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The Naked Leo Party was out at Camp Fun. Camp Fun is
Corn Man's mom's house (where he grew up) out in Danville. It's hot in
Danville in the summer. It was perfect for swimming and lounging in the
shade. David and I were the first ones there, save Corn's sister,
Tracy, who greeted me with: "Hi! Who are you?" I told her I'm Heather (even though we've met before), and she asked if I worked with Rebecca. No, I said, I'm just a friend of Rebecca and Corn's. Oh! says Tracy, You're the SPECIAL Heather. Well. Ok. I was stuck with hostess duties as Tracy ran out for more ice (no, we weren't early - we were actually a half an hour late). The next person to show up was Molly, who was a friend of a friend of Tracy's. I greeted her and showed her around, but it was absurd that I was the most senior person there; I'd only known this group of people 3 months! Anyhow, there was an awkwardness as Molly stripped down - to her bathing suit. I waited until after Lorraine had showed up and stripped all the way down (the way we do at Camp Fun) before, er, following suit. I didn't have the heart to tell Molly she was mistaken (not that she couldn't wear her suit, I just didn't want to make her uncomfortable either way), and I was totally not ready to be the first to strip. I think it was the presence of strangers. Clothed strangers. I think. Anyhow, as it was 105 in the sun, I called it a "dry run" for Burning Man (though BM will be dryer (no pool) and hotter (110 in the shade). I dove, did jack knife dives (which I always over rotate and kill my back) and back dives (which I nailed everytime). I wrestled for the raft with Corn and Lorraine. I panted in the heat by the side of the pool. It took me hours before I finally socialized. More people had arrived, and I felt like I should talk to someone new. I realized that I'm just rusty as hell at parties. I don't like trying to talk to new people always. Too often at parties I make a bad choice and end up talking to someone about something I could not care less about. My first attempt of the evening went that way: I tried talking to Nicole, who was a very interesting person. Too interesting. I know it's petty, but I couldn't talk to her because she was just too Accomplished. She had decided not to go into the Peace Corps - they had stuck her for 2 years in a Muslim country, and, although she once did 3 months in Palestine, she wasn't ready to commit that much of her twenties to, well, no fun. I didn't know what to say. I mean, I agree with her, but I didn't know what to say back, about myself. "Hi, I'm a receptionist who thinks she's a writer but I haven't done much recently but I'm really cool, I swear?" I didn't want to talk like this, this "what do you do?" line of questioning. I want desperately to travel, but desperation is always looked at with pity as they edge away. Anyhow. Amy and I had much more success. Amy is dating Ed, who was dating Rebecca when I met Rebecca and Corn (you could say he introduced us). She's been at parties with this group before, and she doesn't know many people either. Yet. This group - most of them - have either grown up together (in Danville) or have been together for 15 odd years. Amy is also from the Midwest and moved out here at the same age I did (24 - "there's something about that age when you think - I went to college right by where I grew up...let's get the hell out"), though she's been here 4 years to my 2. We certainly have more in common (in our background) than we do with most of the other women there. I thought that was nice; since there's two of us, we're a group, not a "fluke". One of the first things we noticed is that we had similar colored (pearly pastel blue and green) nailpolish on. We sorta waves our colored nails at each other like sea anemones and giggled. It was quite a long while before she finally asked me: "I don't know how to ask this without just asking....what do you do?" Oh, how cool. I commiserated with her on how hard it is to ask/get around that question, and didn't feel like a loser when I told her. She ended up having a much cooler job - she's a radio producer. Still, by the time I found out what she did, that didn't matter as much as who she was. Does that make sense? We'd gotten far enough into the "getting to know you" that I liked her already, and wasn't immediately intimidated. So, Amy and Ed are going to Burning Man! That gave me a slew of stuff to talk about - I've been before and they haven't. It also cheered me up as I got their BM address and can look them up and hang out with them in the desert. Their theme camp is Mount Olympus and they're both working on their deity costumes. I told her I'd dress as Persephone and spend half my time at their camp and half somewhere else. They both liked that idea, and I think I'll do it a couple times (I have copious costumes, I'm sure I'll find something that would do). I like this. Burning Man is a great bonding experience. I could use more local female friends. I'll have a week where I've nothing better to do than hang out and talk to people, get to know them, go see incredible art and shows with them. I'm really looking forward to the next few weeks of my life. The drive home from the party was just a little disappointing, as we ended up giving Rachel a ride home. Now, Rachel is very cool, but we were all partyed out and not up for more socializing. David and I couldn't dish about the party; we had to wait until we dropped her off, which gave us 10 minutes instead of 30 to talk. Rachel is a gardener, and I wished I had gotten to talk to her when we were all more fresh. She did say that the best way to grow tomatoes is to have enough room to let them sprawl all over the ground, and that the reason we have so many small ones is that we didn't pinch them back when they were small (which would have given us fewer, but bigger fruit). Oh, well. David and I have to wrestle said tomatoes back into submission tonight, so maybe we'll get to talk about the party more then. Not quite the same though. | ||
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