Recipe for a perfect Saturday Night
- Holiday party in a neighborhood (Rogers Park) you don’t frequent and that’s a bit out of the normal radius which makes you feel adventurous and that you’re really going somewhere tonight
- Warm enough weather that your sweater and infinity scarf is enough and you can go coat-less
- Comfy party pants
- Pick up pine-infused hostess flowers on the way to the party that make the car smell heavenly
- Drive through houses with lit-up windows that allow you to be the Peeping Tom you secretly are and tree-twinkling white lights lining Sheridan Road
- Parking spot on a street with no parking spots
- Reconnection with your first “new friend” you made when moving back to Chicago post-college fifteen years ago, whom you met training for your first marathon, so will always hold a special place in your heart; a spandex-clad, sweaty, 7AM Saturday morning long run place
- With twenty or so guests, conversational tones instead of yelling to be heard, and being able to move freely instead of being sardined
- An adult home with cheese knives and a lack of red solo cups
- Hold and play with a cute baby who thinks you are hilarious and keeps grabbing your boobs
- Give a crying baby back to its parents and stay in the other room for the rest of the night so glad that baby’s not yours
- Park it on a couch for the rest of the party and quality conversations with one, two, a few, chatting travel and home purchases and Fear Experiment and Best Friend’s Workplace Improv and Idea Potluck and Minglers, with others asking question after question so that you spend a chunk of time “selling” your business without ever selling your business
- A Southern gay guy, thick with drawl, makes you cosmos and keeps you topped off
- A two year old goes to town on the iced gingerbread cookies you brought
- Watch people decorate the beautiful tree, with ornaments and classic white lights (the only way to decorate a tree)
- Eventually the entire party around your couch, driving Fear Experiment and Workplace Improv chatter — “Tell my husband about improv and why it’ll help me in my career.” “Where do I find out more info?” “Alex, you have to hear this!”
- Fascinated party-goers when you explain that Best Friend went to one party and you came to this one, and that no, you probably won’t meet up later
- Because the party started at 5pm, your 8pm exit to head to another party is not rude and doesn’t make you feel like you just put in an appearance
- Second holiday party in a neighborhood about a 25 minute drive from first holiday party takes you past Ethiopian restaurants, stores with ducks hanging in the windows, a gorgeous community center for LGBT persons, the theater that houses Blue Man Group, men on the sidewalk in dark-rimmed glasses and rolled jeans
- Horrible spill-over traffic from Zoo Lights results in driving around in stop and start cars searching for parking
- Pretend to be upset at the thought of not being able to make party two, shrug and say “I tried”
- Happily head home at 8:45pm
- Ten piece chicken McNugget and sweet and sour sauce from the drive-through
- Return to utopia (Roscoe Village) where the streets are quiet and empty
- Pajama shorts and the softest Cubs tshirt
- Spritzes of just-arrived Cowshed’s Knackered Cow lavender-scented room fragrance
- A Best Friend’less home where you can eat your McNuggets without shame or him knowing you fell off the Health Wagon you’re on together
- A Best Friend’less home where you can watch Next Step Realty without him knowing you watch the trashiest TV show in the history of TV
- Get into clean sheets at 10:05pm, read a book about writing a book on your kindle while WBEZ plays on your Sonos and the humidifier hums peacefully
An ask: can all parties start at 5pm?