The party itself was a failure. Many of the people who said they would attend did not; there were a few new friends, but attendance in general was down from last year’s Christmas party, my high watermark. The food was unexpected and greeted without relish. The cookies all had the same texture, but at least they were sweet and buttery enough to get snapped up.
A moment of joy came at the end of the night, but it will only turn out to be another failure. Coming back from the bar after last call, I ran into the upstairs neighbour. Beautiful and cheerful, she felt safe enough to come inside at 4am for a smoke. Told me that her old roommate with the dog named Olive had a crush on me. Her name is C–, and she appeared like a joyful ray from out of a dark sky. Warm, cheerful, bubbly, cute. I was too wasted to make an impression—could barely slur together a few limp questions to try to learn a bit more about her.
For 24 cold and delirious hours, I was riding high on a memory as thought it were Pegasus. 15 minutes is enough fuel for days—we’ll see how long. The next morning, I got a rejection letter from APCON. When I knocked on the door to deploy my Trojan horse (a pack of rolling papers), the blonde answered; and as usual she seemed grumpy, unhappy to be disturbed. But who likes when a stranger knocks on their door?