Some folks we met through Newcomers said they'd be attending the organization's happy hour event yesterday at Oliver's, a restaurant near us that we like, so we figured we should go. Before we headed out, Adam reminded me that we'd have to wear name tags, and I pointed out that a big red Newcomers sign would be out front, too.
"It's so embarrassing," he said.
"Mortifying."
"And the hosts there know us." That gave me pause.
We managed to enter without anyone from the restaurant seeing us, and a drink called Little Miss Sunshine, which must've been half gin, numbed the despair. There were more misses than hits, but that's life. Of course, the folks who spurred us to go never showed.
As we were heading toward the door, awash in the euphoria that comes with leaving, the host looked up. "You're not Newcomers," he said, with disbelief.
"This never happened," I hissed. "We were never here."
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I finally had another good celebrity dream: I was attending the Oscars with Tiffany Haddish as my date, and she kept ditching me, even going so far as to switch place cards so that she could be next to someone of higher standing.
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It's not just the jacarandas: Purple flowers are abloom all over town. I like to think they're responding to the release of the new Prince album, Originals. The songs are all the initial versions of ones he gave to other artists—"Nothing Compares 2 U," "Manic Monday," "The Glamorous Life," etc. Hearing his voice gives me such joy! And such sadness. The irony, of course, is that if he hadn't died, we may never have gotten to hear these recordings. I do hope the Prince estate doesn't limit itself to one release per year; he famously had a ton of unreleased music in his vault, and I'm only going to live so long. Bring on Camille!