Girl’s night is a traditional almost all women hold,
it starts out as slumber parties, when you’re young, footie pajamas and board
games. Once you out grow the slumber party it becomes a sleepover. I know what you are thinking, really, those
two things are the same. But let me assure you, they are not, one is for kids, and
the other is for the more sophisticated teenager. Teenagers always have to be
more sophisticated, it’s very important for them to stand away from the younger
crowd, to show parents that they are cool, misunderstood, and literally older.
Once you hit your early twenties sleep over’s more of
an “ oops I had too much to drink, so now I’m staying at your house because I can’t
drive home” happenstance.
To compensate for those missed girls nights,
because that’s essentially what a slumber party is, women have adapted and now
have “girls nights”, in my case I have friends who like to stay in and watch
whale wars while eating an assortment of cheeses and drinking too much wine.
The other group love to go out and get their dance on. Tonight is a go out and dance sort of night.
This particular night everyone which means myself and
my three other friends are meeting at my house to pretty up and get their
drinks on before heading out to Seattle.
As I wait for everyone I wonder if I have a cocktail or should I wait for
everyone else to show up before starting my prefunk? I think this as a put pink nail polish on my
toes.
My sister, sitting next to me is probably wondering
the same thing as she listlessly searches my lap top for the appropriate
"getting pretty" song.
This is her favorite part about girls night, it’s not
about the places we go, or the dancing, or how trashed we end up at the end of
the night, it’s the bonding before we even leave the house that matters to her,
it’s the ritual of getting ready and with others that makes her happy.
Going out dancing is more about the preparation than
it is the actual event. Women, or at least, the ones I have known have a need
to feel beautiful, they want a moment where they can dress up, put on false eye
lashes and overly bright lipstick. They want their own personal pretty woman moment;
the idea that someone will fuss with her hair, and she will apply falsies that
makes her excited about the evening. As the other girls start to
arrive, there are four of us total, the mayhem of prepping begins. I get my
long red hair curled by someone as another friend talks about her glitter
shirt.
Apparently, her fiancé has a phobia of glitter.
To
be honest, this phobia is really my fault. I went to a high school dance in a
baby blue dress that had more or less been bathed in a vat of glitter, he drove
us to the dance and his car was forever changed.
He was no longer able to get in and out of his car
without glitter being somewhere on him, to him, glitter had turned into a pesky
parasite that he could never fully rid himself or those he cared about until
the car was sold and he purchased another.
As a general
rule he will no longer allow glitter to be within 50 feet of him if not
contained. I don’t know if this is a real phobia other have, but if it isn’t,
perhaps he needs to go to therapy and get his phobia an official name.
She
pulls the evil item from a plastic bag that her fiancé demanded it be placed in
order to be in their home and especially his car.
Eager to show it off she puts it on and smiles
brightly. The shirt is lovely. I can picture the fear on her poor fiancés face
when she purchased this lovely top.
As I start
mixing cocktails, the curl in my hair already falters due to Seattle’s humid
night. A sweat mustache starts forming on my lower lip as I make my way up and
down my condo stairs to pull one item from my bathroom down to the main “getting
ready” area downstairs. My role is always the care taker, I want to make sure
everyone is fed, has a drink, has their makeup and hair the way they want it,
and is happy. After everyone is taken care of, only then do I focus on myself.
All three of these girls are different, I like to say
to myself that I collect a diverse group of friends; because I have so many interests
I am able to make nice with a lot of people for the most part.
Take example the group tonight, I have a math teacher
who teaches at one of the most prestigious schools in the Seattle area, she is
a total hippy, always talking about animal sanctuaries, saving the world in one
way or another and yoga. She is caught up to date with current events, and has
the ability to hold wicked debates and conversations about almost any hot topic
going on.
My sister in law, who works at the same company I do, she
is a short pixie looking woman who has chin length red brown hair, she bases
all real life events on the televisions series Nip/Tuck and gets her news from
either the most recent STAR magazine (yes, she has a subscription) or Perez
Hilton.
Lastly, My other friend, makes Jewelry and sells it
locally and at the markets has a deep love for Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen she
is an instant tanner-oholic rubs at her odd orange wrist lines.
Previously, she had put on instant tanner and had
forgotten to wipe off part of it, as a result her pretty slender wrists covered
with gypsy bracelets are orange brown, my husband told her it looked like she
had been staining a deck. The best part about her is that she has the
ability to point out her fuck ups, she deliberately shows people saying yeah
see what i did, yeah its fucked up.
She opens herself up in a way that many aren’t able to
do about things like that, me personally, I would be scrubbing the shit out of
my arms until that stuff came off. But in my case, I am too pale for instant
tanner to even make a difference.
My sister the smallest one in the group is ready, her
perfect purple Smokey eye and flash lashes are complete, she throws on her
shoes and demands a group picture. Since none of us are completely ready she is
the tallest in the photo. Which weird all of us out except for my instant tan
friend, since she is always the shortest of the group,
As
we head out to Bell town I look at these three women, beautiful and so
different and realize I am one lucky girl, I have smart and crazy friends. No matter what happens on girl’s night, we don’t
judge, we are out to support each other and offer love and fun. We all might
have a place in mind we want to go to, but really the most important part of
the night is right here, in my living room that now looks like a crack house
owned by a Mary Kay agent.
