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We used to party. During Drake Relays, I watched Scott do his part to help his frat kill a keg in an apartment parking lot. We danced in dimly lit, barely-furnished, white-washed, college-owned houses rented by a student maybe one person in the group knew. We watched Super Hornio Brothers and then hours of YouTube videos and laughed way too loudly and went out to the alley for 3 AM cigarettes. We played Chatroulette bingo and drank Eastern European hooch and fell asleep one by one in piles or were carried to bed in another room.
Me, my friends, my husband Scott — we just have fun and we’re nice people, as I once drunkenly explained. But the fun faded. We got older. We started waking up feeling shittier, we got stung by party drama, and people started having babies, and worst of all: the parties started getting more polite. Even the most angry of ragers featured tiki torches and little smokies. Don’t get me wrong! We still have beautiful friends and we’re still having fun, but party life has gotten stale. It’s not about the booze — there have been incredible nights when every guest was stone-cold sober — it was about the level of awesome our parties used to reach. It’s like our friends just gave up the party ghost.
Case in point: we’ve lived in this house a year and only one person has barfed in our toilet. There’s something about that morning after when you lay in bed (or on the carpet) for a while, trying to remember why your buddy was thrash dancing with a giant fire extinguisher or what, exactly, your disagreement with that monk was about. And there’s no reason not to keep having college kid parties just because we’re 27!
Believing this fully, Rockethaus planned “I wanna get stupid with U,” a party meant to summon back our party spirit animals. Kegs were mentioned. Flyers were shared. Rules decided upon. We invited just a few people — not enough for a legit all-nighter, but our re-entry to the scene needed to be gentle. It was more about the spirit than the letter of the law.
After consulting Google calendars, my husband, my housemate, and I set a date: the Sunday before Labor Day, September 4.
Scott left for bed hours earlier and housemate Darby and I watched Overboard before she downed a Sudafed and hit the hay. They were both sick with the damn cold everyone seems to have.
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I like to think any virile 21-year-old would have soldiered on, but that’s probably not true. As the only housemate left standing, even 21-year-old Cat would have called off the deal. What the superstitious part of my mind thinks is, regretfully, that this party bummer is the nail in the coffin of our collective party animal. From now on, this house is bound only for family BBQs and movie nights that are over by 10.
But maybe not — we’ll try this again: Festivus is only six months away.
I’m 28 and at my birthday party last weekend one of the guests barfed and then had to lie down on our bed. (OK, that was because she’s 15 weeks pregnant, and the rest of us were chatting, drinking tea and eating cupcakes at the time, but, ya know, still counts.)
this makes me feel better : ) we are always noticing how lame we feel. like we outgrew all our awesome shenanigan days, but were oddly ok with it??!!?! i thought we were just getting old (26 and 29), my exciting friday night involved my awesome 20 year old friend coming over, eating dinner and making a melted crayon painting while my man listened to new music online. i feel better about getting older knowing that it seems like everyone else has caught it too. lol
but in our defence we did have an amazing halloween blowout in ’09, it was supposed to just be us handing out candy, and accidently turned into a huge blow out complete with blueberry beer, and dildo’s suctioned to the fridge. (i used to sell toys…)
What a bummer! I think it’d be worth trying again later. We’re minimally older than you with more boring jobs, and we had a party end at 3 a.m. last night. (Granted, it was such a polite party that someone brought a tray of deviled eggs, but it was still fun.)
I’m 35 and newly married for the first time. Husband of 39 and I have moved from the center of all that’s happening in LA to the VALLEY, of all places. But we used to party. I remember one Morning After at a friend’s house when I was making myself coffee in a trashed kitchen, wearing a pair of hot pants, roller skates and sunglasses, while a chicken wandered through the littered room, clucking cautiously and quietly. Now that,I remember thinking, was a party.
Now a Big Night Out will more likely involve a queiet dinner at a chain restaurant (and we don’t even have kids to blame). We’ve already started calling ourselves The Early Bird Special.
But we love it. We love the calm of the household, living in peace, decorating a Space for Adults that won’t get ruined by barf or urine… the lack of Party Drama, as you stated…
And once every so often, totally unsummoned and unexpectedly, The Party Animal Spirit returns. One was our wedding. Once was just a regular BBQ which for some reason turned into a Rager thanks to some great bottles of wine. Another time it was over a friend’s house with a pool and scotch tasting. The important thing is that you *MISS* having balls to the wall fun, and when you miss it, it will come back, on occasion, to your delight. Just not every weekend.