Mrs Dalloway Was About Parties

AND STILL IS BITCHES

jokes

ok but this past Saturday was party central and i realized i haven't written about parties in awhile. like a long while. like so long i can't remember while. and today my sister commented on a wedding party blog from two years ago. i am behind the times here. i had tried to reread Mrs Dalloway too around the end of 08 and that is still in progress. It's so much sadder than I remembered. And denser. But that's what makes it wonderful too. I digress. Of course. Because Stream of Consciousness and Virginia Woolf style are my heros.

My party agenda on Saturday looked like this

1. Wedding at the Farmhouse in Delaware

2. Kathy's 30th Birthday - 90's themed, titled "My So Called Party"

3. Derek Plaslaiko at Inciting!!!! i mean at Inciting HQ. minus the exclamation points

Because of the wedding I was really late to the 30th birthday. if we were to compare the wedding to inciting, then they are vastly different events. inciting has a simple structure, a looping video, an amazing dj behind the decks and dark lighting. some rooms off to the side that are used for bands studios. One is usually opened as a chill out space. One is usually VIP available to friends of Inciting. Derek Plaslaiko, the dj this evening, and long time friend of the space, played for 13 hours. Oh and SOUND, the sound system is probably the best in Philadelphia, the kids in New York rent it so it must be. The sound is amazing. This is the structure of the party at inciting. The only formal event that took place was spontaneous and that was at noon when Derek paused the music and said let's give a round a hugs to Nic the sound guy and we all piled around him. Love.

On the other hand the wedding is a series of formal planned events. Not only is there the setting, an environmental structure we could say, but there are planned, controlled events. Like the ceremony itself. In this case it took place outside even on this fairly cool autumn day. I will say pre ceremony the bride was very early and went to a bridal suite and I shot some stuff up there and got a really nice candid story of how her and her groom got together after 10 years of knowing each other. I felt fortunate to catch that on video.

Did I mention there was a lot of dancing at Inciting? And a lot of hanging out and talking with friends too? It was very fun.

I missed the birthday formalities, ie singing happy birthday, but there was nice catering of Reality Bites, like bacon and peanut butter on mini toast. And cupcakes. And whiskey bottles with the tops cut off and turned into candle holders. And a lot of people dressed with wool hats, flannels, ironic band t-shirts, and floral skirts with doc martins and at least one wig.

I stayed much longer than I thought I would at My So Called Party, arriving at inciting close to 3am.

So the wedding as usual made me cry. Inciting did not. Though I did almost bug out to the land of hell in my brain. Just as I was falling into it half knowingly I was startled by the ever perceptive Tom++. He saved me from an eternity of mind fuckness and I danced a bit more.

Crying at weddings of people I don't know seems to be a theme. it happens every weekend almost. The bride cried too. Well that's probably what helped get me teary eyed. She called them Happy Tears. Just so you know these are happy tears. It was after her best friend said some amazing quote about love - I think this is an excellent idea if you are giving a toast. Something meaningful and inspiring. And the bride's dad had a lot to say. It was so overly expressive of emotion. Like all this repressed sharing of how I feel about you suddenly burst out onto the public forum of your party.

We all kiss and hug hello at weddings, birthdays and inciting. What about in your everyday too.

(edit: i realize i was getting into the ideas of structure and controlling an event but interrupted myself. TBC!)