Parties, parties, what's a girl to do?

Well I feel like quite the social butterfly lately. In addition to E.'s totally laid-back pool party on Monday, which was awesome and relaxing (well, except for the taxi driver not being able to find the house and the dispatcher who kept calling me insisting that he was there waiting for us when I was standing in the driveway and hello, no taxi here, I'm not blind, and eventually we missed our train and had to wait 45 minutes at the Metro-North station), U. threw her absolutely fabulous '60s themed 40th birthday party last night. Girl throws the best parties, I swear. First off, she looked amazing -- like Ava Gardner, or a Las Vegas gangster's moll (not that those are necessarily mutually exclusive). The updo, the eye makeup, the chic little vintage black cocktail dress that she bought off e-bay! How can you not have fun at a party when your hostess looks like she should be meeting the Rat Pack at Caesar's Palace after their show? And the '60s theme was perfect, since it allowed so many different options -- there's a wide variety in that decade, to state the obvious. Pucci prints, refugees from Andy Warhol's factory, flower children and other assorted hippies, greasers, mods, redshirted classic Trek crewmen and Buddy Holly were all represented. (Gee, I wonder who came dressed in the Star Trek uniform? Oh that's right, I live with him.) There was some argument over whether A.'s demure dress and pearls made her look more Jackie O or Tricia Nixon. Peace signs abounded. White eyeliner was borrowed. The music was perfect. A pack of cigarettes was rolled into the sleeve of a white t-shirt worn by a nonsmoker. Oh, and I finally got to try a Pimm's cup (complete with cucumber) after meaning to for forever and a day. Yummy (although I have no idea if it has anything to do with the '60s, but who cares).

I, of course, had my beeauuutiful seafoam green satin floor-length dress with pink flowers embroidered on the front that was one of ML's castoffs, so I had no choice but to come as the prom queen of 1966 (I joked to all of the hippie chicks that they were just a few years ahead of me). Spray-on tan. Hair poofed up and pulled back into a bow, with the ends curled and flipped up instead of under. Very pale pink irridescent lipstick (remember, foundation on the lips first to make them paler) and nail polish. White heels on loan from the obliging A. (by the way, the bottoms of my feet are still green -- should I be worried?). The eyes gave me some trouble, but T., the goddess of eye makeup, kindly stood in the bathroom and poked me in the eye with the butt end of an eyeliner until the glue dried and the false eyelashes finally stuck. And today I realized that, quite by accident, I've finally discovered the perfect method for achieving the ultimate sexy eye. Sure, it's long and labor-intensive, but beauty requires effort, as the women's magazines are always saying, so before I get scooped by Cosmo I'll provide the step-by-step instructions:
1. Spend afternoon experimenting with unfamiliar liquid eyeliner on upper eyelids. Take off and reapply at least three times, being unable to get the line smooth. Notice that all these efforts have created a fine black line of pigment down between the roots of the lashes which scrubbing with eye makeup remover will not remove.
2. When evening rolls around, go to patient friend's apartment and take over her bathroom.
3. Apply false eyelashes, swear, call for patient friend #2, allow her to apply false eyelashes.
3. Notice black line at base of false eyelashes looks pretty much like eyeliner, say fuck it since the party is already under way at this point, and do not bother applying eyeliner on upper eye.
4. Apply black kohl along bottom lash line, screaming metallic green shadow on entire eyelid up to the crease, and pale pastel green on the brow bone. Use a heavy hand with all three.
5. Attend rockin' party.
6. Arrive home at 2am, peel false lashes off and make two or three halfhearted swipes with eye makeup remover pads.
7. Sleep for six hours.
8. Wake up, consume aspirin and coffee, and notice that your eye makeup looks fantastic! (The kohl will have smudged underneath your eyes, and the fine black line rimming the upper lash line is now additionally defined by a smudged line of sparkly metallic green shadow that didn't come off last night.)

So between the residual sexy eye makeup and my pomaded, curled, hairsprayed and then thoroughly slept on hair, I look like... well, remember in Dirty Dancing when Mr. Kellerman explained to Lennie Briscoe about the "bungalow bunnies" who were there all week while their husbands only came up on the weekends? And there was the one bungalow bunny in the white dress who was all over Johnny Castle, but he dumped her for Baby so she slept with the asshole waiter instead, the one who was reading The Fountainhead and had notes in the margins? Yeah, I look like her today. I spent Sunday afternoon doing my laundry as a Catskills slut. Cool!