Lady in Red is dancing with me, cheek to cheek

~Chris De Burgh

I should be packing my apartment up, sleeping, or exercising, but instead I had to make you laugh.

What a week it has been. I started studying for my inorganic test 3 hours before it commenced, and it went fine (disaster averted there). My other finals responsibilities I treated with about the same level of procrastination, and turns out I did the exact right amount of work. There's something about that last-minute rush of adrenaline that I love. So I am officially done with classwork for my master's degree - how odd, especially when you consider I graduated less than 6 months ago!

This week has made me slightly sad to be leaving because I finally made friends! Rachael, my back-row buddy in inorganic, is awesome, and just today we went to the holiday market together with her son and got some fun presents. The best part of this week, however, was Thursday night at the Chemistry Christmas Party! Every year, the Chemistry department sees it appropriate to wine and dine the grad students with our tuition money in a beautiful holiday banquet. It was great, my friend Marie and I were 2 hours late, and there was still tons of food because 90% of the people there go straight for the free booze. Ah, what a lifestyle.

The polymer girls decided to get all gussied up, so we felt extremely overdressed, but it was fun to actually look nice once while living in Eugene since I wore my gym clothes to class everyday and completely stopped wearing makeup when I moved down here! We had fun at the party, and then most of the students from the lab I worked in last summer and many of the students in my program went to a bar to hear my friend Jen (also in the DT lab) play at an open mike night. Commence the ridiculousness.

Before the huge crowd arrived, a few people went hog-wild with my new digital camera and took some hysterical pictures (picasaweb.google.com/katiebugk). We listened to painful guitar "artists" for what seemed like hours until the rest of the group showed up. And boy, did they show up. Plastered, that is. When Jen and Garrett finally played, I got to see my first drunken dancing and was dragged into it by my good friend Justin. Their set of covers was awesome and people were having a great time. I took some video to highlight the evening. Even sober I still had a blast!



Then, the night took a turn for the interesting. All night I had noticed a little bit of attention on me by lots of older guys. I always chock it up to my height, especially since I was wearing 3" heels, but Thursday night, I think it also had something to do with the red dress I had on. Now, to preface the coming story you must understand I had never been truly asked out or "hit on" until I moved to Eugene. For the story of my first experience, read my blog from this summer (or don't). So, while Jen was getting sick in the bathroom, all the guys started to descend upon me. All of a sudden I hear: "Miss, I just wanted to tell you that you're super beautiful." It took me a second to realize he was talking to me and then, of course, I tried to dissuade him by telling him I was moving this weekend. He said he'd commute. I was stuck. So, taking the advice of magazines and much more knowledgeable friends over the years, I told him he could give me his number. Big mistake. He then proceeds to introduce me to his GRANDFATHER who came to the bar too, and then sit down with me and write his number on a powerball ticket (because, he said, "love is like the lotto") .

This piece of work is 34, lives with his grandpa, doesn't work, lives off "investments", "will be a millionaire in 3 years", and "cooks lots of organic meals." I couldn't even think of anything sarcastic to say back, I was just completely blown away. He wouldn't go away or stop telling me how pretty I was, so when he started to argue with a guy sitting next to him, I got up quickly to go talk to Justin. At the end of the night, this dude comes back to say goodnight and says (I'm not kidding you here): "I just want you to know that it's unanimous. I asked every guy in here, and they all think you're gorgeous." OH MY LORD. Luckily, my friend Jen was sitting next to me and was so drunk that she quickly chimed in and said "too bad she's with me."

The rest of the evening (which lasted until 3:30am, and also included a trip to Burrito Boy and of course, fulfillment of my Designated Driver duties) was filled with lots of attention from a certain guy that I really liked last summer and haven't talked to since. When he had had enough to drink, he got up the courage to come talk to me and then stuck around and got a little friendly. It was, again, very interesting. There really isn't another word to describe this evening.

So what have we learned here? Don’t say the guy can give you his number if you’re totally freaked out by him. Give him the simple truth: dude, I’m not interested. Also, if I'm feeling blue, all I need to do is sport that red dress, some heels and hit up a bar in Eugene. If I don't want guys rubbing my leg or trying to hold my hand, I should probably stick to my normal guy-repellent of no makeup, hairy legs and sweats. It works like a charm.