I hosted a stew party (and I liked it)

Or should it be, lived to tell the tale.

I wanted to reciprocate all the kind invitations I've got these past few months so I invited sixty people to my parents' house, coaxing them with the sweet, fragrant promise of stew (vegetarian and goulash), masses of cheese and homemade cookies. Twenty-five people accepted and since I am still a student, still at the stage where forcing people to sit on the floor does not automatically mean dislocated disks or terrible pain, and since I appear to be completely wacked-out insane , I thought this would work out quite well.

Being a hostess is hard, y'all. Not only are you supposed to slave to make your place look nice, cook batches of food for famished and often allergy-ridden ingrates, but you are then to enjoy your own party, or at least, make it look effortless. This three-tier cream cake with sugar rosebuds? Oh, it's so easy to bake! That Ming vase your kid just wrecked? Just an annoying knick-knack that was a pain to dust. Oooh, look: someone is lonely and bored in a corner of the living-room! Must entertain them! You then abandon Promising Hot Man and go talk to Shy Young Lady while your erstwhile prospect goes away.

Plus we had the following situation: I invited people from my new university and old friends together. As we all know, this doesn't always work out. The old friends arrive full of inside-jokes, the new ones want to talk about classes the old ones don't know anything about, and you're in the middle, trying to pelt new conversation topics at people randomly, hoping one will stick. This usually means a newsworthy topic which annoys half your guests and creates a screaming match.

We also had my ex-boyfriend turned best friend and my oldest friend (thirteen years, people) meeting my Fling for the first time.

A recipe for disaster, you say. I was curiously calm during the whole thing, especially considering that I was fresh off the Eurostar, so to speak. I made huge amounts of food. I bought amazing cheese. I baked cookies (but, ahem, not from scratch. Give me a break! I was tired!). I opened the wine bottles to let them breathe. And then I put on clean trousers, smudged my eyeliner and waited for people to come.

It went really well. Everyone loved the party, and I did not turn into a Tazmanian Hostess, whirling around snatching plates from people, forcing dessert on everyone and laughing in a manic way. "HAVE SOME MORE? NO? ARE YOU SURE? HAHAHAHA!"

Magic moments of being a grown-up party-person:

* The wine talk. People talk about wine, instead of comparing cheap beer experiences. We're OLD.
*Someone asked me if they could smoke pot in my apartment and I said no problem. No one wanted to share though.
*No one started necking in my bathroom.
*No one robbed me.
*No one drunkenly slow-danced and then passed out into a coma.

OLD.

I am officially a hostess.