Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again: Halloween Party '07

Legend has it that the Constantine Halloween party is famous throughout the University of York for being a really big deal. I’m not sure if this is entirely true, but it’s certainly a Thing among the Manor-based crew, and since this year it was the first party of the year, everyone really wanted to make it a proper do. Last year I got very excited about it and involved in the planning and everything; this year I just don’t have the time, energy, or, quite honestly, the caring. I just can’t get excited about much of anything this year; I feel completely out of the loop, and I don’t even care. But this is one of the rare times when everyone in the house is working on something together, and since I haven’t got to know the new people as well as perhaps I should, I decided to try and do at least something towards the community effort.

Jaclyn, who’s from Canada (this continually surprises me- she is so very American) and who might be best described as a sorority cheerleader in personality, took charge with a vengeance. To her credit, she’s very organised, is capable of being diplomatic (a necessity with Claire Inman, the evil and moronic house-manager, breathing down our necks), and really is tremendously enthusiastic. Her baby was the decorations, which, in my opinion, is perhaps the least consideration when it comes to university parties. (People come to hang out, dance, and most of all drink.) I took over the food committee, and Louisa was in charge of drinks. We managed to cadge £200 from the GSA and Wentworth budgets combined, which is a considerable leap from last year, so we had mulled wine and punch and beer to offer. I made a slew of sponge cakes and sandwiches, and that was my chief contribution to the organisational effort.

I can’t say I was tremendously excited about the whole thing. I’m so tired all the time and I’m so wrapped up in my work, that when I do have time to kick back and relax, I’d rather hang out quietly with a couple of good friends than spend the night at a loud, drunken party. And try though I might not to make comparisons, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking how different it was from last year. By this time last year we were all pretty good friends, and certainly I had figured out who my close friends were going to be. The party was exciting because it was getting ready together, and hanging out before everyone else arrived, and then all just being crazy and having memories together. This year isn’t like that for me at all. My close friends in York don’t live here, and we don’t really spend time together as a house. Part of that is that, while last year we were almost all King’s Manor based, this year there are several people in different departments on campus. And those who are at the Manor have chosen to spend a lot of time down on campus at events and making friends there, so the pool of people is much larger and more diversified, and the house is, by result, not as closely united. We’re too early in the Lords season for that to be having much effect on the overall dynamic.

Still, I wanted to go in costume this year- I hate crapweasling out due to lack of time, as happened last year- but it had to be something that would require minimal effort. So I went as a New England gravestone. I took some cardboard and made wings for the side of my head, painted my face white and blacked out my eyes, and then, on another piece of cardboard which hung around my neck, wrote out an epitaph. It took all of about forty-five minutes to make, which was really all the time I had. Jaclyn had everyone running around like chickens with their heads off right up until about an hour before the party started.

I will say that people really went all out with costumes. Louisa was a mummy, which was fantastic, except that her bandages kept falling off in rather important places, so halfway through the evening she put on the PVC nun suit again. I don’t know what Dave was but his head makeup, courtesy of Louisa, was amazing. Spalding and Russell were a dance-competition duo- their outfits were fabulous. The Minster House ladies and some others came as a set- Claire’s boyfriend was Henry VIII and the others were his wives, so Ashley was Katherine of Aragon, Christina was Anne Boleyn, Lauly (who came back for the party) was Katherine Howard (I think), and Ehren was Anne of Cleves, complete in Apollonius-gold heels. I’m not sure if Claire was Jane Seymour or Katherine Howard. Michelle and Garrett were zombies. Gerrard (also in town for the event) wore a lot of Dutch-flag themed clothing and a trench coat and came as a Dutch Rapist (which, for anyone reading this who didn’t live here last year, is pretty much an inside joke).

Of the new people: Carolyn, the other American (she’s from Boston- it’s weird that our New England contingent is so small this year), was Katherine Howard, but her dress was about eighty year too late (I was the only one who noticed, apparently). Katie came as Margaret Clitherow, and her boyfriend Tom was Dick Turpin, so they get points for keeping with the York theme. Johnny was a teabag- he made it out of tulle stuffed with leaves; he won for best costume. Strasz was Sweeney Todd (I think I was the only one who guessed it- he is the other musicals buff in the house this year). Charlotte threw on a wimple, but left off the rest of the nun’s habit. Catherine was a witch in corset and skirt, and Lucy rented a French maid outfit. I’ll be getting the photos up on the other website hopefully tomorrow, so you can see it all.

And then there were about two hundred other people who showed up, almost all of them in costume. I have no idea who any of them were, to be honest. It was the most massively enormous party we have ever had here at Constantine, again the result of having people based on campus, which spread the word far and wide. We violated pretty much every promise we made to Claire Inman about keeping it small, but when the Manor security came by (per our request, to try and make a compromise with the Evil Inman) they were quite satisfied that all was well (possibly because they only walked around the back garden, and didn’t see the melee inside). We were diligent about making people sign in, and we did have a (relatively) sober person around (me- not by choice).

I did not intend to be the sober guardian of the drunken masses. In fact, that was exactly what I didn’t want to be. But someone, early on, had the arguably wise/arguably foolish idea to use Charlotte’s room (Gerrard’s old Room 3) for the coatroom. This was okay, because the room had just been mould-treated and painted, and so Charlotte is temporarily up in Virginia’s old room (which had that treatment a week ago). But some of her stuff is still in 03, so she was uneasy about people going in and out. The promise was made to her that someone would be there all night to keep an eye on it, and the idea was that everyone would take shifts at the sign-in/food/coat-check table. The problem was that everyone got progressively less interested in this duty, while getting progressively more intoxicated. Well, it might not’ve been my idea, but someone clearly had to step up to being responsibly, so I ended up doing it, simply because it was obvious that no one else would. (It started because, with my headdress on, behind the table was the safest place for me.) And I ended up getting stuck there almost all night.

The truth is, I don’t know how much fun I would’ve had out in the crowd anyway. There were just way too many strangers there, and way too many people in general. I don’t like not feeling able to breathe in a mob. And the moments that were fun were the few when I managed to sneak away from the table and hang out with the Old Guard, who were all bunched up in a corner by the DJ table. There it was comfortable and familiar, although even that wasn’t perfect: in being surrounded by the remains of last year’s crowd, I missed everyone who wasn’t there that much more (which is saying a lot, because there are people I miss terribly pretty much 24/7 anyway).

My only real break from it was to take care of the drunks. We had more people who were really, truly, falling down drunk at last night’s party than at any I have ever been to in my life. Apart from the people I knew who got quite tanked, there were a lot of strangers bumping into things and falling over. I have, it would seem, a particular talent for coping with them, so I was the one escorting people outside to get air and convincing them to drink some water and generally trying to keep an eye on things. One guy was absolutely falling over himself, so I walked him out to the back garden. He yelled at me for pointing out that the steps were coming up, because he “wasn’t stupid or so drunk he couldn’t figure that out”. Immediately after which he pitched down them on his arse. I was oddly unsympathetic, and people that plastered don’t usually get hurt (beyond what I’m sure are some lovely bruises today). (He was sober enough by the end of the evening to say thank you to me before stumbling, quite literally, out the front door.)

I think I stayed up until about three-thirty, four o’clock, at which point I was practically dead on my feet from exhaustion, and all I really wanted to do was go down to my room, have a really good cry, and go to bed. (No, I was not drunk. I didn’t even achieve tipsy. Which is sad- you’d think that two Black Russians heavy on the vodka, a glass of cider, a glass of wine, a screwdriver, and a pint of equal parts vodka and cola, would do something, if only because it’s a hideous shmay of booze. Nope. Not so much as a tingle.) I found Charlotte, got permission to abandon her room to its fate, went downstairs, and did exactly as I planned.

This morning I slept until about noon, and then had breakfast with the reunion crowd- Louisa and David, Gerrard and Ehren, Ashley and Lauly, and Michelle and Garrett. It was absolutely lovely and felt just so… more like the way life is supposed to be. (I wonder if I am ever going to adjust to it not being the way life is supposed to be anymore.)

Then it was off to clean up. Jaclyn had planned on having everyone do cleanup on Sunday, but the house was such an indescribably shit-sty that it really did have to tackled right away. Honestly, I have never seen a house this filthy in all my life. Wait, that’s not true- I have, after a couple of really ghastly frat parties I got dragged to with friends. I remember being at them and thinking, God, I feel so horrible for whoever has to clean this up tomorrow. Well, now I am who has to clean up tomorrow. Johnny, his brother, Lucy, and I started rounding up the stray bottles and cans and throwing out the general garbage. It took a couple hours, but we managed to get to hooverable before I went out for tea with Lauly. The common room is mostly presentable at this point, although we still need to wash the walls. The foyer is better, but needs to be hoovered, and the loo, which is so revolting I actually will not set foot in it, still needs to be tackled, but I wash my hands of it. I did enough pick-up, and most of the dishes, and I’m done for. (The only good part of this was that someone left unopened bottles of fairly good rum and peach schnapps lying about, which I squirreled away into my growing liquor cabinet, along with some cheap beer for baking bread.) We really should wash the steps and hoover the stairs, because they are repellently sticky, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. The real question is whether or not the cleaners will get to it.

I think the party would be considered a resounding success. Everyone seems to think that the general state of filth is proof of that, although I’m not sure I equate minging revulsion with a party well thrown. But everyone seems quite pleased with it, so I’m not going to argue. I’m just glad it’s over, and I get to worrying about the next event looming on the horizon- not the dissertation, but my upcoming formal Samhain dinner this Wednesday. I am way more excited about that than I was about the Halloween party, maybe because I think anyone can throw drunken debauchery pretty successfully, but a formal dinner part is an art form. And Samhain, as opposed to Halloween, has been a more solemn, less debauched holiday in my world for many years now, so that’s more comfortable for me.

If I didn’t miss everyone so damn much, it probably would have been quite a fun party. As it is, it was a good party. It an okay night. Now onward and upward to quieter, smaller, better things.