lot of people together-- the kind who have loved each other for years and the kind who are just learning the way of new friendships.



It's something to do with the laughs, and the way friends who have long been apart smile in their eyes when they hug. It's something about how wine will inevitably be spilled and/or spewed amidst raucous laughter. It's in the way my newly pregnant friend Tara's husband rubs her back to keep her comfortable so she can enjoy the company, even though she's feeling sick, again. It's the way we all get the jokes without finishing the stories. It's the way we start talking about what it will be like when we all have kids & how we must always get together like this. It's the way Mandy says "I love you" to all of us, repeatedly, when she's had a few glasses of wine, the way Emily points with helpful tips, and the way Lindsey gets even louder.


And there's something in the way new friends hi-five each other after a particularly great game of kickball on a warm Sunday afternoon. It's something about grinning for pictures and eating cheesecake without forks. It's to do with the way we shield our eyes to the bright fall sunlight for greetings called out to friends arriving late. Something in the sound of giggles at the end of a truly heinous rendition of "Happy Birthday." It's about the way acting like kids creates bonds between adults-- strands of friendship stretching between the softball bases and the kickball, amidst the hulahoops and the dogs lounging in the sun, winding themselves into the sweaty hugs and arching over our heads behind the football when the sun begins to set.



I love to throw parties because sometimes, people just need to know the time and the place. Sometimes friendships happen when you simply show up for someone else, and celebrate.

VACATION? Yes, please.

I spent the past week at the beach and I accomplished several important things:

1. I made some serious decisions about my future. But I'm a jerk and will not write about them on this blog until they're for sure. Heh.

2. I read Twilight.

3. I watched the movie. ::Swwwooooooon :: Robert Pattinson, you make me feel better about my pale skin, you are such a YUMMY vampire.

4. Then I read New Moon.

5. Then I read Eclipse.

6. Tonight I'll start the 4th installment and I don't even know the name of it because I love these books so much I don't care at all what they're called I just keep readingandreadingandreadingand dear God, WRITE ANOTHER ONE, STEPHENIE MEYER! (Seriously, I spent 30 minutes today Googling pictures of the vampire cast. I didn't even do crap like that when I was 13. Which is, by the way, the age of my sister, who is the one to blame for wanting to read these books in the first place. And also my mom, who wanted to know if the vampires were evil or not and therefore if my sister should read the books at all, but didn't want to read the books herself, so she FORCED me to sit on the beach and read them in a 72 hour period. After I fell in looooove, she decided to read them too, and is obviously now addicted. But THEN she tried to steal said 4th book from me last night while I was busy SPRINTING to the bathroom, just after returning from the beach. But I stopped her with my lightning fast reflexes and 6th sense for catching Vampire Book Thieves. I'll bet you big bucks the book is NOT where I left it when I return home from work today. As though going to a bookstore would be more difficult than breaking in to snoop through my gargantuan book collection.)

7. This post is becoming less about the beach and more about absurdly long parenthetical statements.

8. I did The Shred once. Hey, better once than never right? (What's that you say? That's not the phrase? Yeah, right. Of course it is.)

9. I ran on the beach once. THAT is a feat. For me, running anywhere other than on an elliptical machine in a supremely air-conditioned gym with an iPod in my hand and ESPN on the flatscreen TV in front of me, is just not worthwhile. Running outside is like a waste of a workout. Half the reason I work out without my hot-ass boyfriend to look at without his shirt on is because of the endorphins. I feel so much happier after a good sweat. But when I run outside, my thoughts go like this: I HATE running. My back hurts. I need a better sports bra. I hate this. It's so hot...I hate this. I hate this. Can't...breathe...hate...hate...HAAAAATE!!!!! .::fall down dead::. So you see why running on the beach for about one-half of a mile is cause for much celebration in my world.

10. I ate like hell: full blown sweet tea (how I have missed you, Heaven's Nectar), biscuits & gravy, Calabash-style fried scallops, fried crab cakes, hush puppies, homemade key lime pie, fudgesicles (a seaside staple), homemade fudge, homemade margaritas, homemade BUTTER (no lie, this stuff is the shiiiiizzzzzz)... I could go on and on but just writing about this stuff is not only making my mouth water, but also making my belly pooch out of my Spanx and that just defeats of the whole purpose, don't you think?

11. I had a lot of time to reflect and figure things out and when I'm in the mood to be a little more serious, I'll write about those things. But for now, enjoy some more Edward Cullen. Yes, please indeed!

M.I.A.

Dear Internet,

This is the view from where I'm spending the week:

I took that picture with my cell phone; you can imagine how wonderful it is in reality.

So you see, I have very little use for you right now, dear internet. But don't worry, I'll be back on Monday, and I'll be addicted to you again.

The weather is here, wish you were beautiful,

P.S. Apparently I write blog posts in letter format now. Hmmm... It won't last.

Wedding March

Dear Recently Married Friends,

Just one question:

Why didn't we do this in all of your weddings?




It would make being a perpetually single girl at the never-ending stream of weddings ever so much more enjoyable.

Love,

Hope

p.s. muchas gracious, sdq.