New Year's Eve

Jason and I bought tickets to a new year's eve party this year, at a little place called Jazz Magnolias, which is New Orleans-infused, and usually a great atmosphere.uWe were hoping to avoid the teenage bar scene and be able to do something a little more adult. Jazz Magnolias, in this town anyway, is considered somewhat upscale, which means it's a step above the Outback Steakhouse (and there isn't much above that!), so we dressed up and plied ourselves with lots of champagne before we even left the house. It was a dinner/dance thing, so it started early, which means I was running around trying to get myself ready at a frenzied pace for most of the afternoon. Now, let me just say that we had the best time ever last night, really the best new year's I've ever had. The food was wonderful (mmm cajun shrimp), the crowd was great, the music was really good, both live band and dj, the drinks were only moderately overpriced, and there isn't anything more I could have wanted. But because we were with an 'older crowd' there were quite a few middle aged partiers there, which made for an interesting experience.

You know how there's always this one guy at a bar who is too old to be there, and he's alone and checking out all the 17 year old girls, and he's dancing around like he's a god, and his shirt is unbuttoned to show off his greying chest hair...well, it seems like they rounded up all these guys from all the surrounding bars and brought them all to Jazz. The result: hilarious! There was this one guy, great big beer gut, grey goatee, legs and ass poured into these black leather pants, and boy, he just knew he was hot! And this other guy with a ponytail and a circa 1970s John Travolta suit was bopping around to his own beat, apparently.

Other observations:

-This one dude looked a lot like Michael Moore, except bigger, but he had the same beard and the same goofy smile, and he was all decked out in his best sweater vest, and he was out on the dance floor playing the meanest air guitar that I've ever seen. He especially liked the AC/DC.

-Why do men think that clapping off-tempo is a dance move? A full 40% of the men there depended on this move as the bulk of their dancing repertoire. Some of them were still clapping off-beat during the slow songs. Who told them to do this?

-There was this one lady who teased her bangs extra high for the special occasion. She also wore super high stone-washed jeans...the kind that come up past the hips, over the belly button, up the rib cage, and don't end until just under the best. Sexy. Well, she thought so anyway. She was shimmying all over the place, just so proud of herself, and I thought, lady, you're too old and I'm too sober. So I went and got a couple more drinks.

-Dr. Phil was there. Dr. Phil is a bad dancer, as it turns out. He just plants his feet on the floor and doesn't move them ever again. Then he kind of thrusts his chest out, this way and that. It kind of looks like a chicken's mating ritual. Sometimes he would throw in some off-tempo clapping, but clearly with moves like that, he didn't need much clapping. He was feeling the music.