Saturday, December 6, 2003
Brunch with Lee at Tangerine. Lee had the Fisherman's omelet, I had the house eggs (scrambled), Patrick had latkes with bacon. It was our first time meeting up with Lee after we had met him at Bill and Kevin's party several months ago. Lunch was very pleasant, and afterwards I bought a gift exchange gift for an upcoming office party and we shopped for used clothes at Crossroads. I took a nap while Patrick worked on his costume for tonight and did some more revisions on Second Island. After I woke, I helped Patrick make a muscle t-shirt for his costume: he found an image of the Dio album cover Killing the Dragon, which we put onto inkjet iron-on transfer paper then onto a plain t-shirt. He also applied a temporary tattoo which I had bought many years ago at Pink Zone on Broadway in Seattle but never had used: a dragon with a pink triangle. The party started at 8:30 PM, and we arrived at about 9. There were so many people. The hosts were Jamie, Iku, and Mark. Scott, Aaron's housemate and a bartender from Detour, worked the bar. In attendance were: Aaron, Joanne, Pauline, Brock, Tara, Kevin, two of Tara's friends whose names I missed, Seth, Kale, Mark, Enrique, Vince, Chloe, Nicole, Demetrius, Otto, Tristan and his boyfriend, Randy, Kai, Joseph, Delcy, and others I didn't meet. (Alina was in L.A.) As usual at Jamie's parties, there was a wide variety of delicious cheeses, crackers, appetizers, cookies, cupcakes, and more. I especially remember the toothpicks with scallops with proscuitto—delicious! Several people I presume he had hired were helping replenish the various food tables and work the kitchen and coat check. The variety of masks amazed me. Chloe bought hers from eBay—it was made of a gold-plated metal with shiny jewels arranged in lines to create the shapes of diamonds. The inside of it had an intricate, patterned etching. It was easily the most artfully hand-crafted mask at the party. She says it is from a line of masks that are one-of-a-kind—only one mask of its kind is made each year and is consequently very expensive. Hers was the mask from year 2000. Joanne's deco-inspired mask was all black with tall plume feathers clustered at the top reaching up from her right side and ornate cords decorating the mask. She completed the outfit with a sleek, open-back dress with a diamond-shaped diamond brooch at the small of her back. Very elegant and stylish. Kale's mask was made from two small colanders slightly bent at the handles and affixed together. The metal strainers became the eye coverings, and two fun-colored rubbery-looking pipettes came up from the center to create antennae. Jamie's was a harlequin's mask with jingle bells hanging high from 3 bright-colored peaks. A specially made fine harlequin's coat completed his outfit. Aaron's mask was that of an orc a la Lord of the Rings—scary! He wore a powder blue tuxedo shirt, black dress pants, and his outfit included an impressive gold-handled dagger with encrusted jewels and an intentionally dulled real-metal, silver-colored blade. Nicole came as a fairy godmother complete with a magic wand granting everyone's holiday wishes. There were so many other masks. One was of the Tweety bird cartoon character. Another was shaped of autumn leaves—one of my favorites because I like leaves. My costume was my camouflage French army pants and a Tom of Finland button-down camo army shirt and black boots. My mask was of velvet green and gold leopard print fabric which we found at Cliff's. Patrick's outfit was black vinyl pants, the Dio t-shirt which we made earlier, his silver neckace, and an almost-shoulder-length dusty blond wig. His mask was covered in the same fabric as mine but he added a border of gold tapestry cord, with two ornate buttons on each side to hold the gold elastic cord, and gold and beige skeleton leaves fanning the top and sides and curlicues extending from the bottom at the cheeks. He also used black and gold pens to create a positive-negative transition vertically across the mask. It starts out at the top as green background and gold leopard spots and by the time we reach the bottom it's switched to gold and green spots on a black background. Otto, an audio aficianado, answered all my questions about things related to sound and music. We talked about Stax, Cambridge Soundworks, Advent, Dolby Labs. Joanne and I talked about the party invitation, which she created. Vince and I talked about Irvine and dirt roads and the lack of sidewalks. Tara and I talked about Delcy. Randy and I talked about a woman at the party we didn't know who resembled Cybill Shepherd. Kai and I talked briefly about his writing. Mark and I talked about the company he works for called Archetype Solutions which helps clothes vendors create custom-made clothing ordered over the Web. Patrick and I had so much fun we didn't realize the time when we finally were tired enough to leave. It was 1:30 AM, and Muni had closed, so we took a taxi home.