Still recovering...

So two of my coworkers whose birthdays are in late December had an "Evil Twin" birthday party where you come as your own bad self - with a full costume, a prop, or just an attitude.

I don't like to go to parties, in general.
Especially ones where there's the potential that people will really be, you know, partying.

But an excuse to dress in a costume and go to an event as a character is a whole other story. Must be a carryover from the Science Fiction Convention Days. I must be somehow pining for the evenings when I would be applying nail polish in a panic while sewing up the last few stitches and looking for my other suede boot.

My choices, as I saw it, were some kind of dominatrix librarian, or a tragic poet, or (what I landed on), something rather Goth.

As in: fishnets, 4" vinyl black heels, a black velvet skirt, and a black corset. I also dyed my hair black, put on black nail polish and jewelry that consisted of black beads and crosses, and I added a length of long black hair (as an extension). Add the makeup, and I had the desired look. I have to wait for Monday's blackmail photos to make it to me so I can post one here.

I had a lot of fun at the party. There was wonderful live music and singing, and I had great conversations with folks and surprised one or two people with my costume. D had agreed to come with me (in no costume, since he is his own evil twin), so I could have a drink if I chose to.

I did choose to. I had a couple of vodka and cranberries.

I've learned some interesting things about alcohol:

1. It is unwise to make a vodka and cranberry with 4 ounces of vodka and a splash of cranberry juice for color.

2. It is equally unwise to drink said drinks on an empty stomach.

3. Within an hour

4. One is not given warnings when one has had too much. I didn't know this was true. I honestly didn't know, having never (I SWEAR) gone to a party where I had more than one small drink, that one can go from feeling really really great (if a little unsteady and blurry around the edges) to wishing one could just die, because six feet underground would be a better place to be.

I won't go into details (unless you pay me or need me to scare your pre-teen child), but suffice it to say we left the party none to soon, and I owe my husband a debt I hope I'm never in a position to have to repay, and I won't be drinking alcohol for a very long time. Say thirty or forty years.

I realize that this particular lesson is one that most people learn, if they must learn it at all, when they are in High School or college. How I got to be nearly forty before I learned it is just the result of having underdeveloped social skills, I guess. But if this is a new level of party-going sophistication, I'm going back to my asocial ways. And I DO NOT understand how people can drink to excess, experience anything near what I experienced, and do it again. But I know they do.

I distinctly remember thinking that childbirth, my benchmark of emotionally and physically challenging experiences, was a friggin' cake walk next to my post-party night. I mean, really. A cake walk.

Tell me: has this kind of thing ever happened to you? If it hasn't yet, take my advice: ignorance is bliss.