The Cool Girl

I remember well my 16th birthday party.  My best friend Emilee and I had birthdays 6 weeks apart, and so we chose to throw a joint bash 3 weeks after hers and 3 weeks before mine.  That landed us on a Friday night one week into our Junior year of high school.  We made all the plans and tried to get out invites but without Facebook or texting (I know, I'm old...) we had to do it the old fashioned way.  We made our plans, got food, decorated, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And no one came.  For hours.

It turns out that Emilee and I, oblivious to the importance of high school sports, scheduled our party at the same time as a football game, and all our friends had gone to the game instead.

Finally, after the game, people started to trickle over.  But no one had actually read the invitations, which said to bring swimming suits because it was a swimming party.

Eventually some of our friends just decided to swim in their clothes, and it turned out to be a really fun party.  But I was still scarred, and to this day, I am really nervous to throw a party.

But as I got a few weekends into the 5 week long run of Oklahoma! and started to become friends with my castmates, I got the idea to invite everybody over for pancakes and games one night after the show.  I was ridiculously nervous about asking them.  We were such an odd assortment of ages, me being older than almost everyone in the cast, and even though we got along great at the theatre, would we be able to extend that beyond? 

I got up the courage, and I sent out the FB invite (ah, technology, thank you!) and...

They came!

Backstage, I never had a shortage of friends for me to beat at games.  I especially loved our "Totally Insane Card Game" tournament.  See my name there with the winning score?

And a couple weekends later when I suggested playing at the park after the show, they came then, too. 

*Sidenote: Sorry to anyone in our neighborhood who may have been disturbed by the noise, and especially to whoever called the cops on us.  I was trying to keep them quiet, but Sasha just screams really loud!  It was pretty entertaining, though, when the cops asked us how old we all were, and I spoke up first, "Twenty-nine."  I assured the cops that I'd make sure everyone got home, and when they asked me where exactly home was, I told them I owned the house two doors down.

Even if I had to wait until I was 29, it was nice to feel like the cool girl.