High Holy Mass of Contradictions

I've got one more party to attend this weekend, and if you count them all separately, it will have been 9 parties in 3 days.

But you can't really count them all separately: the first three were Official Company Party, Non-Official After-Party, and Very-Non-Official After-After-Party, so those were more like one 14-hour long party.

Yes, 14 hours. The official one began at noon at the Renaissance Hotel downtown. We were able to spend our two drink tickets right away. I somehow managed to be on the receiving end of a few extra tickets, so I was feeling pretty good by the time we moved the party to Cabana. Quite a few spouses and significant others joined the party at Cabana, and there were some memorable moments in cross-dressing, crotch grabbing, and confessional storytelling. And probably some moments that will be a little trickier to remember, depending on the amount of alcohol consumed.

We wrapped that party sometime around midnight, I think, and moved it over to our place, where we had salsa dancing lessons and soy cheese pizza. It was so crazy, one guy even took off his Bluetooth headset. Hey, if you're partying with us, you need nerves of steel.

After all that, I woke up super-early yesterday morning to pull a double shift of monitoring the new systems for work, and then went to a fun ladies' brunch at our neighbor's house complete with gossip and champagne.

Then it was off to the costume shop to get wigs for one of the parties last night, but the costume shop was closed! Shoot!

Back home to get showered and dressed for the Blogger Meat-Up at Mothership BBQ, which, let me just say, was the most fun party of the whole night. I mean it. These people are awesome. There were the folks I already knew: It's always fun to hang with John H, my rockin' cool neighbor from up the street; Chris Wage and Sam Davidson, both Metroblogging comrades; Kerry Woo, my Treo-advocate comrade; Brittney, who is not only a sister in vegan solidarity in the presence of all that meatiness (although I did sneak one of those yummy mini-eclairs), but who was also wearing shimmery silver so we had to stay on far sides of the restaurant from each other as much as possible to avoid overwhelming delicate sensibilities; the always-hilarious Aunt B; Kat Coble, who just plain rocks; and my girl Jag, who, despite her blog's name, is already brilliant not to mention adorable.

But then there were all the people I hadn't met before, but have been reading and enjoying for a while now: it was a dream finally meeting Sista Smiff in her bad-ass person; I met Bad Bad Ivy and I can say that I feel very strongly that, even though she is already married, and even though she is apparently John H's "blogger wife," she is also my wife in an alternate universe; case in point: we coined a new catch phrase for the Nashville blogging community: "Slart this!" and Slartibartfast proved his coolness by approving; Mack, who is super cool and whom I will definitely be reading closely from now on; CeeElCee is every bit as cool as I knew he would be, even if he does copy what the fabulous RUABelle wears; I went all weak-kneed meeting Sarcastro and didn't even get to do tequila shots with him; also missed out on doing tequila shots with Ginger, but I'm proud of her for representing women who can hold their liquor; met Dr. Funkenswine, who is my hero for not only being a gracious host, and charming and cute, but also for only cooking up pigs that died of old age and which were found in gutters and alleys; met the ultra-hip Rex L. Camino, and I told him I want to have storytime with him and his subgenius-looking pipe-smoking ways -- and I didn't even mean it as a euphemism for "sex" or anything; fawned over Rachel and her excellent resource (and I swear I didn't mean that as a euphemism for "ass" or anything like that); heard the grand entrance of B-Dub, another Metroblogger, who should forever be known as "Norm" for the enthusiastic welcome he got from the crowd; and I had the pleasure of meeting David Briley, grandson of the Briley for whom the parkway is named and himself a mayoral candidate, and who doesn't have a blog but should. I probably met at least a half dozen other people but it was all kind of a blur of semi-familiar faces and inside jokes I'd only ever seen in print.

It was really awesome and tough to tear myself away, but we had two neighborhood parties to get to. And as it happened, we only got to one of the two Germantown parties. It was pretty subdued and sophisticated, which was kind of amusing to me and Karsten after our last 36 hours. We made the rounds, had a few drinks, toured the historic house, chatted with some neighbors, and exchanged a few party invitations for a few weeks down the road, but then we said our goodbyes and headed off to the wig party.

I think my head was spinning at that point from partying in so many different surroundings and styles, or maybe it was the alcohol. Either way, I was feeling pretty mellow by then, but it was fun to sit back and watch the crowds. There were Marie Antoinette wigs, Marilyn Monroe wigs, go-go wigs, mullet wigs, afro wigs, clown wigs, and hats of every shape and size. Best part: our friend Denis showing up in an elaborate Carmen-Miranda-style headdress. He looked great, even if he didn't demonstrate any hip-swinging. I guess Jimmy Buffett was right: they really don't dance like Carmen no more.

Anyway, now that I've done my weekend recap, had my coffee, and relaxed a bit, I should go get ready for the next party this afternoon.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful mid-December weekend!