Hair. Costume. Failure.

I’ve been a very, very terrible person. I haven’t updated in at least two weeks. I’m sure I’ll find my place in Inferno along with all the rest of the very, very terrible people in history. But for now, I’ll continue where I left off…

I’m no big fan of staying out late (that’s staying out, not staying up). Nor am I a fan of big, drunken parties. “A party is a party,” creepy Mr. Elton once said, but a Halloween party: there’s something to look forward to. Don’t mind the Jane Austen reference. Let’s move along now, shall we?

Last Tuesday was the AUP Halloween party at Les Planches, and I planned to go as a 1960’s secretary, à la Mad Men. I’d been listening to the soundtrack a lot (a lot, a lot), and felt inspired. I had the shoes, the dress, the makeup (mostly), everything but the hair. I thought I could do that myself. How hard could a beehive be, I thought. Turns out, really, terribly hard.

After several dozen trials, and a lot of backcombing, I finally got the look I was going for. I threw in a few extra hairpins just to be safe, drowned myself in hairspray, and left. I felt a little strange on the metro – very anachronistic, and a bit stiff. I couldn’t move much. I was afraid of ruining my do after so much work. No matter how careful I was on the metro, though, that didn’t stop my beehive from becoming a mess. I wasn’t two minutes into the party when mutiny struck. Oh well. At least there were drinks.

It was very obvious that, for some people, their partying had started much earlier that night. I was surprised some of the girls there could walk in their ten-inch heels while so intoxicated. Years of practice, I guess. I on the other hand, stuck with my one free drink because a) it was free, and b) I can barely walk in heels sober. Zazu +tipsy + heels = nothing but disaster.

The club itself was interesting. Set up in a circle, with tables and booths fanning out around a small dance floor, it had a very party-friendly atmosphere. The lights were all a dark red, and with the dark red upholstery, it was easy to think of it as being hell (or the interior of someone’s left ventricle).

I was a little more disappointed in the costumes. The girls were mostly Slutty (Insert character/profession here)s, and the guys had very confused costumes. I guess I shouldn’t have expected much more from college students. Although, there were a few interesting getups. A couple of girls from my Firstbridge dressed as (a very convincing) Andy Warhol and his muse. One girl was Marilyn Monroe, and pulled it off quite well. One of the more interesting costumes was a guy in a banana suit with bling and a pitchfork. Go figure on that one. I saw one girl dressed as Lilu (I’m not really sure how it’s spelled), from The Fifth Element. There were the requisite devils and angels, and at least one Jack Sparrow. But there were a few costumes (like the banana) that just left me guessing: a (really, really attractive) guy in a dress shirt with suspenders like a Wall Street Broker; a girl in a flesh-colored body suit covered with glitter; a guy with pig ears, mouse makeup, and bling. Very strange.

I left early with one of my friends so I could catch the last metro, but it was too late. I missed my metro, and she missed her RER, so we spent the rest of the night (morning?) looking for a bus to my house before we decided to just walk.

Sidenote: Even though it’s probably completely unsafe, I really liked walking around Paris late at night. Just as I liked walking around Seattle in the early morning hours. You really get to know a city when it’s asleep. On the Champs Elysées, I saw men unloading giant movie posters in front of a theater. There were several couples, a few tourists, and groups of adolescents out. One group of guys I saw rented some bikes and just roamed the streets, riding with and against the theoretical traffic flow, generally having a good time.

We watched Pride and Prejudice until five, when the metros opened back up and my friend could catch the RER back home. I fell asleep not long after, and woke up just in time for my drawing class.

The class itself was completely uneventful. After sticky-tacking our midterm projects on the wall, we spent the whole time talking about them. The idea was to do something on family, and all of the pieces hit the target; some interestingly, some creatively, and some with great skill. In general though, the whole thing was terribly boring. It’s all well and good to point out a few things about a few pieces, but to analyze and talk about every single piece was more than I could handle. An hour into the critique, I was gone, off in a world of doodles about hypertrichosis and vampires. When we get our portfolios back, I’ll try to upload my attempt at capturing a family on paper.