Dinner party

1:30 - I go shopping in preparation for a dinner party I'm having with a friend. I've never hosted a dinner party before. It's much more work, not to mention much more expensive, than I expected. I'm at Albertson's piling tomatoes, parmesan cheese, red bell peppers, parsley, lemons, bread, and some other ingredients into the cart. Technically, this is a potluck dinner, but as co-hostess I'm hoping to impress people with my cooking.

3:00 - I text everyone in my cell phone contacts list that I think has a shot in hell of making it to the party to remind them about it. Sadly this turns out to be a small number of people. A former classmate I haven't seen in over a year is probably a long shot, but you never know...

4:00 - I'm ironing my pink and black polka-dotted shirt that I'm planning to wear with a black skirt tonight. I actually want to look like a girl tonight rather than dressing in my more usual unisex attire. Ironing is the bane of my existence. I think the absolute worst part is thinking I've finished ironing something, and then inspecting it and finding a huge wrinkle in it.

5:00 - I start cooking. The party starts at 7:00. Two hours will be enough time to cook, I assume. Brownies first, since they take the longest to cook, right? Then a salad, which consists of lettuce, tomatoes, olives, mushrooms, cucumbers, onions, and sunflower seeds tossed with salt and pepper, lemon, and olive oil. Now this is a good salad. Try it and you'll see.

6:00 - Things are getting a little out of hand. How do you turn on the broiler? I run over to my mom and ask her the best way to cook chicken. How much parsley is in a handful? The brownies smell a little burned. I turn on a pot to boil water for pasta then turn it off because I realize I'm in no way ready for that yet. I plug in the food processor and put some garlic and olive oil in the microwave. The kitchen is getting hot. I'm going to be late to my own party. I imagine my guests sitting there bored and uncomfortable, wondering where I am. I'm just hoping to get through the hour without burning my hand or cutting a finger off with a knife.

6:30 - My co-worker calls -- he's coming to the party! Very cool.

6:45 - OK, I've successfully managed to put everything together in dishes with serving utensils. My fingers are intact and unburned. The kitchen is a mess, but I'll deal with that later. I run upstairs to throw on some make-up.

7:00 - I'm in my car with a bunch of glass and ceramic dishes. I call my friend to tell her I'll be late.

7:20 - I have arrived. I bring everything in to my friend C.'s amazingly cool old house. Only three people are there when I arrive, to my relief. The food our guests bring as they trickle in is awesome -- curry, chicken with cloves, spaghetti. C. even made sugar cookies with frosting. I have to say my fettuccine with chicken, red pepper sauce, and parmesan cheese looks and tastes good, too. And the brownies weren't burned after all.

8:00 - The night's entertainment involves sitting and talking, watching "The King and I" on TCM and at the same time listening to an iPod mix list that includes Johnny Cash's cover of "Personal Jesus" and the "Across the Universe" soundtrack. The music fits with the movie in an unexpectedly complementary way. The conversation is about travel and hypnosis and grad school classes. I like friends who can appreciate math jokes. I look around - about 80 percent of us wear glasses. I think it's a grad school thing.

9:30 - I'm in a tiny car with three other people and we're headed to a restaurant to go salsa dancing. The driver is a guy I went out with twice who didn't call me again after that. I'm trying to figure out why he came to the party. We pass the star on the mountain as I talk about my job and I feel like an interesting person for about two minutes. One girl says she likes Patty Griffin's music. Patty Griffin sounds interesting.

10:00 - The four of us are sitting at a table sipping water waiting for the dancing to start. The lights are going dark and the music is getting increasingly loud, making conversation harder to maintain. The Patty Griffin girl goes out to smoke. A few uncomfortable moments pass with the abovementioned guy. I ask him about church. What I really want to ask is why he didn't call me back.

11:30 - I'm dancing with a man I don't know. He's wearing a crisp white shirt with gray stripes and he smells faintly of cologne. Too bad I forgot how to salsa. The guy notices and he says something to me but the music is so loud I can't hear a word he's saying. By the second song we dance I remember. We're moving back and forward in rhythm, spinning around, bumping into other couples and stepping on their feet once in a while. This guy is holding me a little too closely but I don't back away. It's electric and I forget everything and exist in this dark, loud, intense bubble for a few moments.

12:00 - Everyone's yawning. "Do you want to go home?" C. yells in my ear. I nod my head.

12:20 - I grab my plates, which still contain a lot of leftover food, and pile them in my car. Was it a successful dinner party? Well, I'll admit I wish a few more people had been there. Is it just me or is it hard to get people together to do anything these days? But it's the dancing I'm thinking about as I drive home. The song from "Dirty Dancing" playing in the background, my feet easing into the right steps, my skirt spinning around me. The smell of that anonymous guy's cologne.

Fun? Yeah, it was fun.

Magical? A little.

Worth doing again? How could we not?