[Part 2] So I got home, showered, and immediately changed into something appropriately light and skanky, before rejoining the throng in the courtyard. Another amateur (Penn-affiliated?) band was playing a Beatles song, which struck me as adorable and very strange in context (a common theme during the weekend). I met Jess, Kellen, Ted, and Anne on the steps separating Lower and Upper Quad - and we chatted for a while about the drunken silliness in our midst; on the way to meet them, for example, I saw a boy lean out a window and yell at a group of girls, "Hey, you girls!" in what I can only assume was an abortive seduction technique. We parted ways again, with Jess, Sarah, Joe R., Nat, Mollie + friends, and me assembling to see Kill Bill: Vol. 2 at The Bridge.


I think I enjoyed the movie, but right now my most pressing memory associated with it is of Joe passing Jess and me a hip flask (!!), containing whiskey, across several seats in the theater. Jess and I stared at it for a long moment, hardly believing that an act of such anachronistic shadiness had occurred, before passing it back unsampled. It certainly looked like something from another era; it was what Hemingway would have taken to Kill Bill. After the movie, Nat threw an impromptu party that was actually very successful. The quantity of alcohol, first of all, was admirable; Jess, Kellen, and I missed margarita-time, because we were talking about lit and playing with his digital camera. However, Joe made me some very tolerable tequila sunrises, and later (when I was too drunk to pay attention to what it was called) I had some sour apple-flavored liquor that tasted just like a Jolly Rancher!


Meanwhile, all party guests were branded with UPS stickers that someone had gotten for free online. Ted gave Meredith, Anne, and me amazing massages in succession. And the ambience: The Simpsons was playing on mute most of the time I was at the party, which speaks to someone's care and devotion in taping episodes. Moreover, the following charming, out-of-place (of course) songs played: "Stairway to Heaven," "Strawberry Fields Forever," and "The Freshman." The latter inspired everyone in the room to belt along - and I was nursing one of several tequila sunrises, singing, "For the life of me, I cannot remember / What made us think that we were wise and / We'd never compromise.... We were merely freshmen," and feeling very content and self-conscious (or conscious of my fallibility and the youthfulness of everyone in the room).


On Saturday, I woke at noon, showered, and put on my graduation dress and flip-flops, in preparation for a full day of Fling. During daylight hours, I mostly sat or walked around campus with friends, getting as much visibility out of that beautiful dress as possible. I remember talking with Sarah outside Au Bon Pain, watching the busy exuberance on Locust Walk and listening to distant music from the Quad. At night, I attended a carnival on Wynn Commons and moonbounced in a skirt. There was a giant inflatable slide, too, which I remember experiencing once before, with childhood ecstasy, at a county fair - but the line was always too long for me to recover that lost, pure happiness.


I summarized Fling as follows: equal parts debauchery and regression (two of my favorites). We all consumed frozen chocolate-covered bananas, falafel, cotton candy, and grape-flavored Sprite; I think we were supposed to be drunk at the time. We also sat on the concrete and watched an a cappella group ("She Moves in Mysterious Ways," in honor of Commencement speaker Bono, was dear), the Penn Swing Dance Club (featuring Joe), and Penn Jazz (featuring Kellen and Ted). Late in the evening, Anne, Sarah, and several other people filmed a music video of "Beat It" at a carnival booth, while Jess and I looked on in mortification/admiration. The others partied after that, but apparently I'm too cranky to drink more than once per week, even on special occasions like Fling. I went home instead, and bade a quiet farewell to the last social weekend of the semester. On Sunday, I wore something vaguely sketchy to Team Meeting at DP, but the moment had passed. [Still more to come.]