December 13th marked the 25th annual celebration of “Laurapalooza.” I work with two Lauras, and one of them—whom, for clarity’s sake, we usually refer to as “LZ“— hates having her birthday so close to Christmas, so she makes up for it by throwing a ginormous party every year. Her brother has a swanky downtown loft apartment, and together they host a swanky downtown holiday/birthday fete. Post-morning hangover, I cleaned myself up pretty good, put on a dress, and met the other Laura at Dittos before the party.

After dinner, I got a ride with Laura and we planned to stop at a liquor store to pick up a bottle of wine on our way to LZ’s. After numerous failed attempts (who closes a wine shop at 9 on a Friday?) we drove to a drive-thru liquor window that Laura knew of from her days of homeless-syphilis testing. She used to work for a research project that sent her out in a van into sketchy parts of town to exchange syphilis tests for strips of bus tickets. True story. Downtown Louisville has this charming little quirk of transitioning from hip and edgy to scary and dodgy in about two blocks, so it wasn’t long before we pulled up to the window and Laura asked for a bottle of white wine. The guy looked through the bulletproof glass into our car and shook his head. “We don’t carry wine.” Awesome. “Maker’s Mark?” Laura asked. That they had. So we showed up to the party only a little late, and with a bottle of whiskey in hand. “I promise I’ll never make you go back there again,” Laura told me.

For reasons that I’m not entirely sure I’m allowed to disclose, I was promised that the party downtown would be packed with gay men. I love the gays and was looking forward to lots of abs, dancing, and Girl Talk (I mean the DJ, not the homophobic generalization) but the party was full of older, unfun, coupled-up gays. And if there’s one thing that unites people across all bounds of sexual orientation, its that we all get more boring at parties when we couple up and get old. So instead of shiny twinks, I got buttoned-down bearded business consultants. Bummer. Amongst the straights, there were some woo-girls dancing at the bottom of the staircase next to the stereo, at least two creepy guys texting fast and furtively in the corner of the room, and me and Laura shooting awkward facial expressions to each other.

The birthday girl kept close tabs on what we were drinking, and at the first sign of sobriety or discretion, she jumped into our laps and reminded us about “the insignificant baby Jesus” with whom she was forced to share her month of birth. Some dear soul bought LZ a plug-in, light-up plastic baby Jesus, and—so he wouldn’t feel left out—I propped my drink umbrella in his tiny holy fist.

After a couple hours, Laura and I headed out. She drove me back to my car parked at Dittos and I went to bed considerably earlier than I had the night before. Next morning, after having adjusted my alarm clock back to Realtime, I woke up rested and hydrated and spent the day cleaning the apartment and watching more Spaced. I’d rented the series 2 disc from Netflix and deciding I couldn’t wait for standard shipping, I went out to Barnes and Noble to buy the DVD myself. The cashier was a Simon Pegg fan too, and he and I spent about 15 minutes geeking out over the new Star Trek movie, JJ Abrams, and Shaun of the Dead. Finally, with a little over $50 less in my bank account, I headed back home. I can’t recommend Spaced highly enough, and with all the bonus features, I think it’s going to be a nice addition (along with Gatorade and bananas) to my hangover cure. All in all, it was a great weekend and a nice bookend to my surreal stint in jury duty (even more about that later). It’s been kind of a downer to be back at work and having to deal with appointments and deadlines and such, but the department goes apeshit for the holidays, so at least it’s been festive. =)