a mid-week party

I’m not a party person, never have been.  I much prefer small groups.  But for the past few years I have been invited to an annual BEAT THE WINTER BLUES PARTY, hosted by a Horace Mann couple.  I don’t know these people well, but do like them, and think it’s nice they include me each year.  But because I’m not a party person, all day I think, “I’d so rather be home doing nothing.”

I vary from my usual black skirt, cashmere sweater combo, and instead wear black pants and a white cotton blouse I bought this summer at Maxwell’s but have never worn.  I look good from the neck down.  My hair looks flat and stringy.  I need a haircut.

The invitation says, Open House, 6 to 10.  I show up around 7, thinking it’ll not be too full.  As I am walking to the apartment, I see someone I was hoping to see, but she is already leaving.  Maybe I should have come earlier.  I arrive and the place is packed.  I get a glass of red wine and do as my mom would say, “Just mingle.” I talk to people I don’t know, as well as some I do.  I meet a woman who has been a vegetarian since 4^th grade and freaks out when the mini dumpling she just ate is not vegetarian as the server had said it was.  I talk to a woman who, in her mid- 50’s, has gone back to school to get her Master's Degree so she can teach English as a second language.  And I eat some amazing guacamole.

I’m happy I didn’t listen to myself.