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“Would the character I would have developed from the sloppy abandon of beer pong been worth the cat hairs I’d consume in the process?”
I am the kind of 33 year old who is sitting in bed on a Wednesday at 9:48 a.m. scribbling in her journal. Heating pad on high. Well-intentioned water glass untouched. The page lists my accomplishments of the day prior in Sharpie® pen. There are at least five of them, but still I am critical.
Also I am tired, poorly rested. I’m not the only one in this household with an anxiety problem. Although my orange and white cat Holden looks peaceful in his circle-shaped sleep, I sense his vibrations are out of wack. This was also made evident by his behavior throughout the night, which included sprinting madly across the length of the apartment and back, pulling at active electrical chords, and slamming around objects light enough for him to shove.
The boy doesn’t like change, and with Jake out of town this week Holden is on edge. I try to be empathetic to his nerves, but they cost me my rest. I pet his soft fir with a familiar mix of irritation and adoration.
Lucky for us, I’m meeting a pet medium this week. An editor asked if I’d be down to write a story on pet communicators. Next thing I know I’m emailing people with very normal names, and an understated clairvoyant responds within minutes.
I’m adding the pending interview to my list of yesterday’s accomplishments when my phone buzzes. It’s a text from a friend, whom I had just prompted to remind me of what I love or hate. In other words, what I should write about. I look down at a photo of my hands, nails painted but not manicured, holding an open lip balm that has melted and recongealed sideways in the tin.
She was right to capture this moment last year. This iPhone picture tells you just the kind of 33 (then 32) year old I am. Busy enough to forget a lip balm in a hot car, stubborn enough to get it open after it stuck together, and practical enough to keep using it even though it looks sort of funny.
The pink balm and the urge to maintain it link thematically in my mind to another moment in which I declared myself, amusedly, as a certain type of girl.
It was March 2022, and I was in Detroit with my friend Sunny. We were going to see Jacqueline Novak perform her show “Get On Your Knees,” and had rented an AirBnb in Midtown near the venue. It was a cozy little apartment, decorated with what I ascertain to be a currently trending faux cowhide rug. I sat on the rug and returned a call to my mom, who claimed that people once called Detroit “Murder City.”
Sunny and I set out for an afternoon stroll through the streets of Murder City, and stopped in a store selling $65 candles and gold-plated gardening spades. We found Midtown to be perfectly walkable for those looking for craft beer and tapas, so we pursued the latter for dinner.
There was a two-top destined for us in the center of the otherwise full dining room. The host walked us over and returned to his stand.
No sooner was my coat off than I was scanning the room for an outlet to charge my phone. I fluttered over to a plug near the door, passing by couples, their wine glasses, and their newish phone models that didn’t need charging every 30 minutes.
The host, handsome and gay, watched me plug in my phone, and promised to tackle someone if they tried to take it. I laughed awkwardly and returned to my table.
I was just about to settle in with the menu when there he was again, the host, standing above us. I just wanted to charge my phone so I’d have a camera on hand when I met (and hopefully charmed) my favorite comedian. But in this action, the host must have seen something of himself. His return to our table told me that he, too, was the kind of 30-something passionate enough to choose a bohemian lifestyle, and therefore poor enough to have an old phone, but free enough to make it work.
Bonded by my relatable actions, the host moved on to the next natural step in our relationship: fashion commentary.
Grabbing the water pitcher for context, he pointed his free hand at my borderline-gaudy handbag. It’s part shiny (p)leather, part corduroy, in a color palette reminiscent of a 1970s playroom. When my mom sweetly scored this Marc Jacobs bag on eBay as a gift for me in high school, its design made me cringe but its tag made me swoon. I kept it, and now I like it, and so did the host.
“Is that the current season?” he asked, topping off our waters.
“No, it’s vintage,” I said, batting my eyelashes mercilessly.
“It’s great to have pieces like that in your collection,” he said.
“Absolutely,” I said as I scanned the menu for the cheapest rosé. I’m the kind of 33 year old who likes to play fancy.
I played it too fancy in college, and thus never made it to a proper college party. Without a party phase, I never learned drinking games. I consider this a loss. Who knows how much more balanced my personality would be today had I spent time in frat house living rooms. But when I picture a drinking game I see a ping pong ball in a dirty cup of beer. The stray hairs and pieces of debris gather like algae in a static circle around the gently bobbing ball. Would the character I would have developed from the sloppy abandon of beer pong been worth the cat hairs I’d consume in the process?
Fate would seem to think so. Because one December night there I was, all dressed up and toting my Marc Jacobs bag with a melted lip balm inside, on my way to a party just blocks away. I’m the kind of 33 year old who’s more likely to go to a party if I can walk there.
It was the perfect sort of party—one with a chili bar and a good social ratio. I anticipated knowing one person for every three, which meant I’d feel secure yet free. The social structure would feel loose enough for me that there’d be no overwhelming expectations about mood and behavior. This is the best set up for dabbling in extroversion.
Inside the sliding glass doors of a sleek, freshly renovated house, I stood around a kitchen with strangers and friends. Tecates were flowing and the chili toppings were aplenty.
The night could have ended there, satisfactorily, and for some it did. That would be the sort of tame party I’m used to, the sort of mellow and nourishing gathering that forms among vicenarians with accountants.
But my Christmas angels had other plans for me on this night. Once everyone had had their fill of chili, the group began to split between the kitchen and the garage. I ignored that option at first, staying contentedly at the broad kitchen counter with my close friend and two of her confidants.
Then two of them insisted that we join the rest of the small party in the garage. My mental picture of garage hospitality belonged in the same I Spy page as the swampy solo cups of beer pong. I should have known better in this chic house. This garage was more like a studio, heated to the house’s temperature, so neat it felt poised to cosplay as a gallery space. On one side of the garage was the nicest ping pong table I’ve ever seen. In the center of the table there was a splay of clean solo cups, which were being adjusted and lorded over by a doctor off the clock.
It happened in a flash, the way all of life’s most important landmarks are over before you even know what’s happening. First I was hearing the rules without comprehending any of it, and then I was urgently bouncing a ping pong ball into a stack of cups.
The game—called slam or bonk or something—was spearheaded by the doctor, who I had otherwise only seen studying for med school in coffee shops or nodding a polite hello on a neighborhood walk. Now the sleeves of his button-down were rolled up to the elbow, his hair was a touch tousled, and his eyes were sparkling with mischief. As captain of the drinking game, he was clear-headed, quick-witted, and enthusiastically bossy. I had no trouble imagining these traits serving him on the clock.
After a sloppy round of slam-bonk, we moved on to a game so iconic even I had heard its name: flip cup. A premise so simple that it makes team building easy. I can see why people use this game to fraternize with the campus family. It’s just a sip and a flip, and I found myself to be extremely adept to the flip portion in particular. The game combines an urgent energy with a simple, mindless, and satisfying motor skill. It’s a marriage soaked in alcohol—canned tequila seltzers, in our case. I felt drawn to it the way I felt drawn to hand clapping games in grade school.
We played many rounds of flip cup, diligently wiping up our post-flip drips with blue microfiber paper towels. I would have kept playing if I didn’t have to run off to a midnight gig.
While I said my goodbyes, a nice man brought in his plate of homemade truffles and set them on the ping pong table. I think about the contrast of sweet treats and party booze often, usually when I’m at shows wishing a bartender would offer me a complimentary ice cream cone rather than a free PBR. A plate of truffles in the middle of a flip cup game is so earnest, like someone’s mom picking you up from a rager and handing you a bag of Cheetos on the ride home.
“Take as many as you want,” the truffle man said to the room.
Since I’m the kind of 33 year old who comes empty handed and leaves with someone else’s truffles, I wrapped four into a napkin, and shamelessly tucked them into my gaudy corduroy handbag before exiting through the sliding glass doors. I ate every one of them on the way to the gig, which kept me out late like a real life partier.