2003-05-05
8:21 p.m.

Prom Date

Which UGLY PROM DRESS are YOU?
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So prom season is upon us again, and once again, I am struck with an inexplicable sadness.

Actually, it's not entirely inexplicable: the problem is that I never actually got to go to my prom back in 1988. I almost did. My friend Razi and I wanted to dress up in old clothes and go in a hearse, but he had this long-distance girlfriend or something and she didn't want him to go if he wasn't gonna go with her.

Hell - I never got to go to any prom, and neither did Paula, which is why -- every year for the past eleventy-seven billion years -- we promise each other that we're going to throw ourselves a prom. We even have gone so far as to narrow the "theme" down to the following two choices:

• "A Magical Night of Peach Schnapps Vomit"
• "Let's Pretend All The Mean, Popular Kids Grew Up To Be Gas Station Attendants And Barflies"

Every year around this time, the topic rears its taffeta-bedecked head, and every year, something "more important" is going on to prevent us from having our goddamn prom. I mean, last spring it was because of Paula's wedding, and this spring it's because I took on too many performance obligations.

I'm sad, too, because what I really want is for Clay Aiken to take me to my prom. I mean, I've got me a houseboy, and he's the bestest, most stunningly patient houseboy in the world, under the circumstances. And quite frankly - once you wipe the vaseline off the lens and bring it all into focus it's really kind of a grotesque picture: dreamy Clay Aiken taking some 32-year-old dumpy punk rock drummer in an old 50's cocktail dress to a "prom" populated by jaded scenesters listening to old Soft Cell records.

But, I mean, who's to say he wouldn't be into that?

At the rate things are going, Paula and I fully expect to be holding our long-awaited prom in the Spring of 2010.

I'm sitting by my phone, Clay. You know where to find me.

Discuss.

-Lisa