I woke up absolutely feeling like crap. I tried to rationalize it (maybe it was just a mild headache?) but finally as I struggled to get food and water into myself, I had to admit that after over a year without one, I'd managed to give myself a hangover. Which made me feel incredibly angry with myself, as I'm smarter than that, and I really had nobody to blame for it but myself.
The morning was therefore pretty shot for work, as I just struggled to avoid puking and tried to drink as much water as I could. Also, I was beside myself with worry, as I had yet to receive a call from my parents or my brother, despite checking my phone obsessively every 5 minutes. This meant that my sister-in-law had now been in labour for over 24 hours, and I was worried that something had gone seriously wrong. Did they pull her into an emergency C-section? Was she actually still labouring after all of this time? I wasn't sure how much of the sick-to-my-stomach feeling was due to the hangover or just terror about this never-ending labour.
Finally at 7 AM EDT (noon my time), I called my parents, desperate to know what was going on. Turned out that my sister-in-law had delivered a healthy baby girl at midnight, seven hours previously. I was so thrilled, but also puzzled. Why had nobody called me? I'd been in agony waiting for the news. Still, I found myself smiling constantly, just relieved to know that the delivery had gone well, and that all of my imaginings of anything horrible hadn't borne out. So I sat on my hands and figured I'd hear from my brother soon, once he woke up and recovered and could call me first thing in the morning.
At 3 PM my time (10 AM EDT) I finally couldn't take it, and called my brother. We had a quick chat, it was great to talk to him about the birth, although once again I had to wonder....why had nobody called me? The phones work two ways, you know...
Kind of sad, in a way, because I'd imagined for ages the way that late-night phone call would go, with my brother excitedly telling me the news, and I would be thrilled with delight to hear that phone ring. Instead, finding out the news was such a let-down, because I had to go chasing it myself. Forget about the phone call being not what I expected, there was no phone call. I'll probably wonder for the rest of my life why my brother couldn't be bothered to call. Did he think I didn't care? I know he had a lot on his mind, but I was going bonkers where I was. Yet nobody picked up the phone. They let me go nuts for 7 hours until I finally called. I wonder if I'd never called if I would even know now?
Still, despite my disappointment about how I heard the news, I was just so delighted with what the news was! A healthy baby girl!! So funny, because I'd put my money on it being a boy. Perhaps because I'd been so thrilled to have an older brother, I was secretly hoping it would turn out that way, and "Pip" just sounded a bit more like a boy's name. Yet, I'm absolutely just as delighted to have a niece as a nephew, and already I can't wait to see what kind of person she's going to turn out to be. They named her Emily Catherine. That's going to be a bit confusing for me, given that my flatmate is also named Emily (when I told her the news, she laughed and said, "Your brother and sister-in-law obviously have excellent taste!). But I was also charmed that they'd named her Catherine for my mother. Indeed, the photos of my mom holding hew new granddaughter showed her beaming as though she would smile wider if she possibly could. My mom is just MADE to be a grandma, so it was really wonderful for it to finally happen and have a namesake right there.
Between the exciting news and the hangover, I didn't do much (any) work all day, but finally in the afternoon got dressed to go to the ball at the Lansdowne Club that evening.
I probably wasn't ready to go in time, but I still imagined that I could manage to catch the train in time to get there. I suppose I should have paid more attention when the train was sitting around in the station without going anywhere, for it was almost 7 PM (when I was supposed to be at the ball!) before an announcement came on over the loudspeaker revealling that the train wasn't going anywhere for another 13 minutes. So I dashed out, and grabbed a cab. Okay, perhaps it was ridiculous to end up paying for a cab to get TO the ball when I knew I'd need another one to get home, but in the end it was only £18 (not bad for rush-hour traffic), but due to the traffic I only made it there right at 7:30, when dinner was due to start. Lucky for me, I guess a lot of people were late, as I still did have quite a chance to talk to people during the cocktail hour. I saw my friend Caroline right as I came in, we had the magician do a trick for us. I was actually rather impressed, as he did a trick where he had me draw a shape, and then wrote out what the shape was on a card. Apparently it must have had something to do with reading my eyes (he mentioned that it was hard because I was wearing a masque for the masquerade ball), but he did it successfully, making me quite impressed. Once I realised he was reading my eyes, I tried hard to stare straight ahead and be expressionless, but he got it anyway. On some level, I think you have to stop trying to figure out how magicians do their tricks, and instead just be charmed by the magic of it all. I ran into a few more friends, and just enjoyed standing around chatting in the courtyard and drinking champagne.
We were then called into dinner, and I was seated next to an American on my left who for some reason didn't seem to take to me, and an American on my right who had gone to Dartmouth. That was really funny and strange, because it turned out that he was an '02 (OMG, he must be my age or younger, whereas I'd thought he must be pushing 40 when I saw him, between the pot gut and the bald head), who used to row (he knew Katie Miller!) and was a Herot. We sort of bonded over Dartmouth, but really just didn't click, despite a short interesting conversation about Lehman Brothers (he used to work there, and I'd read Andrew Ross Sorkin's "Too Big to Fail"). Overall however, he seemed much more interested in talking to the girl on his right. I couldn't quite figure it out, but in the end had to put it down to the fact that despite having been in the UK for four years, these guys confessed to mostly just hanging out with other Americans. They even had an American Football League! And I really just don't identify with Americans at all any more. Indeed, the one thing I could pick up on as to why the guy on my left didn't like me, was that he commented on my accent, which I'll admit contains a smattering of British words, and after a few glasses of wine tends to resemble the accents I hear around me, i.e. the more British ones. I'm trying not to be Madonna, but you can't live here for a while without starting to "go native" a bit. Still, the whole thing was a bit unsettling, for here were two guys I SHOULD get along brilliantly with (Americans, one of whom even went to Dartmouth!), but it just wasn't working that well at all, despite my best efforts to be as charming as possible.
At least there was good entertainment elsewhere at the table, with a chap named Roman who amused me by bowing over my hand when he met me, and a guy named Paul who was just hysterical, getting up and acting as a waiter to serve wine to all of us after he concluded that our own waiters weren't being efficient enough. His antics and stories absolutely had the entire table cracking up, particularly as he told tales of a chap the guys all knew named "Dicken", who sounds like quite a character. (I actually have my suspicions as to whether Dicken actually exists, because I'm not sure any real live person could possibly be so amusing. I loved the stories however!)
There were two tables of people that Sophie knew, and after main course, Sophie made the boys from the two tables switch seats to the opposite table. Although he acknowledged that he was absolutely cheating, since the point of switching was to meet new people, the Young Dutchman came and sat next to me. Given how much I enjoy the company of the Young Dutchman, I didn't exactly complain.
The rest of dinner was fine enough, although at some point, somebody started throwing the diamonds that were out on the table as decoration. It started innocently enough, with people just tossing one small one to get someone else's attention. Eventually, it turned into a full-scale war, with diamonds raining down from the sky, glasses smashing, and our table waving our white table napkins in mock surrender. Funny, although I do think it got a bit out of hand!
After dinner, we were all ushered outside so that they could clear the ballroom of tables to turn it into a dancefloor. I found myself chatting to a few random people (including a man in a cape who really wasn't all that interesting), when I spotted a young blonde man who I vaguely recognized from our table in the second seating. Since he was sitting all by himself, I thought I would be kind and go and talk to him.
Turns out that he didn't know anybody at the party besides Sophie, but he turned out to be really nice, and sweet. Unfortunately was Australian (from Melbourne) and smoked (he absolutely powered through his pack of cigarettes), but I found myself enjoying his company nonetheless. He seemed to enjoy my company as well, leaving to go get me a drink at one point, and we really spent a large amount of our time just standing and talking. He was just wonderfully sweet, in that dorky-yet-adorable way, and so I think I shall refer to him here as the Adorable Australian.
On the few occasions that the Adorable Australian left my side to go get me a drink, I went over and talked to the Reincarnated Lllama and his sister Stephanie, a brother-and-sister pair whose company I really enjoy. (You can read about when I first met the Reincarnated Llama here). The two of them I suspect are members of some artistocratic family, as their stories about going home to the estate on weekends and their bizarre grandfather who still lives an Edwardian-era life without electricity always amuse me. They're an unusual family, to be sure, but the two of them are incredibly sweet and charming company, even as they always do seem to rely on each other for company quite a bit, because I don't think anyone can understand their peculiar family quite as well as they do!
At some point, the Reincarnated Llama urged me to come inside to the dance floor to go dancing, so I went along. The dancing was an interesting mix of old 80's music and newer stuff like "We No Speak Americano", which has to be one of my new favourite songs as of late. I was really impressed with the Reincarnated Llamas's moves on the dance floor, particularly when anything by Michael Jackson came on. He just seemed to float in that incredibly smooth way that MJ did, it was funny to think that this vegetarian, non-drinking guy could be such an awesome partier and dancer!
And on more than one occasion (i.e. every time that he spotted me), the Adorable Australian kept waving to me across the dance floor. Not a subtle chin nod, not a low-hand wave, but a "hand high up in the air, waving frantically from across the room, and not stopping until he knew I'd seen him" kind of wave. Super dorky. But I also loved it. There's a reason I refer to him as the Adorable Australian, after all...
Also spent quite a bit of time dancing with the Young Dutchman, who just as usual was super-fun. Love that guy. Such a shame he's 22... But overall, I was just having an outstanding time.
At some point (I guess when the Adorable Australian started dancing instead of fetching me drinks) I stopped drinking and moved onto water. After the experiences of the previous night, it definitely seemed like a wise move. I then spent some time just chatting with the Reincarnated Llama, and mused whether it might not be easier to just not drink, the way he does. He does seem to do rather well with it, after all...
After wandering into the club's bar, I ran into Paris, a guy I know through my friend Sara. They'd gone out on an online date, and while they didn't hit it off romantically, they managed to turn their meeting into a good friendship, which is how I knew him. It was so random, and such a nice surprise.
Somewhere around 1 AM, the music finally stopped and the evening reached an end. Although for some reason they kept playing Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York", one of my favourite songs in the world, so of course I arranged a sing-a-long with a few people standing out in the lobby. I then found myself chatting with some random club guy who seems a bit taken by me, although I have to admit he was such a classic type it was almost funny. Incredibly wealthy type who after years of working hard realises that he has all of this money and nobody to share it with. But gets endlessly confused between the interesting, intelligent girls with their own money (like me) and the young, stick-thin bottle blondes who are drawn like moths to a flame by the money. I'm never quite sure what to make of it all, because while I'm glad that men seem to enjoy my wit and conversation so much, it's a tad bit annoying to be competing for their attention with the bottle blondes. This one at least seems to be truly into me and keeps trying to hold my attention, but I've left my bag on the dancefloor, and am worried about it. So I leave to go get my bag (one thing I love about the club, it's still in the exact spot where I left it several hours before), but by the time I get back 30 seconds later he's trapped in conversation with a bottle blonde. Oh well... So I don't bother trying to break back into the conversation, but instead make my way to the lounge, where I see the Young Dutchman and the Adorable Australian. So cute, because as soon as he sees me, the Adorable Australian jumps up, saying, "Why don't you come sit down?" he's obviously so delighted to see me. I'm really loving this puppy dog adoration.
It's obvious that nobody is quite ready for the evening to end, and although I'd probably have been okay with going home at that point, I'd promised Sophie that I would stay out as late as she wanted to. So as some people were talking about going to Annabelle's (chic London club, which I hate those types), and some were going to 151 King's Road (a total dive), I decided to go with where Sophie was going, to 151.
I contributed £1 towards our cab fare, and then we all had to pay £5 to get into the club. It was one of these basement clubs, and the place was totally PACKED. I swear, it was seriously like they'd decided to put the dancefloor in the middle of a sauna. Everyone was soaked with sweat, and there was just steam and humidity everywhere. I found myself dancing with the Adorable Australian for a bit, dealing with the comments from men saying, "Uhhhh...you're wearing a mask" (oh, the joys of dealing with people who are drunker than I am!), and just trying to get a breather from the sweat-box.
After a while, I found myself chatting with Henry, a guy I know through the random crowd of friends I spend time with, and he asked me, "Do you smoke?" When I replied that I didn't, he said, "Neither do I. Want to go outside and pretend to smoke a cigarette?" I laughed and told him that sounded like an excellent idea.
So we went upstairs outside, and stood around with all of the smokers, which despite their cigarettes poisoning the air, was a welcome fresh air break from the sauna down below. We ended up in a conversation with some guy who had really had too much to drink, about Henry's stepmother, who is a lady-in-waiting to the Queen. More interesting to know what it was like to be a part of the Queen's household than anything else...
We finally reached almost the last dance (and they played Sinatra's "New York, New York" again, what's up with that?) when some guy spilled beer on me. Not like I wouldn't have needed to anyway, with all of that heat and sweaty people, but now I DEFINITELY need to get the dress dry cleaned, and I'm rather annoyed about that.
Finally somewhere around 3:30 AM, the club was closing, and everyone was lining up to get their jackets and get out of there. I'm just tired, hot, and sweaty, and so I want to get out of there, and make my way up the stairs onto the street. There's a bit of standing around while everyone figures out what to do next, and I'm waiting for Sophie and the Adorable Australian to come out of the club.
Some guy smoking a cigarette offers me a piece of gum, and starts complaining about having to carry his laptop around when he goes out on a Friday night... Then he surprises me by saying, "You're rather cute, you know." I thank him, but even then I'm surprised when he then just outright asks, "Do you want to kiss me?"
I kind of laugh and say no, making the excuse that he's just been smoking, and I don't kiss boys who smoke. In truth he's not bad looking, but I'm just thinking about what a disaster it would be for the Adorable Australian to come out of the club and see me kissing another guy. Still, it was only quick reflexes that saved me then (I guess I was distracted) when he asked, "Well aren't you curious to find out what it would be like to kiss me?" and went in for it. Luckily I danced away just in time.
Ummm...because seriously dude? "Rather" cute? Talk about damning with faint praise...my confidence is definitely being shaken this evening.
Finally I grow tired of waiting for the Adorable Australian to exit the club, and decide that I'm pissed off and tired of waiting. He has my number, he can call me if he wants to. And anyway, he smokes too.
So I walk away, grab a cab, and finally get home and into my bed as the sun is coming up around 5 AM. Definitely time for some sleep!
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