I was about to cancel today’s scheduled post until I realized that it was holiday-themed and featured Tammy, whose birthday is today. The only times I’d have fun at staff parties was with her. I’m glad she slid out of the womb all these years ago so that she could be my plus one and more!
Happy Birthday Mushroom Camera!
Prelude: I wonder if all these vintage shops we visited on Main Street are still around. I don’t wear vintage clothing because I don’t find vintage textile comfortable next to the skin–mostly hot and itchy–but I love time capsules. These shops had a museum-like quality to them, and Tammy elevated the shopping experience.
I hope Main Street hasn’t changed!
The dress, makeup, and hair were intentionally obnoxious. Although, if I had the energy to maintain hair like that, I’d make it my everyday hair. People froze up when they saw that hair: it was awesome. “How dare you go out in public like that?”
I’ll pass on the velvet, though. Velvet is an entirely unwearable textile.
NB- I did not draw in the lasagna with my finger.
Dec 6, 2010: Mythbusters Marathon.
At last year’s staff party, a group of guys took the bicycle ice sculpture off the display table and slid it down the stairs of The Commodore. Ergo, this year The Commodore wouldn’t allow us to have an ice sculpture. So, I couldn’t have that official “pose in front of the ice sculpture” photo. That really is all it is for: a sly way for the company to advertise through personal photos.
Do you know the point of staff Christmas parties? I don’t! I was ok with taking the same date two years in a row, but I certainly couldn’t repeat any of my previous outfits. Along with the staff holiday party also comes the one time a year I shop for a dress. Wearing a dress is like inconveniencing myself to look pretty.
Perhaps the point of those parties is to show your peers how good you can look outside the office? Last night, I showed them all how stunning I look in velvet. I wore a velvet dress with poofy sleeves and a big bow above the butt. My face was caked with the most colourful makeup I could get my hands on. I was getting high off the fumes from my big hair. To top it all, my date was stunning in a black and gold pantsuit!
Tammy posed as the bitchy gold diggin’ stepmother, while I was the technicolour misfit. We had spent the day poking around in vintage shops, trying on the bright, the tight, the lacy, the scalloped neckline’d, and the truly baffling. I couldn’t believe some of the dresses that ever existed. Sizes permitting, we tried on the most visually offensive garments we could find.
The fitting was tough to figure out, especially on dresses that were really poorly cut (all of them). What was a size 7/8 in the 80s is now a size three. It’s cute how designers nowadays want us to feel thin, but it has made shopping for vintage clothes hard. That may be the whole idea behind forever changing the number representing sizes: it keeps us running as a consumerist nation.
Some of those vintage shops were freezing inside. Running on antiquated heaters, I believe.
During outfit preparation, Roommate asked us whether it was a themed Christmas party. Tammy’s answer was: “No, it’s just us doing this.” Luckily, my workplace is unpretentious enough to tolerate this kind of thing.
Looking incredibly kick-ass aside, the party, with the exception of the ice sculpture, was just like the last two. I got to make it to the food table with lots of time to spare; the previous year, I was only able to grab the crispy leftovers around the edge of the trays, and the first year I missed it entirely. It was exactly what catered food is always like: food cooked in bulk, attempting to look fancy. Except for the lasagna: whose idea was it to serve messy food?
There was also some sort of presentation and a video of all the superiors congratulating us all on a year well-done (even though sales were slow) but I was too focused on doing laps around the food table, running my finger through the lasagna to watch much of it. Too much feel-good crap, not enough sex, drugs, and violence.
Some suggestions for next year’s party:
-clown
-two clowns
-money piñata
-bouncy castle
-open bar
-pie eating contest (after the open bar has been running for at least two hours)
-laser light show
It’s kind of funny how much better everybody looks dancing under stage lighting.
Also, what is the point of vegan meatloaves?
squaremeat.com 