Seraphic Goes Clubbing

This morning I woke up at 11 AM and had a hearty laugh. No canvassing for me this morning, for instead of going to bed at 11 PM like a responsible adult, I crept up the stairs of the Historical House at 2:45 AM.  Benedict Ambrose left me a message on the bathroom door to say he was at the office. Naturally I telephoned him at once.

"I got hit on," I said smugly. Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha!

"A man likes to know his wife gets hit on. Or could be hit on," said B.A. cheerfully, which goes to show--once again--that B.A. is a nice, normal man of a confident and easygoing disposition. Apparently there are men out there who would respond to such news by smashing up the furniture, etc.

But I see I am way ahead of myself. It is Seraphic Singles Saturday, so let us talk about the club scene--after I have another fit of giggles.

I once dragged my mother to a Goth Club when she was in her forties. It was a scream. Indeed, it felt like a massive violation of some Gen Y social rule that you never disguise your mother as a twenty-something Goth and take her with you to clubs. Alas, that was after the Vampire Bar had changed venues, and so my mother did not see the 1890s decadent romanticism I had seen in the original, but two dark, candle-lit floors of fire hazard. 

However, my mother was (and is) the mother of five, so her 40-something point of view was quite different from my 40-something point of view, and when I go to clubs (once or twice a year) my primary concern is not death but how to stay awake past 1 AM. My darling creation Catriona (of Ceremony of Innocence), who is years younger than me, controversially resorted to club drugs. I, however, merely drink coffee before going out.

Balkanarama is a quarterly concert event in Edinburgh and Glasgow, featuring loud Balkan, Greek, Turkish and Gypsy bands, belly-dancers, free plum brandy and repetition of the cry "Opa!" It has a reputation among the student population of Edinburgh for craziness, and I have long wanted to go. I finally went last night with two of B.A.'s twenty-something colleagues, after a Before Clubbing drinks party in the Historical Flat. I was wearing a gypsy-ish rose-printed dress, a black belly-dancing hip scarf and a face covered in slap.

I also had something like 50 mL of argan oil in my hair, which is probably why I got hit on. As long-term readers know, I have masses and masses of very dry fuzzy red hair, rather like a ginger sheep, and so as not to stand out like a woman-sized cone of cotton candy, I generally braid it up and brush it flat. I only allow it to take its natural course of hairiness when I am going to a very unconventional party. Still, I don't like looking like a human puff ball, so recently I have followed in my little sister's footsteps and begun to experiment with argan oil. Yesterday I achieved actual curls.

Ironically, what struck me most about my fellow clubbers was how hairy they were. Almost all the young men--we are talking twenty-somethings--had beards. A large percentage of the girls had long hair hanging loosely down their backs. And strangely most of the men were short or of middle height--some of the girls were simply tiny--which I suppose is not so strange for Scotland, although from the accents I heard it seemed to be a mixed European crowd, which is not so strange for Edinburgh--or, for obvious reasons, Balkanarama.

The men wore untucked button-down shirts or T-shirts over jeans or trousers. The women wore a variety of garments but were generally unnoticeable unless they dressed like gypsies or belly-dancers or made out with their boyfriends right in front of me, which was gross. The MC, a Rubenesque young lady, wore a black corset and a giant black feather in her hair. One of my companions, who also got chatted up, had done up her hair in a fetching and lady-like chignon, which made her stand out in the crowd.

And this is where I advise shy but hoping Searching Singles to dress up in the spirit of club events. Umpteen girls told me they loved my "costume" and three men approached me to tell me they loved my hair. Were I an intensely outgoing person, or at the club to meet people, I could have used that as an opportunity to start conversations. 

The down side was being chased around the dance floor by a small bearded man who eventually gave up on women and spent the rest of the evening bouncing up and down beside, hugging and kissing, an equally small bespectacled chap with a scarf tied around his neck, who looked as if Christmas had come back. Sadly, the small bearded man and his new friend were often right in front of me, beside the girl making out with her boyfriend, so I did not enjoy the evening as much as I might have. I think he must have been at least a wee bit insane. Or on drugs.

It was insanely crowded--not just on the dance floor but around the bar, and the next time I go to a club concert event I will make sure to purchase a bottle of water as soon as I get there so as not to become dehydrated. And as this seems like a very odd note to end a post on going to a club, I will instead link to a video that illustrates the kind of music one is likely to hear at Balkanarama.

And here is a link to last night's main act.