Belle of the Ball
Edwardian Ball, I love you completely, passionately, and without reservation. I love your World's Fair, with your steam-powered teapot and your peddle-powered ferris wheel. I love your clowns and acrobats and Dark Garden models made up to look like tall versions of Kalico. I love your many tiny hats, including a tiny steampunk tricorn decorated with tiny brass goggles. I love looking around the Regency Ballroom and wondering how the hell my friends became so well-dressed and good-looking. I love JD, who looked as if he was being attacked by a typewriter, and the girl with the enormous skirt made of flowers, and whoever was wearing that hat with the miniature theater that had a little marionette dancing inside. I love you, Edwardian Ball, even though you have deviously combined drinking and shopping, which led me to hand over my wallet to J, like Odysseus lashing himself to the mast in order to avoid the sirens' song. I love you even though I shouted myself hoarse. I love you even though I am seriously considering building a cattle prod into my parasol for next's year event for use on the next asshole who steps on my train.
I did not buy a tiny hat. Nor did I buy a cage bustle, because the clever man who made them had sold out of the damned things by the end of the second night. I spent a lot of time standing around fielding questions about my gown, who made it and how one might get in touch with this genius of costuming. I ought to start carrying the seamstress' business card with me to these events, as I am certain I could have had her booked for enough work to last her through the year. I posed for some ridiculous number of pictures, including a re-enactment of a photo from 2009 in which S kissed my hand while I pretended to beat him with my parasol for his impertinence. I gossiped with girls and pointed them towards pretty boys. I ate late-night grilled cheese. I went to a birthday party at three in the morning. I may have danced a bit.
This is my favorite weekend of the year. Not even this terrible Death Cough can make me love it less.
I did not buy a tiny hat. Nor did I buy a cage bustle, because the clever man who made them had sold out of the damned things by the end of the second night. I spent a lot of time standing around fielding questions about my gown, who made it and how one might get in touch with this genius of costuming. I ought to start carrying the seamstress' business card with me to these events, as I am certain I could have had her booked for enough work to last her through the year. I posed for some ridiculous number of pictures, including a re-enactment of a photo from 2009 in which S kissed my hand while I pretended to beat him with my parasol for his impertinence. I gossiped with girls and pointed them towards pretty boys. I ate late-night grilled cheese. I went to a birthday party at three in the morning. I may have danced a bit.
This is my favorite weekend of the year. Not even this terrible Death Cough can make me love it less.