Fat Tuesday

By the Power of Grayskull, I do solemnly swear to someday celebrate Mardi Gras in a city where it actually matters.

My Nowhere, Midwest town had little to offer by way of Carnival activity. I did have the semi-pleasure of attending a Masquerade party on Saturday. Ms. M. and I spent a few HOURS carefully choosing materials for our masks and then creating them in a frenzy of hot-glue. Then we spent at least 5 minutes randomly throwing glitter and sequins on a mask for my husband. This caused the three of us to arrive a fashionable two hours late. By then nearly all the masqueraders had given up their masks in their drunken stupor. The one highlight of the evening was the Dance Party USA portion, where two fabulously entertaining grad boys invented such moves as the "Sowing the Seeds" and "Milking the Cow." I helped them choreograph it into a glorious pastoral narrative cycle, which they followed with a cycle entitled "The Book: From the Page to the Public." Barring that, all I gained was the knowledge that my husband will leave without saying goodbye if he is sufficiently bored, and that I should never accept more than one martini made by Regina.

Tonight was attempt #2 at Mardi Gras fun. A Graduate Student Union/Law School party. Yeah, I know the name bodes well for amusement. Ms. M. and I may have gone simply in hopes of heckling law students. Once again, we arrived two hours late - as even on Tuesday a good party shouldn't start til 11. We figured to get our groove on, since it was at the local dance club. Right. There were lots of nerdy guys hanging around, bartenders that actually measured the drinks, and three chafing dishes of undistinguishable food items. The dancing didn't begin for at least an hour - you can always trust it to be a drunk girl to go first - and just started to pick up at our two hour mark. This is when the DJ must have fallen and given himself a concussion, because he played a crap song followed by a completely unintelligible, undanceable string of song introductions. Literally, he could not hold a beat for more than 5 seconds. Our guess is that a free, nerdy student party on Tuesday (even if it is MARDI GRAS) doesn't deserve the attention of the REAL DJ. Musta been a rookie. In desperate hopes to get our groove on for once and for all, Ms. M. and I waited. And waited. At least 30 minutes for a danceable song. We actually decided we would prefer to be at home studying or sleeping. That is the sadness that was my Mardi Gras night.

So now it's 1:30, and I'm celebrating in the dark, on my blog, with some red wine and a Chicken Chow Mein Lean Cuisine. Dumbledore help me, next year's Mardi Gras better be something spectacular. At least I get a taste of the Carnivalesque for Spring Break, when we go to Nawlins. Who knows, the way I'm so tragically non-motivated for school, maybe I'll just stay down there until next Fat Tuesday.