timeripple (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeripple) wrote2006-07-30 10:31 pm
timeripple) wrote2006-07-30 10:31 pm
"si libuerit respondere, dicam quod mihi in buccam venerit"
I have spent most of today doing laundry, cursing Cicero, sleeping, cursing Cicero some more, and being extremely relieved while reading Seneca. Hey, you try reading Cicero while suffering from severe sunburn and sleep deprivation, and see how easy it is, hmm?
Oh, did y’all want to hear about the toga party? Well, all right. It was pretty subdued, considering it was made up entirely of repressed academics and people who normally drink like saltwater fish. But I actually had a good time, which is completely weird for me. I guess one has more fun at these things if one actually likes the people there.
Friday, 10:00 am: The Final of Scary Latin Doom
My train of thought goes something like this: wtf, vocab. Extram creditum semper amabam! *more reading, some composition which was no doubt VERY interesting to read, especially with all the historic infinitives* I really need to come up with some new monkey stories; it’s always pirates, booty, pouring scorn on the Romans, and blowing up stuff. Not that there’s anything, you know, wrong with all that.
Afterwards, we huddle in the hall being very relieved and telling monkey stories. Then it is time to celebrate by going out to lunch, by which I mean wandering around to find hot dogs and (in my case) burritos. Tasty! Then it is time to pile into the car and go apud J. Maximus, party hostess extraordinaire. But first, we must get supplies.
Grocery Store Adventures
J. MAXIMUS: Do you think one case of beer will be enough? X, Y, and Z said they were bringing booze. And my dad left us 14 bottles of wine. Let’s get two cases! And food!
CHECKOUT LADY: You are planning to eat all that before you start drinking, aren’t you?
US: Certe! Well, some of it.
We make it apud (chez) J. Maximus in beautiful Marin, and promptly collapse on the porch to drink beer. I now know why all my Mediaeval Society comites (and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
edajaram, I think) professed a solemn dislike of beer. It is kind of tasteless. D. promptly claims the Amazing Swinging Hammock-Chair. A little later K. shows up on his motorcycle, and it is instantly a party. Despite the lack of togas as of yet. We get the tour and go through all J.’s stuff, and K. starts reading a dark Latin poem written by a Frenchman.
K: It’s not nearly as dark and sinister as some of his other stuff.
ME: I dunno, I quite liked the bit about the corpses.
Others gradually arrive, and we attempt to start the grill. Both K. and E1 claim to know how to use a barbeque, but apparently not all that well. Somebody breaks out the wine. I sip my beer and decide that even Coke is preferable. Accordingly, I switch to Coke and ginger ale for a few hours.
A few hours go by. I steal the Amazing Swinging Hammock-Chair and refuse to get out of it for quite some time. Some more people show up, we figure out the togas, a few people go around wearing bedsheets draped and pinned. K’s has little blue patterns on it, while D. looks like somebody who ought to be crucified for hanging out in the forum corrupting the young.
E2 (to the assembly re: togas, I think): Audax sum, b*tch.
The togas are discarded after about an hour; luckily nobody is striving for historical accuracy of any kind, although we do get to see several tattoos not normally visible. There follows a discussion of tattoos. More people come and go. T. arrives with mulled white wine and some kind wormwood concoction.
9:00 pm. A policeman shows up and asks us (very politely) to quiet down a little. He looks as though he knows it’s too early for noise complaints. We (very politely) agree to quiet down, and henceforth all conversation on the porch is held at a whisper. All sorts of crazy dancing continues inside, complete with capoeira moves.
A. and the bf arrive hard on the heels of the policeman, there are paparazzi pictures taken, and I relinquish the Amazing Swinging Hammock-Chair to greet them. We talk about LA for a while, and then C. takes it upon herself to introduce me to rum and coke, then some kind of red wine, and then goes into the kitchen to see what else there is. I cackle because I now have Minions Bringing Me Stuff. C. sends D. out with the wormwood concoction for my approval, which it receives (hesitantly). I drink a glass of it, slowly. Meanwhile, the company has been trying to persuade A. to dance. I’m not sure whether they succeeded for more than a few seconds, but at that point I doubt whether anybody cared. D. holds forth on Greek grammar. Everybody else rolls their eyes. One shirt is removed in the course of the dancing. It is replaced a little while later. Everybody is most sad that J. has not shown up. I reclaim the Amazing Swinging Hammock-Chair and smile faintly at everybody.
C.SANGUIS (to me): You’re awfully quiet.
ME: I know. Completely OOC.
C.SANGUIS: Oh snap!
There is salsa dancing. Eventually more people leave, and those who have made prior arrangements (aut ebriores sunt) go to sleep around 3 or so. I, being apparently still almost completely sober, am amused by various slightly drunk people’s attempts to get various very drunk people off the porch and into the house. Only a few things are broken in the process.
The next morning...
US (except for E2, who is miraculously still asleep): It is 8:30 in the morning. Why are we awake?
K: I have to get go soon; there’s a park opening in Oakland that I have to be at.
US: Who are you, the mayor? Ooh, bagels!
Actually, I quite like the idea of the mayor arriving at a park opening on a motorcycle. Kind of like that one production of Henry IV, Part 1 that I’m always telling M. about, the one where Hal gate-crashes a tavern party on a motorcycle. (Well, I’m not really sure it’s possible to gate-crash anything at a tavern. But anyway.)
C. SANGUIS appears in jammies and is too cute for words.
J. MAXIMUS: What do you guys want to do now? I don’t want to hang around until my mom gets back... *eyes the minor devastation of the living room*
T: Let’s go to the beach!
J. MAXIMUS: It’s supposed to be cloudy, and kind of cold...
US: Great! Let’s go!
We go to the beach. I almost die of delight. East Coast sand just isn’t that soft. It is wonderful. It is kind of cloudy and cold, but not very, and after a few hours of lying around eating beach food, we venture into the water. It is cold but nice. Later, C. SANGUIS and I go for a walk for no apparent reason.
ME: Look, volleyball! I hate playing volleyball. *we are both distracted by some of the enthusiastic athletes* But watching it is sometimes okay.
C.SANGUIS: (in agreement): Mmm, I wouldn’t even know what to do with all that goodness.
ME: *cracking up* Look, a dead sea lion! Oh, I REALLY needed this day of being a beach-walking non-Latin-translating person before I go back to being my normal... non-beach-walking Latin-translating self.
C.SANGUIS: Word. Ooh, I want a beach house.
ME: Me too. I want the one that looks like the Yosemite gift shop.
C.SANGUIS: Only not in the middle of the public beach. We’ll see if we can move it further down where there are no people. ‘Cause at a public beach, you never know what kind of scum might show up. You know, just pick it up and move it.
ME: Beach houses. Let me tell you about this TV show I used to call “Frankie & Annette for the New Century”. It was about some people who lived in a beach house, and there was surfing drama.
C.SANGUIS: Snap!
ME: *huffing while walking uphill through sand* Dude, now I know why people who hang out at the beach all the time are so skinny.
C.SANGUIS: Oh snap!
On the way home...
E3: Amazing! We’ve all been together for 33 hours straight and we still don’t hate each other!
In short, it was a lovely time.
Oh, did y’all want to hear about the toga party? Well, all right. It was pretty subdued, considering it was made up entirely of repressed academics and people who normally drink like saltwater fish. But I actually had a good time, which is completely weird for me. I guess one has more fun at these things if one actually likes the people there.
Friday, 10:00 am: The Final of Scary Latin Doom
My train of thought goes something like this: wtf, vocab. Extram creditum semper amabam! *more reading, some composition which was no doubt VERY interesting to read, especially with all the historic infinitives* I really need to come up with some new monkey stories; it’s always pirates, booty, pouring scorn on the Romans, and blowing up stuff. Not that there’s anything, you know, wrong with all that.
Afterwards, we huddle in the hall being very relieved and telling monkey stories. Then it is time to celebrate by going out to lunch, by which I mean wandering around to find hot dogs and (in my case) burritos. Tasty! Then it is time to pile into the car and go apud J. Maximus, party hostess extraordinaire. But first, we must get supplies.
Grocery Store Adventures
J. MAXIMUS: Do you think one case of beer will be enough? X, Y, and Z said they were bringing booze. And my dad left us 14 bottles of wine. Let’s get two cases! And food!
CHECKOUT LADY: You are planning to eat all that before you start drinking, aren’t you?
US: Certe! Well, some of it.
We make it apud (chez) J. Maximus in beautiful Marin, and promptly collapse on the porch to drink beer. I now know why all my Mediaeval Society comites (and
edajaram, I think) professed a solemn dislike of beer. It is kind of tasteless. D. promptly claims the Amazing Swinging Hammock-Chair. A little later K. shows up on his motorcycle, and it is instantly a party. Despite the lack of togas as of yet. We get the tour and go through all J.’s stuff, and K. starts reading a dark Latin poem written by a Frenchman.K: It’s not nearly as dark and sinister as some of his other stuff.
ME: I dunno, I quite liked the bit about the corpses.
Others gradually arrive, and we attempt to start the grill. Both K. and E1 claim to know how to use a barbeque, but apparently not all that well. Somebody breaks out the wine. I sip my beer and decide that even Coke is preferable. Accordingly, I switch to Coke and ginger ale for a few hours.
A few hours go by. I steal the Amazing Swinging Hammock-Chair and refuse to get out of it for quite some time. Some more people show up, we figure out the togas, a few people go around wearing bedsheets draped and pinned. K’s has little blue patterns on it, while D. looks like somebody who ought to be crucified for hanging out in the forum corrupting the young.
E2 (to the assembly re: togas, I think): Audax sum, b*tch.
The togas are discarded after about an hour; luckily nobody is striving for historical accuracy of any kind, although we do get to see several tattoos not normally visible. There follows a discussion of tattoos. More people come and go. T. arrives with mulled white wine and some kind wormwood concoction.
9:00 pm. A policeman shows up and asks us (very politely) to quiet down a little. He looks as though he knows it’s too early for noise complaints. We (very politely) agree to quiet down, and henceforth all conversation on the porch is held at a whisper. All sorts of crazy dancing continues inside, complete with capoeira moves.
A. and the bf arrive hard on the heels of the policeman, there are paparazzi pictures taken, and I relinquish the Amazing Swinging Hammock-Chair to greet them. We talk about LA for a while, and then C. takes it upon herself to introduce me to rum and coke, then some kind of red wine, and then goes into the kitchen to see what else there is. I cackle because I now have Minions Bringing Me Stuff. C. sends D. out with the wormwood concoction for my approval, which it receives (hesitantly). I drink a glass of it, slowly. Meanwhile, the company has been trying to persuade A. to dance. I’m not sure whether they succeeded for more than a few seconds, but at that point I doubt whether anybody cared. D. holds forth on Greek grammar. Everybody else rolls their eyes. One shirt is removed in the course of the dancing. It is replaced a little while later. Everybody is most sad that J. has not shown up. I reclaim the Amazing Swinging Hammock-Chair and smile faintly at everybody.
C.SANGUIS (to me): You’re awfully quiet.
ME: I know. Completely OOC.
C.SANGUIS: Oh snap!
There is salsa dancing. Eventually more people leave, and those who have made prior arrangements (aut ebriores sunt) go to sleep around 3 or so. I, being apparently still almost completely sober, am amused by various slightly drunk people’s attempts to get various very drunk people off the porch and into the house. Only a few things are broken in the process.
The next morning...
US (except for E2, who is miraculously still asleep): It is 8:30 in the morning. Why are we awake?
K: I have to get go soon; there’s a park opening in Oakland that I have to be at.
US: Who are you, the mayor? Ooh, bagels!
Actually, I quite like the idea of the mayor arriving at a park opening on a motorcycle. Kind of like that one production of Henry IV, Part 1 that I’m always telling M. about, the one where Hal gate-crashes a tavern party on a motorcycle. (Well, I’m not really sure it’s possible to gate-crash anything at a tavern. But anyway.)
C. SANGUIS appears in jammies and is too cute for words.
J. MAXIMUS: What do you guys want to do now? I don’t want to hang around until my mom gets back... *eyes the minor devastation of the living room*
T: Let’s go to the beach!
J. MAXIMUS: It’s supposed to be cloudy, and kind of cold...
US: Great! Let’s go!
We go to the beach. I almost die of delight. East Coast sand just isn’t that soft. It is wonderful. It is kind of cloudy and cold, but not very, and after a few hours of lying around eating beach food, we venture into the water. It is cold but nice. Later, C. SANGUIS and I go for a walk for no apparent reason.
ME: Look, volleyball! I hate playing volleyball. *we are both distracted by some of the enthusiastic athletes* But watching it is sometimes okay.
C.SANGUIS: (in agreement): Mmm, I wouldn’t even know what to do with all that goodness.
ME: *cracking up* Look, a dead sea lion! Oh, I REALLY needed this day of being a beach-walking non-Latin-translating person before I go back to being my normal... non-beach-walking Latin-translating self.
C.SANGUIS: Word. Ooh, I want a beach house.
ME: Me too. I want the one that looks like the Yosemite gift shop.
C.SANGUIS: Only not in the middle of the public beach. We’ll see if we can move it further down where there are no people. ‘Cause at a public beach, you never know what kind of scum might show up. You know, just pick it up and move it.
ME: Beach houses. Let me tell you about this TV show I used to call “Frankie & Annette for the New Century”. It was about some people who lived in a beach house, and there was surfing drama.
C.SANGUIS: Snap!
ME: *huffing while walking uphill through sand* Dude, now I know why people who hang out at the beach all the time are so skinny.
C.SANGUIS: Oh snap!
On the way home...
E3: Amazing! We’ve all been together for 33 hours straight and we still don’t hate each other!
In short, it was a lovely time.