I could have danced all night

I attended the Valparaiso School of Law Barrister's Ball with my boyfriend a few weeks ago. It's a black tie event where law students can mingle and schmooze with their peers as well as get their names and faces noticed.

At first I was excited because I hardly ever get to wear a tuxedo, and the last black tie event I attended was an Eyes Wide Shut themed gay orgy at a fancy hotel suite.

Excitement soon turned to horror when I saw that 90% of the attendees were dressed like they were going to a New Jersey high school prom. I hadn't seen so many women with acrylic shoes since my uncle took me to a strip club on the military base.

Here are some of the highlights of the evening:

• There was an open bar - and by an open bar, I mean AN open bar. With about 2000 grad students in attendance, you can imagine how long the bar line was. This caused a lot of people to not tip and to triple fist, both of which are extremely high-class... if you live in Arkansas.

• The much-touted sit-down meal consisted of roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, broccoli, and baked ziti. Mashed potatoes and baked ziti shouldn't be served in the same meal, much less at a black tie event. The organizers did make sure that there was plenty of coffee to drink during the meal. I had to hunt down a member of the wait staff to get my water glass refilled, but I never feared for lack of coffee!

• The DJ was a joke because he just stood there the whole time with his arms crossed and his CD collection (a CD collection that spanned 20 years) set to "random." We were only able to dance to three of the songs that the DJ played in his three hours of DJing. You just can't dance to Sean Kingston's Beautiful Girls because it uses the beat from Stand By Me and it's hard to get jiggy when you're thinking of Gordy pointing a gun at Keifer Sutherland.

• There was a chocolate fountain, because nothing says classy like a chocolate fountain! Not only is the chocolate extremely unhealthy due to the added oil or cocoa butter used to make the chocolate viscous, but you can also count on the fact that half of the people have stuck their dirty fingers in the fountain to taste it.

The actual highlight of the evening was being able to dance with my boyfriend. We were there together, he introduced me to all of his friends, and nobody called me a faggot to my face. I may be a tad over-critical about the evening, but the fact is that he went of his way to make sure that I was comfortable and that all my needs were met.

Sometimes you have to ignore little things like parts of the centerpiece falling into your food or the police coming inside the ballroom to ask people if they knew the gentlemen who'd passed out in the parking lot because he drank too much in the first twenty minutes of the ball. It's all about the big picture!

There is a reason why I'm blogging about this event that happened weeks ago. It's not just a random rant and tomorrow's entry will delve deeper into this subject.