Last night I dined with the Millers. I am now (not so) secretly in love with both of them. Tracy is 38, gorgeous, and acts like a twelve year old. She’s got this manic energy and, more importantly (for my ego), acts delighted about everything I say. Everything anyone says actually. Ian, her absurdly young looking husband with the dyed black hair and cowlick, spends a lot of time staring glumly at the tabletop in what I fondly imagine to be an Elliott Smith manner and being quietly hilarious. They’ve been married for twelve years and together for sixteen and they still act like I did with certain unnamed boyfriends The Lad in high school. They’re so in love with each other that I just want to sit in their collective lap and wiggle like a toddler.
Some highlights from the evening: They tried to talk me into liking the Cohen brothers — mainly by naming all their films in a pleading tone and saying “that one? You don’t like that one?” I tried to talk them into Buffy. “I just don’t get that Angel guy,” said Tracy. “What’s the appeal? He looks like Frankenstein.”
“You know what they say about men with big foreheads,” I said.
“What,” said Tracy. “They have bolts in their necks?”
Apparently I and all my lucky pals born in ’79 — many of whom Michele probably know this — are the sign of the sheep. (Oh! Brief interlude for my home crew — we HAVE to try Great Wall in Berkeley. It’s on College Avenue and the fake meat is even better than Lotus.) Those born under the Sheep are elegant and creative, but also timid, preferring anonymity. “Yep,” said Ian, squinting at me on one of the rare occasions he was not looking down, “that’s you.” I’d like to think he meant the elegant and creative part. He didn’t.
Those of you born in ’78 The Lad are the sign of the Horse. You are social and attractive to the opposite sex and have a near-manic need for the society of others. I made up the near-manic part. You should marry young in life. Avoid the Rat. Well, that’s good advice for everyone actually.
At work yesterday we had the Commencement reception for the language departments. We also had the Commencement itself but that was nothing to me since I was only in charge of feeding and watering them afterwards. It went pretty well except that what with so many people we had to be opening champagne bottles at the rate of one a minute, and Tracy and I were the only ones not afraid of the big popping sound. And Tracy doesn’t drink so imagine how bad I felt when she came to me after about her sixteenth bottle so soaked in it that she smelled like a walking wedding.
One Response to And you — and you — and you were there!