#1 – Hosting a Party

#1 – A Role That Cheers Me Up:
Hosting a Party

Yesterday I hosted a surprise (and belated) birthday party for a friend of mine.  I haven’t hosted a party since way before I sunk into this downward spiral of depression and mental-misery.  I think the last one was a birthday BBQ for Germany over a year ago.

I love hosting parties.  I love planning them, buying supplies for them, getting my place ready, baking, cooking, setting up games/movies and such, welcoming people, making sure they have enough food and drink, etc., etc.
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I hosted my first true party back in high school.  It was a Halloween scary movie sleepover for a bunch of girl classmates.

I was instantly hooked.  I’d been to other people’s parties before and I didn’t enjoy them usually.  I hate the forced social expectations that just would make me awkward.  But I discovered in hosting, I had this measure of control.  And it was exhilarating.

I’ve hosted many, many, many parties over the years.  Some were fantastic and are still talked about.  Some were awful. And are unfortunately still talked about.  I suppose either way they tend to be memorable.

My Halloween ones were a big thing for years, until I wasn’t able to do one last year.  I miscarried in October and was no where near a good place mentally to plan and host a party. I didn’t even want to celebrate Halloween- which says a lot.
In fact, I’m a little nervous about this October as I’m already feeling that one year anniversary of that horrible week creeping up on me and I don’t want to think about it, but I can’t seem to make myself not think about it…
Ahem. Happy thoughts.

Hence this 30 Day challenge to try and shake the crippling blues!
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The party last night seems to have been a success, though it was a little more relaxed and just simple “hanging out” than most of my parties.

I drank too much due to my extreme nervousness at having a party for the first time in over a year.  Let’s just say the party was in full swing at about 6 or 6:30pm and I was generously tipsy at 4pm…>_>

I did manage to contain a couple alter-freak-outs/triggers.

The first was when I went to check on my cat in my old bedroom and someone had moved my old ballerina jewelry box near the doorway.  Armes was triggered and slipped out and curled up, winding it to play while she sucked her thumb and cried, having flashbacks.
She won’t tell me of what.  She hasn’t parted with a lot of her memories of the body’s early abuses. But she only did that for a couple minutes, and then I was able to return to the party, no one the wiser.

Then later a friend spilled a full cup of a mixed drink onto the carpet.
Due to my father being out of town, I was hosting the party at his house (it’s big enough for a comfortable party and has a big flatscreen TV).  We immediately started freaking out about ruining Dad’s carpet and Rika popped out and cussed up a storm at our friend.
Thankfully he seems to just have attributed it to the mess and us being drunk (though Rika instantly sobered of course).  And he kept trying to pet and massage our head which just triggered me or Roms to come out, so Rika wasn’t able to keep control anyway.

The night ended well and I’m glad I got to do a role I enjoy so much.

Below are some snapshots I took (or Texas took of me….) during the prep and the party itself. Sorry they’re so blurry. My drunk-hands take crummy pictures and Texas can’t figure out how to work my tablet.

Enjoy!

The tray of jello shots chilling in the freezer

All the Mike’s Hard and Smirnoff we bought so we didn’t have JUST hard liquor.

Our harder liquor and booze. There’s rum, vodka, and tequlia.

The red velvet cake we baked!

These are the pizza rolls Texas and I made for the party guests. We should have made a lot more than two cookies sheets of them….they went fast!

Self-image

This post is probably going to be ridiculously shallow.  I dunno. I’m having issues determining really anything about myself right now.

Let me start at the beginning.

My friend’s birthday was on Saturday and I went to Columbus to celebrate it.

That morning- well, afternoon, as I slept in. It was lovely. Anyway, that afternoon, I took a shower and spent way too long staring at myself in the mirror both before and after. Like a perv.

Norman Rockwell’s “Girl at Mirror”. Fits my emotions pretty well at the moment.

Mostly hating myself though.

The only casual clean shirt I had that wasn’t too hot for yesterday was a green halter top. I bought it because it shows off my fox tattoo nicely and I used to have this sort of love affair with my shoulders.

But not anymore. I put it on after my shower and stared at myself in the mirror. I frowned. Then I put on my capri jeans and stared at myself again. Then I realized what time it was and that I was running late and definitely didn’t have any time to wash some other shirt to wear.

I went with the green halter.

SD was the first to insist I looked fine.  Then my mother, as I borrowed her kitchen to make the deviled eggs for the party.  Then Texas showed up (we were driving up together) and insisted I looked fine.  But when I went into the bathroom before we got on the road to Columbus, I again stared in the mirror from various angles, and doing various things with my hair in order to try and see what they were seeing.

But I simply can’t.

The party was decently enjoyable. It consisted of a gaggle of girls, and one poor guy who had to listen to us talk about sex and compare experiences, as women do when there aren’t really any men around.  Hopefully he learned some stuff.  He home brews beer and spent a good amount of time talking to me about it and getting me to try various ales and ciders he’s made.

Army also does the home-brewing thing, so I’m used to it and thought some booze would be awesome anyway. I care so much less about my self-image when tipsy or sloshed.

I only managed barely tipsy as some of the other alters were being pretty firm on not going overboard due to the Daria crap we’ve been dealing with.

I do remember one point when we were playing Apples to Apples, I was lying on the floor and messing with the area around my stomach/hips, trying to see how flat I could get it.  Not trying to be inappropriate or slutty or anything, I was simply getting upset with myself for what I think feels like a hugely flabby tummy area.  Texas noticed and tilted her head at me.

“Why are you feeling yourself up?” She asked, a bit more bluntly than Texas normally is. Suddenly all eyes are on me. I blush.

“Oh. Sorry. I feel a bit bloated and chunky at the moment. Carry on. What’s the adjective again?”

The birthday girl, let’s call her Pirate, snorted.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? You look fine.” She said. I shrugged and nodded at her.

“What is with women??” Brewer Dude said, staring down at me, “You all never seem to have any idea that you look amazing and worry about some little bit of curve you have. Most men do not want to touch or fuck twelve year old boys. It’s good you don’t look like one.”

Again, I nod and attempt a good-natured laugh. The rest of the evening goes well enough.  I end up going and spending the night at Texas’s, and again go into the bathroom to glare at myself in front of the mirror for way too much time.

I do distantly recognize the behavior.  Though it’s been years since my concept of my self-image has been so rageful and disdainful, I know the spiral of depression and eating disorders that follow.  And I can feel Victoria eagerly waiting in the wings, desperate to take control of our diet again.

I wish I could see what others tell me they do.  But when ever I stand in front of the mirror, or lie in bed and stroke my hands over my sides, stomach, hips, thighs, all I see and feel is flab, flab, flab.

And I hate it.

And I hate myself.

And I don’t want to be around anyone at all.

Especially myself.