December 19th, 2002. Thursday
The company Christmas party was last night, at the swanky W Hotel north of Union Square. There was a lot of food, but not enough seating. But the unlimited amounts of food, particularly the sushi, was quite pleasant. I felt sorry for the sushi guy, who had to make hundred of pieces of sushi very quickly and on the fly. It must have been exhausting. I stayed till around 9, only because I wanted dessert. I do like to eat. The evening started off well, with a whiskey and ginger ale, followed by a few hors d'oeuvres. After eating a giant scallop wrapped in bacon, I declared the evening a success. This was ten minutes after arriving. And while nothing could spoil the evening after a whiskey and ginger and a bacon-wrapped scallop, it was decidedly downhill from there. After going to get food at the buffet line, I found my seat taken by this annoying asian women in tight leather pants. Then, as Jimmy and I were looking for seats, she had the audacity to tell us that the other seats at her table (which was first our table) were saved for other people. So it made the eating of the food rather unpleasant, which was unfortunate, since I was looking forward to chowing down on the assorted lunch meats I had snagged, particularly a huge pile of prosciutto.
Anyway, dessert was a disappointing assortment of cookies, and little fruit thingies. I was hoping for some sort of decadent cake and/or pies, given our swanky surroundings and the precedent set by the various main courses. Though the peanut butter cookies were large and moist at the center and crunchy around the edges, just how I like them. And the coffee was pretty good, tasting like expensive hotel coffee. So then I got out of there as quickly as I could. All evening I couldn't help thinking that there's something very unsettling about seeing your coworkers dance. I didn't like it. I felt absolutely no desire to socialize with anybody there, and by extension I felt weird watching them be social. I just see most of the people as up-tight office type people, and not surprisingly, that's how many of them dance. Which is actually better than watching the ones who really cut loose. The higher up the people, the weirder it is to see them shakin' it out on the dance floor. Especially when they request songs like "Old Time Rock N' Roll."
Anyway, the whole evening got me thinking about last year's company christmas party, which itself brought on all sorts of other reflections. First and foremost, I couldn't believe I've been at this job long enough to attend two company christmas parties. But then I thought about all the changes that have occurred in the past year. A year ago, I was seeing that Connie girl. And I had spikier hair. And James had a beard. And I had just started to be sort of fascinated by my upstairs neighbor. Now, I'm living by myself in a new neighborhood, experimenting with terrible facial hair, James has no beard, and I'm dating the girl who used to be my upstairs neighbor and now lives across the street. Also, my interaction with my group of friends, as well as the makeup of that group, has changed significantly, in ways I wouldn't have predicted. About the only thing that's the same is my job I guess.So after that, I made my way home, buzzed and bloated, had some OJ, and watched teevee. I watched more of "Glory" than I meant too. I hadn't seen the beginning of that movie in a long time, and it's one of my all-time favorite movies. Everything from the story to the acting to the score was great. The last scene always gives me goosebumps. Also, in movies with large casts such as this one, I like to try to think of other movies where two or more of the cast members appeared. So far the only one I'm coming up with is "Kiss the Girls," which starred Morgan Freeman and Cary Elwes. I've probably spent too much time thinking about this.
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