Birthday "Party"

I know a girl- a coworker of my friend Jess- who thinks we're friends. I don't know how or why she got that impression, but she's the most awkward human being I've ever met. I'm including myself in that list; she's that bad.

A few months ago (sorry I haven't written about it sooner), she invited me and Jess to her birthday party. The only reason I even considered going was because Jess said she'd go. At the last minute I told myself "fuck it, I'll go and be nice." This was not the correct response for this situation. I arrived at the party only to find that Jess was a bitch and wasn't coming. I was in this acquaintance's house who I could barely stand for more than five minutes with two of her other friends. To make it more uncomfortable- her mom was playing christian pop music. That doesn't exactly scream 'birthday' to me. The girl made us play a drawing game that was a cross between pictionary and telephone. The first person writes a sentence, the next draws a picture, the next uses the last picture to write a new sentence and so forth.

Did I mention this was for a 19 year old?

Her brother, his wife and grandparents showed up, making things slightly better and then so much worse. The brother, wife and I started having some kind of adult conversation, leading into what kind of drinks we preferred. This was the first time I didn't feel the need to escape. Unfortunately, I might've come across as an alcoholic for choosing whiskey over wine, then listing the various brands I like and don't. The fact that I knew more than two seemed to make them uncomfortable.

As unpleasant as this ordeal had been thus far, this is where it gets cringeworthy. Her grandparents insisted we all call them "Ma" and "Pa." I shit you not. They took it back to little house on the prairie. Then they asked how to do a certain country line dance and the brother taught anyone in the kitchen... for multiple songs. I couldn't find a tactful way of leaving, being too freaked out to use the emergency phone call excuse. Luckily the party ended soon after the obligatory fighting over who gets which piece of cake.

This was all pokemon themed, by the way.

As I was leaving, she cornered me and asked when my birthday was/ how old I'd be. She then offered to be DD if I wanted to go to any bars or something like that. Yeah, maybe, anything so I can go the hell home.

A week or so ago we ran into each other and had the obligatory catching-up conversation that literally was this:

"Oh hey... How are you?" -me
"Great! How about you?" -her
"Eh. Nothing new." -me

Then we stared at each other for a solid 5 seconds.

"Yeah, seriously, I have nothing. My life isn't exciting right now." -me

More staring.


The joys of friendship.

We are "family"

The art critic's review:

"Patricia Piccinni brings a fresh, personal perspective to some of the most difficult ethical issues of our time: What is normal? What is the nature of our relationship with animals? Are some lives worth more than others? What constitutes a family?"

This exhibit was supposed to show genetic crossbreeding with humanity in the future... I think. I looked it up again online and was just as unsure what the purpose was as I was when I saw it for the first time. Then again in my nightmares. Mostly likely in my nightmares tonight after writing this.

I realize everyone's taste in art is different and I've never worked with whatever medium she used, so I can't speak for the technicality. As a regular observer I can comfortably say "What the fuck is that?"

He was like a grandfather who melted into a walrus and the kid just went with it.

Did I mention the kid is life sized? Like 10 year old child sized. When I first walked into the room I thought the kid was real and being creepily interactive with whatever that thing was. Grand-walrus was about 5 feet long with a head the size of the kid's entire torso.

Remember- this was the special 'name in lights' kind of traveling attraction, so there was no escaping any of the 30ish sculptures. That one wasn't even the scariest, it just stuck in my head after 3 years.

The other accompanying miniature features weren't much better. The only two of those I distinctly remember were a taxidermy crossbreed (see my other post about the deer head...) and a bronze sculpture of little red ridding hood holding an axe, standing in the heap of wolf she cut herself out of.

Overall it was quite a morbid experience. 

I leave you with this:

sweet dreams :]