holiday party

i went because it couldn't have been worse than last year's party. and it was. so i went, i ate, i talked nonsense, wanted to say hi to some authorities but ended up nodding awkwardly and not being acknowledged (what's wrong with me i work with these people everyday and i can't interrupt their mafiadom to say hi!), introduced N to the crowd, ate some more, drank bland wine, and did my best to look like i was one of them. standing was the problem. walking even more of a problem. standing without a drink at one of these things is like those nightmares when you run to school naked and you know you're naked in the dream but you still run for some godforsaken masochistic reason. i grabbed the wine and cradled it with both hands and sipped at regular short intervals and switched my weight from one leg to the other to convey confidence and nonchalance and a blase attitude. but it kept eating at me that nobody from the higher ranks bothered with me. such apartheidist authorities i swear..and i talked to the secretaries the dieticians the fellows the transcriptionists the japanese Jacques Cluso researcher and the wives of the apartheidists, and still there was a wall. i stole glances at them standing in a circle of power like the free masons guffawing loudly and they had eyes only for each other. i teetered on my Eiffel Tower shoes as i walked past them to the buffet and prayed i wouldn't fall. i thought about infiltrating their circle and saying something like 'hi i'm so happy we're ALL here and i really enjoy talking to you when you talk to me' but then i couldn't make up my mind about which crack in the circle i was to breach. and since i didn't want to be the groupie with the marauding heels i decided to shovel it all into my subconscious knowing it would resurface at a later time like most things do. so i sat with the commoners like me and we talked about the hospital and the hospital and money and more money and N was probably in his own world and i tried hard not to ignore the chinese girl on my left but i couldn't help it she doesn't talk she just speaks but she is sooooo nice (like really really nice, the kind that doesn't exist anymore) and i felt guilty because i told her to show up and now i couldn't talk to her. she was wearing an oscar dress, so clearly she put colossal whopping effort into coming, and i told her the dress was beautiful which assuaged my own guilt. the table of Authority was brimming with laughter and congeniality and jolli-ness while i picked on the fat of the roast beef to find some roast beef and not roast fat. and then they suddenly disapparated like a bunch of wizards, just like they do after conference. why did it bother me? it's like being in highschool and wanting to be one of the cool kids. did i not get over that a long time ago? clearly not. so i squared my shoulders and we left shortly after, and propped my chin up in haughty arrogance and walked out unflinchingly on the eiffel shoes into the cold. then i realized how ridiculous i had been and that they're all just old, miserable black holes of fun. like this freakishly cold abyss of a night outside.
ahem. not really. they're funny actually. quick-witted smart ha-ha funny. but they don't consort with the help...oh well. we all have wounds......