I went to a fun party

Okay, so since the departure of J— I've felt a bit freundlos, so took the plunge and posted an online ad in order to meet new people. There is a site here, though, that bans explicitly sexual content—it screens the photos you upload and everything—but even so my expectations were not high. On my ad, I ask (using language adapted from my Friendster thingy): "Do you know of any poorly-publicized club night I should check out? Is there an out-of-the-way cafe that I'd never find on my own that you could show me? Hidden bargains on fabulous clothes? Secret menu items at cheap restaurants? Drop me a line."

In response to this, two homosexuals, who do not know each other, both independently suggested that I go to "Unskinny Bop," a poorly-publicized party in scrappy East London. I was made apprehensive by the fact that the club's description sounds like an undergraduate term paper ("There is nothing superficial about music and the enjoyment of music through the act of dance"—Where's my red pen!?), but I was encouraged by the fact that lesbians are involved. (London lesbians, as J— was the first to point out to me, are oddly invisible and oddly segregated from the gay boys.)

In any case I don't want to arrive alone, so I rope a friendly-seeming guy who'd been chatting me up online, and we head over to exotic Bethnal Green... and proceeded to have the best night out I've had in months. The space had this feeling of a Victorian front parlor, minus the furniture—the walls all at odd angles, and with beautiful crown molding—and painted in a simulacrum of 70s psychedelia, without being too... ersatz. The crowd was friendly, a little hipster-ish, but dressed down. But the music was absolutely fantastic. This utterly adorable bespectacled dyke on the decks was following old old hip hop with the Pixies with Madonna with Northern Soul with Nina Simone. Fantabulous.

Had a discussion with one of the guys who invited me about how close the party was to its inevitable decline (either abandoned by the regulars, or invaded by the riff raff, etc.). For now, the only downside for me was the absolutely torturous night bus home—almost an hour and a half, and I got home after 4. But this was perhaps a small price to pay.

I neglected to blog about Friday night's adventure with super-cool cultural-studies-scholar-with-a-bad-girl-past who is on the same fellowship as me. She is awesome. When she goes out drinking, she only drinks vodka, straight up. Hard core. I shall pass over the details of our Abendteuerabend, because it's sunny and beautiful and I want to be outside. Let it suffice to say that I've had a good weekend.