BEGINNINGS : wish you were here

Sent: 7/28/2001 6:23 PM

Well friends, if you didn't make it to the party last night then you are a fool. yes. I'm talking to you. You, there, you fool, you missed out. Okay, so maybe IIIII had a lot of fun at the party last night, but I kind of think you would too.

Leon and I hadn't finished completely setting everything up until 8:30 p.m. The first guests were to arrive at 9:00 p.m., if you were one of those kinds of guests that gets to the party right on time. So since no one we invited would be, we decided we had until 9:30 p.m. before everything was completed.

When I stepped out of the shower, two guests had arrived, which gave me just enough time to fix myself up as this Stu Martin character that I was supposed to be. :) The male gay version of Martha Stewart would be Stu Martin, and his room would represent this completely. Ah, but I'm jumping ahead of myself.

Let's start back just after I finished getting ready and stepped out my door into the completely transformed apartment. It wasn't Leon and Chad's apartment anymore, but rather sometime completely different entirely. I walked out into the den and looked around. Red light flooded the room - no, literally. There was one of those police sirens sitting on top of the desk flooding the room with red light. Only a stark red blub fell from its lone wire from the curtain rod. A boa sat on top of the mirror filled with red lights.

I looked up and on the ceiling was the taping of a body that had been murdered - a chalkline of a dead body as it were. The red bulb in the ceiling light posed as a heart still aglow. Just because he was dead, didn't mean he wasn't still alive somehow. However, the head, a balloon with two circles and an x laid beyond the body, only attached by a log black string. Had he been decapitated? I laughed at joke.

In the kitchen, Leon was putting the last few touches on the bowl of maguerita. The kitchen was lit in candles. On the table sat two boxes of cheese pizza and on the left-hand counter sat profitarolls (sp?) covered in chocolate sauce. The kitchen was warm and functional.

I wandered back towards my bedroom, or should I say, Stu's bedroom. As I entered, I hardly recognized it. It look like a quaint little room for rent somewhere in Paris. Rich, dark, orange walls gave way to white airy curtains. Between the curtains sat a lantern flickering in time to the fans rotations. The bed layered in pillows. The candles burning. Dried flowers. A bouquet of lilys and lavendar in a jar resting in a tin cyclindar sat atop the chest of drawers just under the gold mirror. Gay male Martha Stewart must live here. What was his name? Oh yes, Stu.

Then I tunneled through a door way of blue tinsel streamers which had been dotted with silver paint. What the hell? I walked into the room. The sole source of light was blu-light aside from the strobe light perched shooting upwards at a collage of cut-outs of naked men. Oh, and there WAS light shining from the television (covered in gauze, mind you) showing a little soft-porn for all the kiddies who might be interested. You know who it look like lived there in that room - that guy that runs Playboy magazine, Hugh Heffner, oh, but wait, the gay male verion of Hugh Heffner....his name, Jeff Hughes.

I turned on my heels and walked to the stairs to the room. A string of red lights lead me directly to the roof. When I emerged on the roof this stage light from the front blinded me. Jeff and Ann were on the stage floor going over some notes. Jeff's performance would go on sometime that night. He had been working so diligently on this project, trying to perfect the tale that he wanted to tell with the help of language, music, and movement.

I went back downstairs. As I walked towards the door, I heard conversation and laughter and music. I stood in front of the door for a second. It was like this party was my baby that I needed to be done just right. I wanted each and every person to have a good time. I wanted each and every person to take a little something from the night with them when they left. I put my hand on the door and pushed. Let the party begin.