The nature of parties

By nature, I’m not the biggest party-goer you’re likely to meet. I’m more likely to catch a few beers with friends after work on a Sunday afternoon than go cruising through Dallas in the middle of the night. (Not that I haven’t done it, but I digress.) But just as a bit of advice, I suggest that if you’re going to party, always do it with artists.

I’ve gone to parties with writers. By and large we’re a shifty, socially awkward bunch. Hunched shoulders, bad posture, a greasy sensibility. The writers I know tend to try to sell you on their next project over a round of beers, or try to shove their Amazon profile link on you over nachos and Wii. Which is not to say that all writers are pathologically incapable of refraining from selling themselves long enough to have a good time. Horror and bizarro writers, I find, tend to be fun to hang around with, mostly because we drink so much anyway, with or without a party to go to. (Just what do you mean  by “functioning alcoholic“?) But artists, artists are my most favorite people to party with.

Artists always know the best places to score. They wear the best outfits and have the most fascinating things in their hair. Most artists I know are laugh the loudest and have the best time, even better than me, with my deliberate and non-ironic Bad Dancing (TM) and unyielding need to embarrass myself in public. They can hold the best conversations, sober or not, and sometimes especially not, which is why we’re at the party in the first place. Artists — especially illustrators — are the first to arrive and the last ones to leave. They’ll be the first to start pranking people with elaborate bathroom traps and butter on windshields. (Oh, a freshly buttered windshield, you’re always so funny as long as you’re not mine.)

Then again, my idea of a perfect social event is a lazy afternoon in watching Star Trek and drinking Mexican beer, so what do I know?