Becky, of Good Grief! fame, held a Beer and Cheese party on Friday, and was kind enough to invite me.
Normally I am a reticent fellow, pained at the thought of leaving stately Blankbaby Manor, but the times they are a changing. I decided few months ago that I needed to get out and about more often than I do, so when Becky invited me to a party where I would no one (other than Becky) my first instinct was to decline.
But moments after I thought of declining I thought it rather silly not to go, so I said why the heck not? I'm a fairly good party goer. I try not to break things, and I can be mildly interesting. Oh, and I love me some cheese.
Ordinarily, it is good etiquette to bring something along with you to a party, a rule I often forget about. However, most parties that I have been invited to often come with a followup message not to bring anything. Now, I am not very good at human interaction, this I know, but I do what I'm told. If someone tells me not to bring anything, I won't bring anything. So, when Becky said she didn't need anyone to bring anything with them, I took her words to heart.
When I arrived at the party (late, but there is an explanation forthcoming for my tardiness) it became readily evident that most people had brought something.
First social faux pas taken care of, but it won't be the last one; I can promise you that.
Becky gave me the grand tour of her place, and showed me the various cheeses and such that were place around the apartment (there was a lot of cheese to be had, and most of it was quite good, except for one cheese that was completely disgusting).
After being introduced to everyone I struck up some conversation, drank some water, noticed that Max Raabe was endlessly repeating on the CD player (but didn't say anything in case this was intentional, it wasn't) and above all ate some cheese.
It turns out another Philadelphia blogger was invited to the shindig, namely Yoko from The Ballad of Yoko. I had visited The Ballad of Yoko but I must admit I wasn't a reader. I soon found out that Yoko is a librarian. It just so happens that I am fascinated with books, libraries, and library science.
So when I spoke with Yoko I fear I came off rather strongly, launching into a discussion that included the phrases, 'The Librarian of Congress,' 'Robert Pinsky, former Poet Laureate of the United States,' and 'The Library of Congress has a category called "Eccentric Biographies".' Yoko seems fairly interested, but I soon learned she wasn't so interested. How do I know this? After I babbled on about library science or something, she said to me, 'My legs are killing me, I have to sit down.' To wit I said, 'OK,' and then ate some more cheese.
I did notice Yoko sat down momentarily and then quickly got up and join another group of people who were having a discussion (most likely not about library science).
Social faux pas number two!
Sorry about that Yoko, didn't mean to make you talk about your work at a party, I just get over excited sometimes.
After that, things went very smoothly as far as I am concerned. I even got to use some very special Hello Kitty hand soap. It had glitter in it, so I was concerned that I would end up with clean glittery hands, but I did not. My hands did smell like Hello Kitty though, and Hello Kitty smells pretty good.
It was neat to meet people who I have sort of interacted with through Good Grief!, and the moment when Sassy J (a frequent commenter on Good Grief) exclaimed, 'You must be Blankbaby!' was cool indeed.
Overall, kudos to Becky for throwing such a fine party, and for giving me some cheese and cookies to take home!
UPDATE: It tuns out that there is no category called 'Eccentric Biographies' in the Library of Congress, yoko tells us there is an "Eccentrics and Eccentricities," so I stand corrected.
And yoko also says she wasn't avoiding me, but rather she really was tired thanks to a hearty aikido (though the timing seems to be in question). Seeing as how she could probably kick my ass I will give her the benefit of the doubt.
My bad, yoko, as the kids say.
