Taking a break from the design of the new site. Yes, my final project for class is due this Thursday. And yes, I took off yesterday to play pseudo-hostess at Jamie’s party.
Actually, this isn’t quite accurate. I spent the entire morning wresting with the html and framesets and with attempting to make .ai files open in either my powerbook or my pc without actually having Illustrator installed on either computer. Then, at about 1pm, I began getting text messages summoning me and headed out around 2.
Let me preface this by saying I actually had a lovely, chill weekend for someone with two major school projects due in the next two weeks. On Thursday, I skipped my writing class to attend a Markup & Style Society meeting, and it was a blast (required. work-related. professional networking). The beer was free and of exceedingly high quality, I got to meet and chat with some amazing people who were doing incredible things in emerging parts of the web, and I may have introduced at least one person to his next employer. I made some friends I definitely want to see more of, but I still need to email the folks I got cards from.
Friday night I returned to my old almost-stomping grounds, driving up with Jamie and our friend Lauren, genuine rockstar and a very talented designer, to Manchester, NH, where Jamie was performing as a featured poet at the Bridge Cafe. About 70% of my reason for traveling up was to visit with Emily’s friend M, who is a PR guru, and who I haven’t had a chance to see since last summer. Unfortunately, she didn’t make it out to the venue that night, but I had a great time; it was incredibly encouraging seeing a poetry scene coalescing in a state that for me for so long was the antithesis of everything creative and artistic that I aspired towards: something beautiful growing someplace I thought needed to be escaped from.
Then Saturday, the party. More accurately, the fundraiser, as the reason for the day was to take contributions for Jamie’s touring and teaching work: funding fell through for the Saints and Sinners conference he will be speaking at and attending in New Orleans next weekend. He needs help covering plane fare and a place to sleep, although he was excited to discover, through a website supposedly called couchsurfing.com, opportunities to put his summers of landscaping work to good use, to rebuild hurricane-damaged gardens in Louisiana. The money will also go toward supporting a lot of the amazing volunteer outreach work he does in homeless shelters, working with teenagers in recovery from drug and sexual abuse, teaching them to use their words and to stand up for themselves.
I actually spent a good amount of my time at the party, and pre-party, doing dishes, mostly while Alicia was preparing the food, later for a while during the press of the party when many glasses had been filled and emptied. During the prep-time and all evening, Alicia thanked me, and my reply was “I’m Margie Bower’s daughter; this is what I do. It’s not as though I have a choice.” I was raised in her kitchen, and raised right. Not that a woman’s place is in a kitchen: I’m a very serious feminist who simply happens to know her way around one very well. To Regie Gibson, later in the night, when he caught me rinsing silverware and cups, I said, “I was raised my my mom; this is auto-pilot.” He grinned, said, “Me too, me too.” Regie was raised in his mother’s beauty salon; if you know Regie or his work, this makes so much sense in context of him.
Jme made me play MC as part of my hostessing duties, which meant being at the mike, introducing immensely talented performers I love and respect: Caroline Harvey , onetime Def Poetry Jam poster-girl and all-around beautiful human being; Ryan Lee Crosby, scary-talented singer/songwriter; and the boy himself, who praised me onstage as the biggest fan of his Dionysus project. This may well be true: I believe it’s the greatest thing he has ever written (and I mean that in an It Is An Instant Great and Enduring Work Of Literature way).
I’m fairly certain that the amount spent on throwing the day’s event exceeded the amount it raised, but it was a successful day regardless. Jamie’s backyard made an ideal performance space: there was a full sound system courtesy of the musicians in attendance; his DJ roommate played sound engineer, the porch served as backstage, the patio as stage, and the lawn as stadium seating. The weather was perfect, even if it grew chilly enough that the residents were loaning out wardrobes worth of jackets and sweaters to their guests. The night was beautiful, and the performances were intense and intimate and amazing.
