Par-tay!

I'm going to a baby-naming ceremony this weekend, for a friend of ours who we've known for years. You might know her name, or recognize her face; she's had a couple of series. She lives in Bel Aire; she was telling me about her house once, with its so-big-there's-a-tree-in-it bathroom, and I'm almost salivating with excitement at getting to see this place, assuming I can finagle a tour at some point during the ceremony/general merriment.

But that salivating is being offset by a huge case of oh-my-god-really-REALLY-famous-people-will-be-at-this-partyitis and the subsequent dry mouth that causes. I am so not a Beautiful Person. I am a very social person, but only when I feel I'm in my element. I just have visions of me wanting to just sink into the floor rather than have to come up with something to say to people whose faces I've seen on movie screens many times. Then again, truth of the matter is, said people and their faces probably won't be talking to me to begin with, so I'm not really sure what I'm worried about. Oh, yeah. That really, REALLY famous people won't be talking to me.

Oh, and it pisses me off that I care. I mean, I don't really care. Except, obviously, I do.

I wish I were like E. One of my all-time favorite E stories is when she was just over a year old, and we were at the home of the parents of friends of ours for a birthday party, and Michael Keaton was there. And Michael just thought E was the cutest thing on two legs. (She was.) At one point, he was kind of cooing at her and talking to her, but she wasn't interested in him; she was interested in the pasta I had just put on my plate. Michael is playing with her toes, and reaches over and gives her feet a kiss. Yep, Michael Keaton kissed my daughter's feet. And what did E do? She gave a little grunt of annoyance, pulled her feet away, and grabbed a handful of pasta. That's my girl. Playing hard to get.

Later on that day, I'm sitting in a lounge chair chatting with a friend, when I see Michael coming my way. Now, I knew 95% of the people at the party, so I was fine, in my element, being all witty and charming and crap. And I'm thinking to myself, "Wow, check it out. Michael Keaton's coming to talk to me. To me! I'm so cool." (Yeah, the fact that I still frequently use the word cool should have been my first hint as to how much I am not cool.) Of course, when he gets to where I am, he barely glances my way as he says, "Hey, where'd your beautiful daughter get to?" I point her out by the pingpong table, and he's off like a shot. And that, my friends, is the extent of my close personal relationship with Michael Keaton.

Is it any wonder I'm worried about this weekend?