Ain't No Party

Let me tell you something about parties and me. Nothing in the execution of a party causes me more angst than the guest list. This is because I hate for anyone to feel excluded. This overblown empathy has been with me since I was a child. When I was in first grade my teacher made me get up in front of both first grade classes during morning meeting and tell everyone about my 6th birthday party. I had had a Halloween party since that's sort of a no-brainer if you're born on the holiday, but I'd only been allowed to invite 12 friends. So, when I stood in front of the 50 first graders, close to 90% of the kids had not been invited to my party. Never mind that I didn't really like that many of the kids and that the feeling was probably mutual. I thought they'd all be crushed to hear about how they missed it when we played pin the face on the pumpkin. So, I did what all overly self-conscience children do when they're put on the spot: I cried. I cried a lot in school, and I could see through my tears that Mrs. Beck was shaking her head and writing something in her notebook. A couple months later I received a "needs improvement" in self-control on my report card. This, not my SAT scores, prevented me from getting into Princeton. I am sure of that.

This was the least-dignified Princeton picture I could find.

I searched for Rutgers University pictures and came up with three dozen right off the bat that make the ice skating tiger look like the Queen of England. This, for example:

Sigh.

As always, I have digressed from my original point, which is that I am posting about a party and I'm sorry if you weren't invited even if you don't live near me and wouldn't have come anyway.