Date Night

You know you write Young Adult romance when you're watching the State of the Union and are struck by how much it resembled a prom this year.



Or maybe I just have been blogging with the Fictionistas for a while, because you know how much we love crazy prom stories here.



In a spirit of bipartisanship in the wake of the Tucson tragedy that many are criticizing as empty symbolism, members of Congress abandoned their time-honored partisan seating chart and sat with members of the opposing party during Obama's speech to a joint session of Congres.

The last several days here in DC have been like a politican Match.Com as members of Congress have scrambled to find "dates" to the big event.



After all, those all-important prom pictures look that much better when you have the perfect date.

In years past, the State of the Union looked just like a junior high dance, with the Republicans on one side and the Democrats on the other. But now we have a more mature Congress that's graduated at least to high school.

The tradition of partisan seating dates to 1845 in the House of Representatives, with Democrats on one sides of the aisle, and Republicans on the other. But it wasn't until 1913 that it became the practice for the State of the Union. For the first time since Thomas Jefferson, President Woodrow Wilson personally delivered the State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress, and the Representatives and Senators observed the House's partisan seating.

For the next 70 years, partisan seating was the norm, but no overt partisanship during the speech. But in 1983, Democrats mockingly applauded President Ronald Reasan during a line in his State of the Union. From then on we saw an era of one side of the chamber leaping to their feet at various times during the speech, with the other side sitting quietly and sometimes grumbling. At times it looked like the party the president was from was engaged in a weird aerobic workout during the State of the Union, they would get up and down so often.

It was always entertaining, that's for sure. Several State of the Union drinking games were even built around the jovial jumping up and down. (Because let's face it, even for the biggest politics die-hards among us, the only way to get through these things is with a drink.)

But this new seating arrangement really screwed things up. It used to be that members of Congress didn't even really have to listen too terribly hard in order to participate in the political pep rally. If the President was from their party, all they had to do was pay attention to what the sea of politicans around them were doing. If your seatmates are standing and cheering, you do too.

I kept watching last night to see if anyone would mess up, forgetting that their seatmate was from the opposing party and just following along, caught up in the excitement. That would have been funny.

I do know of one person who was very caught up in the excitement of the evening. She kept standing up and clapping whenever she saw the people on TV doing so.

My 1-year-old daughter. :)

Hey, it's DC. We start 'em young.

Rhonda's High School Prom Madness!

So, we've talked about prom on here before, and I've shared my stories...but now, you guys will get the FULL experience--hair, makeup, dresses, background, the works. Ready to take a trip back in time? Put on your helmets, kiddies--you're in for a scary ride:

Here I am, in the spring of 1992 (I'm on the far right--sorry about the poor photo quality). I was a sophomore at the time, but I went with a friend to his junior prom. Yanno, I still don't know how I got my hair to stand out that far off my head...it had to be the devious works of Aqua Net, for sure. Also, OMG my eyebrows are quite bold in that picture, aren't they? I'm sure the "smoky" eyeshadow look I was going for didn't help that any. Thank God I finally discovered tweezers, though I'm sad to say it didn't happen until college. Anyway, this wasn't the official prom picture, which is why it's in front of a brick wall.

Here's another from spring of 1992--this time, I went with a friend to his senior prom. Frighteningly enough, my hair looks EXACTLY the same as the junior prom picture above. Doesn't the aluminum-foil starry background, the faux grecian pillar, and billowing smoke at our feet really make this picture pop?

Ah, spring of 1993--junior prom. Basically the same hair style as last year's two proms, but a little closer to my head since my hair was shorter. And the same dress as what I wore to the senior prom my sophomore year, but with all-new pantyhose and jewelry (those earrings are a bit much now that I look back on this, *sigh*). Hey, I wasn't swimming in money. LOL. So, check out the background--we have the mega-patterned Vegas-style carpeting, and are standing in front of what looks like a funeral parlor fireplace. Cheery!

Spring of 1994, my senior prom. I had my dress made from a cool pattern I found. I loved that dress so much! Notice my hair has finally evolved from being poofy all over my head to just being poofy on the sides. SO hot. I also like the accessories better than junior prom--more low-key and subtle, but effective. And I like the background with the delicately draped sheer cloth and flowers...the balloons give it just a little pinch of fun.

So, there ya go. Rhonda's prommity prom promness. Hope you enjoyed the flashback. What about you--did you like the way your prom photos came out? Was your hair as big as mine? I'd love to hear about it...and if you can link to photos, even better!

Cut Footloose

I was never at a prom. I was one of the nerdy people who got very academic at a young age. My life was consumed with finishing school, finishing more school, and finishing more school. When other people were picking out prom dresses, I was buried to the eyebrows in some obscure text at the Boston Public Library.

Yes, I do believe that's why I'm weird. I did have some friends who went, of course.

I believe that's why they are weird. I also believe the theme was "Footloose." Um. Yeah, don't look at me.

Anyway, I did come to genuinely enjoy watching the pomp, circumstance, and madness of prom when I was a teacher. Sometimes I set kids up on dates when they bemoaned their lack. One of my match-ups eventually married. Take that, sceptics!

I actually think the way my town is doing it these days-- in the gym, on the cheap, and with a lock-down-- is the way to go. Their theme this year is "Midnight Sky."

If you know what the heck that means, I'd love to be in on it.

So as we head into prom season, here's hoping everyone is safe, careful, and responsible... but also free to cut FOOTLOOSE.

Ahh, Prom!

Ahhh prom... the dress, the corsage, the giddy feeling as your date comes to pick you up in a big limo. Or so I hear. I've witnessed a prom or two, but never attended one. I, you see, was an uber nerd.

No... no, not sorta-kinda. I was a massive, black-wearing, pre-goth, post-beatnik, way out of time and space nerd. I used to skip school for two things: Red Sox games and to take the MBTA into Boston and lurk among the stacks of the Boston Public Library. I also skipped to go see a few touring shows at the Museum of Fine Arts of Museum of Science.

Yes. THAT much of a geek.

I was also on a different schedule. When other kids were just discovering the giddiness of first love, I was buried up to my neck in college. I wanted a copy of the Riverside Shakespeare for my 15th birthday.

But missing out on a lot of the social stuff made me love watching as a teacher. When I taught one spring in Abington, MA they not only had a prom, they had a big promenade-- every parent in town came out with cameras and all the kids "promenaded" around the gym. It was... well, dorky and sweet and saturated in saccharine cuteness. I ate it up with a spoon. A few of those kids were on dates I even set up.

"I'm not going, it's lame," they'd say, and you'd hear "plus who would go with me?" They didn't say it, but you could hear it. So I'd con two old friends into going. I'll have you know one of those couples hooked up, went steady til graduation, and married a few years later.

I was the COOL English teacher.

Which is funny when you think that in high school, which was so short for me, I felt like the world's biggest dork. People loved my brothers. Star athletes. Most of them, though, looked askance at me like I was from another planet. I felt it, then, as judgment and rejection of myself and my small group of nerdy-artsy beach rat friends. We didn't go to football games, but we sang a capella in the tide-pools on Green Harbor beach. We had sketchbooks and journals filled with dark, scary poetry. We brooded.

But you know... years later, after Harvard and Oxford convinced me that weird has its uses, I have benefited from staying in my small town. Kids I once thought of as rejecting me live down the street. The girl I thought looked down her nose at me sees me at the deli all the time. And I am friendly by nature. So it came as a mild but pleasant surprise when I discovered that's not how they saw me at all.

"She was sooo smart," Colleen recently said to one of her boys as we stood in line at CVS. "She had a horse. She could sing and was in a band. And she always knew the answer when the teacher called on her. I always felt stupid in class with her."

She was smiling when she said it, but I nearly fell over. It was Easter time. Colleen was the girl the other girls wanted to hang out with. I was stunned to think she even gave me a glance, much less had such a fixed opinion of me.

I guess the gift of being the geek who came home to roost is finding out many-- perhaps even MOST-- of those kids in the seats next to you aren't any more what you thought THEY were than you are what they thought YOU were.

So maybe I wasn't as dorky as I thought. Or maybe I WAS, but dorky was ok. And I never got to go to prom. But I'm glad girls like Colleen did, and that the truth is she was just having a good time, not thinking about the people who stayed home.

Being a nerd still, you might think I would snort at things like prom. Academics, please! Serious study! But fun is good for your soul, too. And frankly every experience we can cram into our youth is worth having. So I always smile when I see girls in sweatsuits leaving the hairdresser's with baby's breath in a updo. Or a frazzled mom at the florist growling into her cell phone "what kind of blue?" Ahh... prom!

Tra-la! It's May! The lusty month of May!

Recognize that line? It's from the musical "Camelot". That was our school musical my freshman year of high school. I played a nymph. Of course, 14-year-old I was, I thought it would be funny to say "nympho."

But I digress.

Queen Guenevere was actually singing about the May Day celebrations, but if she were around today, I'm sure you could apply it to prom rituals, too. ("It's May! It's May! The month of 'Yes you may.' When every maiden prays that her lad, will be a cad!")

As I'm sure you've figured out by now, it's Prom Week here at Fictionistas. I'd planned to play along and scan in a prom pic or two, so you could see me in my long slinky black lace number (junior year) or short tight midnight blue strapless sequin sheath (senior year). I was a dancer back then, so it was a good 30+ pounds ago...I looked pretty darn hot.

But when I called my mom a couple of weeks ago to ask her to send me my prom pics, I discovered that, alas, they are no more. My parents threw them away in a fit of cleaning, convinced that if I'd really wanted them, I would have taken them years ago. Oh, and that Mr. Brice wouldn't want to see pictures of me with some other random guys.

Damn.

So since I have no pictures to share, I guess I'll just relate a funny prom story. And yes, this is true.

I'm a nailbiter. I always have been, ever since I was a little girl. It's stress-related (yes, my nails are a complete disaster at the moment), so occasionally I will actually have nice nails, but that never lasts long.

Anyway, my junior year of high school, I decided I wanted long, pretty nails for the prom. But my mom wouldn't let me get acrylics, because she was afraid I might forget and try to bite them off, breaking my teeth in the process. So I had to settle for DIY fake nails and a tube of nail glue.

I have to admit, they actually looked pretty good. Unless you stared really closely, you couldn't tell that they were press-ons.

So I get to the dance, and I'm having a great time, even though I took a random friend as my date. (He's a nice guy though.) Anyway, this was the era of grunge music, so some of the guys in my class decided it would be fun to have a mosh pit as a somewhat memorial to their idol Kurt Cobain, who'd committed suicide about a month earlier.

So I'm trying to get out of the way of the mosh pit (which was broken up almost as quickly as it started, btw), when all of a sudden I realize I've lost a nail. I get down on my knees to search for it, like some people search for a missing contact lens.

I found it right away, but there was no way I was going to go through the rest of the prom missing one hooker-red nail. Absolutely not. Fortunately, I'd thought to bring my little tube of nail glue along in my evening bag.

So I trot off to the table we'd sat at during dinner, whip out my nail glue, and super classy girl I am, decide to do surgery on my nail right there inside the dance.

Just a drop of glue, position the fake nail on top of the real nail, press real tight...Voila!

Wrong. Somehow I managed to glue my fingers together! Yes, this stuff only happens to me, I know.

I scooped up my evening bag with my elbows (well, my hands were stuck together, so I had no choice), marched onto the dance floor, found one of my girlfriends, and convinced her to come with me to the bathroom. (It took her about five minutes to stop laughing before she would come along.)

We tried running my hands under hot water. I guess we hoped that the heat would break the bonds of the glue or something. (Did I mention chemistry was never my strongest subject?) Nothing.

Eventually she had to find a chaperone, who fortunately was able to help. I don't even remember how she got my fingers unstuck, but as far as I was concerned, she was my new favorite teacher.

So, anyone else ever have something stupid like that happen at a prom?

Proooooooom...

Yuppers, I went to my junior and senior proms. I also went with a couple of older guy friends to their proms, too. So, let me regale you with two of my prom stories (names have been changed to protect the innocent, haha).

Prom #1--I was a sophomore. He was a senior. We were friends, though I think he wanted to be more. He asked me to prom, as friends, and I agreed (duh, of course--we're talking PROM!). The night went nicely--he paid for everything, and the dance itself was a lot of fun.

When it was time to take me home, he escorted me up to my apartment. He asked me if he could have a kiss, and I said I wasn't comfortable with that. So he asked if he could get a hug, instead. Absolutely--I agreed and leaned in. Well, he decided to steal a kiss, anyway.

SLAP! I smacked him right across the face for getting fresh and stomped inside (I found out later my mom was lying on the couch and heard the whole incident--she was ecstatic at how I handled it, LOL).

The guy called me the next day apologizing, but our friendship wasn't the same after that. To be fair, though, he truly felt bad for what he did. I think he was even crying about it.

Prom #2--It was my senior year, and I was taking one of my friends from church. Very nice guy. To be honest, I had a bit of a crush on him. However, we were totally going as friends, so I certainly wasn't going to make it out to be anything more than that. Because I wanted to look my best, though, I had my dress hand-made (I have pictures at home, but they're not scanned in--if I get time, I'll edit this post to add them in).

Just mere days before prom, the guy lets me know that he now has a girlfriend--who happens to be one of my good friends, too. D'OH!

Because it's T-minus days here, there's no way for me to get a replacement date...so I eat a nice, big old slice of humble pie and call her up, asking if I can still take her boyfriend as my non-date date. She graciously agrees, but the whole night, I'm paranoid of doing or saying anything that could be construed as me flirting with him inappropriately. Ah, good times.

All in all, not the worst stories ever, but they weren't the best, either. LOL.

So, what about you--any interesting/bad prom date stories? Dish it up, yo!

The Best Revenge

I never had a date for either of my high school proms (junior or senior). Actually, I never had a date at any time during high school. I was, apparently undateable. I went to my junior prom with my also undateable BFF. I wore a short green taffeta and black velvet dress while she channeled Scarlet O'Hara in black and white satin. I remember very little else about that night. I can tell you that the dress I wore was purchased with donated funds since my dress money had been pick-pocketed out of my purse about 5 minutes after we arrived at the mall. (Hmm. Ignore cosmic signs much?)

When senior prom rolled around, I didn't even bother. I had accepted my undateableness and owned it. I think my mom and I went shopping. Or I stayed home and watched TV. I really don't remember.

Now, you may think that four years of being ignored by my male peers might have done something to my psyche. It did, in a way. It made me try harder. Flash forward to this weekend and the Hard Rock Cafe in Pittsburgh where I was attending a surprise birthday party for my brother-in-law. This guitar hung over the table that held the birthday cake:

What is the significance of that, you ask? Well, the signature below the band's name, Tonic, that's Emerson Hart. The guy I dated for two years while living in NYC. Who cares about all those boys who never asked me out in high school? One of my ex's has a guitar hanging in the Hard Rock Cafe.

I think that trumps a dateless prom any day.

self imposed penance

My friends and I were bad Friday night.

We were sitting on the deck of a local restaurant, enjoying happy hour, and minding our own business when something sparkly caught our eye.

A prom dress!

We cheered the couples as they made their way to dinner. They all played along with the old folks, bowing and strutting and generally being good sports. I believe they all realized that in 21 years, they might just be us.

Anyway, it all started out as good fun. The couples were beautifully dressed, the boys seemed to have manners, and we were a pleased audience. But before long, our role evolved from audience to judges. We were like Simon Cowell.

"Why is she carrying that giant bag? Doesn't she know that's what evening purses are for?"

"His shirt is untucked. Unforgivable."

"Is she smoking? Who smokes in prom dress? How ugly is that?"*

"He didn't open the door for her! His momma owes him a lesson in manners!"

*I really don't understand the smoking thing. Not in general, I just mean, could they not put down the cigarette for a couple of hours? It just looked tacky. I wonder, do they think it's glamorous?

Okay. So I feel a little bad for raining on the prom parade, so I figured if I could dish it, I should be able to take it.

Here it is--in all its Golden Glory. My prom picture:

The year? 1987
The date? A very good friend of mine
The style? Madonna meets gold lamé
The hair? Sigh. I have no answer.

Last year was my 20 year reunion. Scottie and I posed for a picture again.

Here we are, 20 years and 20 *koff* pounds heavier...



To all the prom dates out there--enjoy your night. I did. And don't let some old fogies heckle you. They had their night a long time ago--it's your turn now.