Vanilla Peppermint Snow Martinis
Last Friday night I was hoping to find some intelligent dick. For the first time in a century, I went out on a Friday night. I was invited to a small party at the fabulous Hyde Park condominium of my friend Corey Lovejoy, a cute 20-something history graduate student, and her husband, a big Chicago law firm associate. The best way to describe Corey is to say that she is a young B. Smith (Who is B. Smith?) dressed in yellow and pink pastels. For those who don't know B. Smith, most ignorantly call her the black Martha Stewart.
The food was great. Corey had prepared a tasty apple butternut squash soup, crab cakes, a waldorf salad, various skewered meats. During the evening, I asked her for a fork when all had been taken from the serving tray, and she said, "We don't have any more that are clean. Is a plastic one okay? That isn't too tacky is it?" Being one of those guests that's elated to be eating something more haute than trail mix I saw no need for her concern. To give you an idea of how elaborate Corey got, she served me vanilla ice cream topped with peppermint snow--in a martini glass. Until then, I was a martini virgin.
But back to the hunt for intelligent dick. Corey and I don't speak that often, so I was kinda surprised when I got her invitation. In the back of my mind I was thinking--Did she invite me because she has some other gay friends she wants to invite? Or maybe this was just a wish. Besides, between a lawyer/history PhD grad student I knew that most of the people at the party would have a little book learning. Thus, I thought it could be an opportunity to meet some smart kat--and hopefully he would share his body with me.
Wishful thinking. Instead, while in a conversation with about 7 people on gay marriage (of all topics) I got hit on by Fasheezie. She is a beeautiful personal trainer who couldn't figure out why people were so against gay marriage. She told us that most straight guys are oblivious to gay men, and can never figure out who's gay or not. When she found out that I was gay, she said, "I guess I am oblivious too, I was about to ask you what you were doing for the evening."
Shortly afterwards, the lights in the living room went out, and I heard Corey begin singing "Happy Birthday" to her husband and a bright candle blazing birthday cake in her hands. Everyone joined in chorus. She kissed him and gave him a hug and then came into the kitchen to look for a knife to cut the cake. It wasn't intentional, but at this point in the evening, all the white people were in the living room, and the handful of black folks (and a Canadian Asian woman) were chatting in the kitchen.
As soon as the "Happy Birthday" song ended all the white people started singing a second song--singing lyrics that we couldn't make out at first. All of the people of color were looking at each other, asking: "What's going on? What are they saying?" Fasheezie asked, "Are they telling him to strip ?" By the time they got to the third stanza, Corey's husband had started skipping around the room with his drink in hand. His action answered our questions. They were saying:
Skip, skip,
skip around the room.
Skip, skip,
skip around the room.
Skip, skip,
skip around the room.
Skip around the room (insert name of birthday boy).
None of us had never heard this song or had seen this ritual before. I said to a girl standing next to me, "Just when you think you've gone to elite colleges and learned everything about white people, they show you that they still have little secrets."
We all looked over to Corey--surely since she was married to a white guy she had seen it before. Corey's voice is unique. She uses standard english, and has a very middle class voice (if such a thing exists). This is a suburban sister if you ever heard one. Which made it all the funnier when she told us: "I don't know where they got that from. I mean, the only variation I ever heard on the Happy Birthday Song is, 'May the Good Lord Bless You'" All the black folks nodded in agreement.
While I had a great evening--I didn't get any man on man sex.
The food was great. Corey had prepared a tasty apple butternut squash soup, crab cakes, a waldorf salad, various skewered meats. During the evening, I asked her for a fork when all had been taken from the serving tray, and she said, "We don't have any more that are clean. Is a plastic one okay? That isn't too tacky is it?" Being one of those guests that's elated to be eating something more haute than trail mix I saw no need for her concern. To give you an idea of how elaborate Corey got, she served me vanilla ice cream topped with peppermint snow--in a martini glass. Until then, I was a martini virgin.
But back to the hunt for intelligent dick. Corey and I don't speak that often, so I was kinda surprised when I got her invitation. In the back of my mind I was thinking--Did she invite me because she has some other gay friends she wants to invite? Or maybe this was just a wish. Besides, between a lawyer/history PhD grad student I knew that most of the people at the party would have a little book learning. Thus, I thought it could be an opportunity to meet some smart kat--and hopefully he would share his body with me.
Wishful thinking. Instead, while in a conversation with about 7 people on gay marriage (of all topics) I got hit on by Fasheezie. She is a beeautiful personal trainer who couldn't figure out why people were so against gay marriage. She told us that most straight guys are oblivious to gay men, and can never figure out who's gay or not. When she found out that I was gay, she said, "I guess I am oblivious too, I was about to ask you what you were doing for the evening."
Shortly afterwards, the lights in the living room went out, and I heard Corey begin singing "Happy Birthday" to her husband and a bright candle blazing birthday cake in her hands. Everyone joined in chorus. She kissed him and gave him a hug and then came into the kitchen to look for a knife to cut the cake. It wasn't intentional, but at this point in the evening, all the white people were in the living room, and the handful of black folks (and a Canadian Asian woman) were chatting in the kitchen.
As soon as the "Happy Birthday" song ended all the white people started singing a second song--singing lyrics that we couldn't make out at first. All of the people of color were looking at each other, asking: "What's going on? What are they saying?" Fasheezie asked, "Are they telling him to strip ?" By the time they got to the third stanza, Corey's husband had started skipping around the room with his drink in hand. His action answered our questions. They were saying:
Skip, skip,
skip around the room.
Skip, skip,
skip around the room.
Skip, skip,
skip around the room.
Skip around the room (insert name of birthday boy).
None of us had never heard this song or had seen this ritual before. I said to a girl standing next to me, "Just when you think you've gone to elite colleges and learned everything about white people, they show you that they still have little secrets."
We all looked over to Corey--surely since she was married to a white guy she had seen it before. Corey's voice is unique. She uses standard english, and has a very middle class voice (if such a thing exists). This is a suburban sister if you ever heard one. Which made it all the funnier when she told us: "I don't know where they got that from. I mean, the only variation I ever heard on the Happy Birthday Song is, 'May the Good Lord Bless You'" All the black folks nodded in agreement.
While I had a great evening--I didn't get any man on man sex.
posted by Bernard Bradshaw at Monday, December 13, 2004
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