Party down*

Of course, the week’s Glee episode revolves around the most uptight and neurotic main character throwing her very first house party the same week I host a potluck. Even before I watched the episode, I was worried that my party might turn out similar to the beginning of Rachel’s soiree (the first minute and a half of the following clip):

And, let’s face it: my apartment is not as well equipped for entertaining as Rachel Berry’s dads’ Oscar Room/den. Nor did I have wine coolers–instead I had tons and tons of homemade chocolate chip-potato chip cookies. (Party theme: potatoes, with exception to beverages). I should not have doubled that recipe. But I can’t ignore the doubt I inherited from my mom about there not being enough food for company (even if it’s a potluck).

Things I learned from Rachel (that I never really considered, anyway): informing guests of party rules, distributing drink tickets. Wine coolers? The last time I drank wine coolers was when I was pre-pubescent, sitting on the basement steps with my grandma. (Sadly I no longer remember the context). I had to look up Celebrity on Wikipedia to even figure out what the game could possibly entail.

While we’re on the subject of moms and grandmas, it’s kind of distressing for me to observe that people aren’t eating at an event that’s so centered on food. (I’m also surprised that Rachel didn’t have any canapes to go with her wine coolers–a more typical teen would at least have a bag of chips). This is the only kind of nurturing that comes to me easily: wanting to fix everyone a plate, and give them food to take home.

But in spite of any and all of my failings as a hostess, can I at least show you my door decorations that I made? Take that, Rachel Berry!

Cut some brown paper, shade it in random places with a brown colored pencil, and voila–you have potatoes to assure your guests that they’ve arrived at the right place for a potato potluck.

Because I don’t have a stocked liquor cabinet–or even wine coolers!, my party never reached the heights Rachel’s eventually did. (Also, midterms time is probably not the best time to have a party if many of one’s guests are TAs stressed about grading–as much as they’d like to socialize, they feel the obligation to return to their stacks of papers. Perhaps my guests are also far too responsible for their own good). I’m sure my downstairs neighbor prefers that her ceiling didn’t sound like Dance Party Central. I have lots of cookies leftover, lots of iced tea/lemonade/soda, and lots of cups, plates and cutlery. It seems like I ought to have a party after my party. Though, really, I think the next time I’d like to have a party would be before I move out of Pittsburgh, which would be better suited to a public place because I’d like to invite more guests than I had for this potluck. So, please do suggest any Pittsburgh-area establishments that would be good for a fairly inexpensive late June fare thee (me?) well sort of gathering.

In the meantime, if you don’t need me, I’ll be eating cookies.

*Speaking of TV shows, I watched an episode of the now-canceled series Party Down after a friend recommended it. It was just okay, even if it had Adam Scott–who is delightful on Parks & Recreation. I suppose I should give at least a few more episodes a try. Wait, I’m talking about TV? I used to be the girl who didn’t watch TV. Who would have thought going to grad school to get a writing degree would mean watching more TV?

A twisted distraction

Taking a reduced class load this semester probably means that I should focus more on my writing–revising my manuscript, and probably some stand-alone short pieces–but I recently started a new project:

It’s the start of what I hope will be a braided rug, though it’s currently more like the size of a coaster.

I’m not a sewer.  See that thing that looks like a bent wire in the photo?  That’s a needle.  It used to be straight.  The package claimed the needle was heavy-duty, too.  And if the white box to the left looks suspiciously like dental floss, that’s because it is dental floss.  One website recommended dental floss, or carpet thread.  The local drugstore doesn’t sell carpet thread, and I don’t feel like schlepping on a bus to a craft store.  Guess what the drugstore does sell.

But floss isn’t the only weird material I’m using.  This is what I’m braiding for the rug:

“Wait,” you might be saying.  “That looks like–”

Why, yes.  I made it from cut up strips of:

Nowadays, I try to use reusable bags at the grocery store.  But I still somehow have a large stash of bags.  (One point of contention a boyfriend had with living with me: I save way too many bags.  If anyone has any craft ideas for paper shopping bags, you should let me know).  Yeah, you could “recycle” plastic grocery bags, but I’m slightly dubious of the supermarket’s takeback program.  I have way more bags than I can use as small wastebasket liners.  And then I found out about plarn, aka “yarn” made from plastic bags.  It’s easy to make.

The question then became what to do with my new plarn.  Most stuff on the internet talks about crocheting, and I don’t crochet.  My knitting skills are basic, and when I tried to knit with plarn, it was difficult to work with and I kept ripping out my uneven rows.  Hence the braided rug.  I can braid okay, but the tricky part is sewing the coil.  I guess it looks okay so far, if a six-year old were making it.  This definitely isn’t Etsy quality work.

It’s slow-going and my fingers get tired after a while–I still stab myself with the needle from time to time.  My stitches are uneven and sometimes show when they’re not supposed to, and I have gaps in weird places.  It’s not like I really need a rug, much less one made from plastic.

So why do it?  For one, it’s nice to do something from which a clear product emerges.  The coil has gotten bigger, even if I work slowly.  There’s the clear feeling of progress, whereas with writing, I often question whether all the tinkering I’ve been doing with sentences, paragraphs and chapters has improved anything.  At the same time, I can look at my terrible stitches, and tell myself that I can at least write better than I can sew.  That’s some comfort.  Thanks, sewing!

Riding in cars with girls

Because DC is much closer to Pittsburgh than Pittsburgh is to Denver, going to the AWP conference this year was a four hour-car trip, instead of a series of flights.  While I’d never been to Denver before, I have visited DC in the past–in fact, if I had picked another grad school, I would probably be living in DC right now instead of in Pittsburgh.  What made this experience novel was that it was the first all-female road trip I’ve ever taken.

Movies make all-female road trips to be Big Deals.  Take, for example, the Britney Spears-helmed movie Crossroads and Boys on the Side, with Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Barrymore and Mary-Louise Parker.  The stakes should always be high for the travelers.  Crossroads gives us one pregnant teen, one girl who hasn’t figured out–yet!–that her fiance is a scumbag, and one girl who seeks out her mother.  Oh, and they also want to audition for a contract with a recording studio.  I’m not sure what details I should give about Boys on the Side without spoiling the movie (it really is enjoyable and much better than Crossroads) but let’s just say that there’s an abusive boyfriend and pregnancy and terminal illness involved, among other issues.

Compared to those characters, we were boring.  I don’t think any of us fell in love with hunky men (whom we weren’t already in love with) during the course of the trip, as seems to be a plot requirement for the Female Road Trip Story.  There weren’t any squabbles that involved pulling over and one or several members threatening to split off from the rest of the group.  I’m pretty sure neither group of women in the two movies listened to This American Life, though they would have probably also cranked up Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” (at least Britney’s posse, anyway).

But what every female road trip movie does seem to have that’s somewhat true to life is that uptight character.  Actually, a lot of movies targeted at women have this character.  Sometimes she’s the protagonist, and she learns to have fun and throw caution to the wind blah blah during the course of the movie.  Other times she’s a secondary character, and she either mellows out or becomes a vaguely antagonistic character who gets her due.  There isn’t much sympathy for the character who plays by the rules, because upstanding = boring.

Clearly, I am that character.  To use a running joke during this DC trip–and to make reference to another movie, albeit not a road trip one–I am totally the White Swan.  I don’t think a young woman for whom I would be the Black Swan exists.

So did this White Swan unravel?

Well, maybe she got a little gray.  Gray as in not dutifully attending panels and keynote speeches and other big deal readings.  As in going to the zoo instead of seeing what Big Deal Writers have to say about writing.  Gray as in not going to the hotel bar where one goes to see and be seen by writers and other literati.  As in not networking.  Gray as in drinking cheap champagne (purchased from a neighborhood liquor store) in the hotel room.  As in drinking beer and girly martinis and cosmos much more than usual.

Sure, it was fun, but not a sustainable lifestyle for me.  I like sleeping.  I don’t like how my face goes from full on flush to haggard thanks to alcohol.  I think I would even get tired of the Zoo after a while.  I do like other writers–writers can be fun, but mean-spirited, and while bitching and ridiculing is fun for a while, it also makes me incredibly insecure, and leaves me wondering what on earth is said about me when I’m not in the room.  (And if nothing is said, is that really better than being dubbed terrible or boring?)

Oh, here I go, sounding like a White Swan again.  Well.

I caught a cold from this trip, which strikes me as a fitting transition back to the White Swanhood of my regular life.  And if there’s a Black Swan in me, flapping her wings and trying to get out, she can try again in about a month, when I’ll be in Louisiana.