Choose Your Adjectives Carefully

Guys like treble. Girls like bass. It must be true because I heard it on public radio.

An early Christmas present means I now own a pair of sky-high black suede platform shoes with feathers on the outside and leopard print inside, appropriately made by Bettie Page Shoes. It's a thrill to be so tall.

Sometimes I need to keep my thoughts to myself. Spying a neighbor sporting a big, puffy jacket in today's 75-degree weather, I crack wise. "A jacket, really?" and he responds soberly, "I'm allergic to the sun."  Awkward.

At the Rogue Gentlemen for dinner, Michael Jackson's "PYT" playing, my compadre and I meet a 25-year old celebrating her birthday.

Waiting for her friend to arrive, we begin filling in the Mad-Lib book, which also doubles as the cocktail list, in front of us. She is young, so her word choices are meant to show off her vocabulary (oscillating, expository) whereas my friend and I know how much funnier Mad-Libs are with raunch (spits, bends, lubricates).

Although practically strangers, we read them to each other to great effect until the food arrives.

Buttermilk-brined country-fried popcorn chicken sports a swipe of barbecue sauce with a serious kick, offset by pickle relish. I might take issue with that "country-fried" part, though.

My companion is dismayed when her Painted Hills strip steak arrives as a series of medallions and accompanied by too few butterbeans (are there ever enough butterbeans, really?), although we both get off on the toothsome baby carrots and red bliss potatoes.

The birthday girl's friend arrives and they order matching drinks and then pass one over to us to sniff, as if we're some sort of experts.

"It smells like an old book," she says, although my date finds it closer to Mercurochrome, a tincture this 25-year old has never even heard of. Given that, it's probably better that she missed our discussion of Madge Wildwood ("Timber!") in the party scene at "Breakfast at Tiffany's."

The way I figure it, my little apartment is an ideal place to replicate that iconic, overstuffed party, something that's been a goal of mine for several years now. And I bought a fabulous cocktail dress today that would be perfect for hostessing (and by hostessing, I mean offering up my abode for the revelry, nothing more), maybe even with those cute new shoes.

First I'll need a liquor store that delivers.

Laughs came courtesy of "Richmond Famous" at the Comedy Coalition Theater, where the guest of honor was Maat Free who told stories from her life and then let the improv troupe destroy them.

From Maat and the resulting hilarity, we gleaned several things.

Normal is boring, but it's accepted by society. Some people's biggest problem is missing their shows.

The reason so many chairs were unoccupied, Maat said, was because her friends weren't yet there. "It's because of CPT," she said. "Look it up in the Urban Dictionary when you get home." Did. It means colored people's time and the stereotype that they're usually late.

You see how educational "Richmond Famous" can be?

Also, gentlemen, don't piss off Maat Free. She has decked three different men - whom she refers to as "testosterits" - for various infractions, including a boyfriend for not washing the wok after making pork before preparing her vegan string beans. Another went down for looking at her across a crowded room.

I'd need far more serious infractions to attempt decking a man, I think.

And in a first for "Richmond Famous," the evening ended with a lecture about the difference in being called a slave (defining a person) and referring to them as enslaved (a reference to their condition). When everyone agrees with that distinction by a show of hands, she asks us all to make a fist with that raised hand, making for a rather cool moment in a crowd that was probably 85% white.

"In Richmond, yes!" she exclaims, clearly delighted at the show of solidarity.

It was a beautiful thing to witness: bass and treble united in their beliefs at RCC tonight. Of course, everyone knows it really is all about the bass.