Mardi Gras and Me

I'm not sure I even knew about the existence of Mardi Gras until well into high school. I think I might have started to notice it because back in the late 90's, Conan used to do his show with ash on his forehead on Ash Wednesday and I was intrigued. Also, my senior year of high school was my year of exploring the celebrations of other cultures - I finally had my own transportation and was able to stay out late. Never mind that I was also producing, writing and starring in my own cable access show, working four days a week after school as a nanny and taking AP classes. It's time to celebrate Chinese New Year!

Anyway, I got together my friends Claire, Alex and Jaimi (the four of us hung out so much that Alex called us collectively 'JAC' when speaking to his other friends) and piled us onto the light rail with some Party City masks to head to downtown San Jose, where there would be a celebration taking place. We arrived in something equivalent to a back alley, but it was super awesome. People were throwing beads off balconies, there was regional food to be consumed, and Alex swears he saw boobs but I never spotted any. At some point we called our friend Matt (on the ancient cell phone I had? Maybe, but more likely a pay phone. How weird!). He lived only a few blocks away, but was kind of a hermit and a crab-apple. They begged him to come hang out, he refused. I was secretly glad - he was my ex-boyfriend and at the time I didn't like him very much (there was a point where I tried to get back together with him, but I think that came later).

So there we were, eating exotic foods, enjoying the crowd, having a good time being something akin to adults, when - it started to rain. And the only person with an umbrella and raincoat? A weather man from one of the news stations. At some point it the festival was over, or maybe it's that it was raining too hard, or maybe we just needed to get back home, so we left. The walk to the light rail station was short. We waited under a large overhang in front of an old fashioned store. After a moment, two drunk college-aged women came running around the corner to where we were. One of them took a huge fall onto the pavement, it was quite painful looking. They announced they had to pee, and for god's sake, could we give them some privacy?! So we went and stood at the station, in the rain. The train didn't come before too long. We all started to peel off our masks, and my friends started laughing at me. What? They explained. My forehead was purple. From the cheap dye that was used to make my cheap mask. No one else had worn their masks for as long as I had, so they were safe. Once I arrived home, I scrubbed and I scrubbed, but it only lessened, didn't go away completely. And of course, Mardi Gras is on a Tuesday, so I had to go to school the next day. I can't even remember if anyone noticed - I was riding on the high from the night before. So much fun.

So for years afterward, whenever Mardi Gras rolled around, I thought of it warmly. My first Mardi Gras when I was of drinking age came along after I was already out of college. I was poor at the time. I think it was perhaps 2007 before I celebrated another one. This time I met up with a few friends at a bar in Santa Monica. It was fun, but nothing like the fun I'd had in high school. The next year, I did the same thing, though at a bar in the Pacific Palisades. That was a little more fun, but dampened by a guy showing up who I had attempted to date and it had just fizzled. In 2009, I held a party at my apartment, although on Ash Wednesday as I had improv class on Tuesdays at the time. It was better, but still missing something. The following year, I finally located a proper Mardi Gras party, this time at the Farmers Market at The Grove. I got several people to attend, and it was much closer to what I'd been looking for. At the end, we got pulled into a small parade of people while the band played When The Saints Come Marching In. It was fun.

Last year, I went to the same place, and showed up even earlier than I had before in an effort to claim a table within view of the band, but I wasn't early enough. Still a great time. At the end of the night, I waited for the parade to start back up, so I could join it - but it wasn't happening. The year before I'd seen a woman with a small umbrella, so I'd gone and gotten myself one, in Mardi Gras colors. I wasn't sure what it was for, but I found out that night - it was for leading parades! I opened it up, told my friends to follow me, and off we went, parading around the bandstand, people joining us, flashes going off, music in the air - it was exactly what I'd been looking for.

And now that I've found it - it's time to go elsewhere. There's a New Orleans style bar called 504 on Hollywood Blvd., and their Mardi Gras should be quite impressive. I'll let you know how it goes, on Ash Wednesday 2/28.