Laura's Party

My friend Laura helped Shawn and Laurent throw a party on Saturday, up at their place in the city. They have a very stylish place in the south of market, and somewhere around a hundred people packed the place. Interesting mix of people -- native English speakers were a distinct minority. The largest segment was Italian, with France, Spain, and India also being well-represented.

Official party start was 9pm, so I tried to be a little bit fashionably late, by leaving my house at a little after nine. Showed up in SF at 9:45, and spent about ten minutes driving around in circles trying to get to their pad. I was having one of those big-city moments where I know where I'm trying to get to, but due to a variety of one-way streets and no-left-turn signs, I can't actually get there.

When I finally find the door and get into the place, I'm the 2nd guest, and Shawn, Laurent, and Laura are standing around waiting for people to show. Note to self: for European parties, fashionably late looks like it's around two hours.

Shawn gives me a quick house tour. Their place appears to be a converted industrial unit, which is spread across three stories. The top and bottom stories are each a single room, and have been converted to two master bedrooms. Neither the top nor bottom floors cover the whole footprint, so about half of the main floor has a 20-foot ceiling, giving it a very open feel. Shawn and Laurent have decorated the place in hip-batchelor-Spartan, which adds to the impression of space. Whoever remodeled the space left the original industrial diamond-plate steps up to the third story, which meshes well with the 50s-vintage sign that Shawn has hung off the side of the third-story bedroom.

The party ramps up quickly from the original two guests to the point where it's difficult to move around the house. The entire main floor is packed except for a little space around the door. Ben shows up and hangs out for a little while, and I run into another half-dozen or so Building F people.

I hang around until a little after 2AM, at which point my tired-warning starts to kick in. In recent years I've found that my stay-awake-while-driving ability has lessened somewhat, so that I have to head out early from SF or run the risk of falling asleep while driving home. While I've picked up Jon's roadside-nap technique, I'd rather just get home and sleep there.

Party was definately a blast. Looking at S&L's place just confirms that I couldn't live in SF: I just have too much stuff.