Renz’s twentieth birthday celebration had been on the last Saturday of July, and the Condemned Ones had been invited to said party. Yeah boy. As with all other Condemned Ones galas, this one had been a spur of the moment, of sorts, because our damned schedules just wouldn’t connect with one another. Damned thesis meetings.

But once we got the ball rolling and decided to go, we were off. First, we had to drop by CCP to catch a Cinemalaya Film Festival entry, for Nicole’s project. The title of the movie was Ligaw-Liham, it was an unbelievably slow movie, and that’s all that you’re going to get from me. It really was a budget-friendly activity, since the movie only cost fifty bucks for students.

Anyways. Don’t we feel so special, being fetched by the birthday boy himself in CCP (thanks, Renz!) a little bit after the movie ended. It was a pleasant surprise to find Buen seated at the back seat; didn’t think he was going to make it, with his review classes and all.

I was very much hesitant about this party, actually. Of course I wasn’t delusional, I knew that Renz invited his college friends as well. Which was a bad thing, of sorts, since from experience, I never really got along with new people that well. And there were only the four of us high school people; we were bound to have been overshadowed by their group. But still, we trudged on, for the sake of Renz’s birthday, for the sake of free booze and most importantly, food.

It was actually raining when we got there. Wasn’t that supposed to signify good luck? Anyway as we were the first ones there, we had to endure the semi-awkward moments of introduction to his family. They were nice but it still was awkward, since they didn’t know who the hell we were because we really hadn’t been in touch with their birthday boy in such a long time.

Onto the good parts. The food? Scrumptious and it could’ve feed a whole basketball team. Oh yeah, we filled ourselves to the brim with the food, even staying downstairs just to get to the cake. The music? Who knew that the Corrs’ live concert provided for a more than adequate party music. No hip-hop, no RnB, just plain Irish goodness. The venue? It was the birthday boy’s house, of course. I liked it actually, it reminded me of the Weasley’s the Burrow. And Renz’s room was so cool. It was filled with books, literally. If I were to loot that house, I’d go for the books; it’d fetch me something near a hundred grand, probably. But then again, why sell the books?

Ah, of course, the company. When the BS Biology people arrived, it was made clear that we were to be overpowered (there were ten people in their group, AND a guidance counselor) and a little bit overdressed. What can you do, we’re the Condemned Ones; we don’t make appearances without the least bit of preparation. We were separated in to two groups, of course, we had the smaller table and they had the much larger one. I kind of had a feeling of foreboding, because the night wasn’t starting quite nicely for us; they were throwing around private jokes and the booze hasn’t even arrived yet!

After a while Renz moved the party upstairs, and while they were talking over ice cream in one of the living rooms, we stayed downstairs to attack one of the two cakes (chocolate, of course). The living room wasn’t that big of an area so Renz sequestered us back to his room while the crowd downstairs thinned out. Don’t we feel so special, that we got to play with Renz’s book collection in the luxury of an air-conditioned room?

Some people left the party by nine-thirty or so and we all moved to the living room as we now had space. A round of awkward introductions were made. It was there, the dense awkwardness, you could actually feel it. Everybody was trying not to stare at the other group, and nobody was willing to open up a topic for fear of secluding the other group out. What choice was there left, really? All eyes went to the gay guy, Peter. The limelight shone on him for sure — his friends were goading him to sing a particularly high song of Mariah Carrey’s and we, the other group, were looking at him expectantly. His salvation came in the form of the birthday boy, who decided that it was time for booze.

Aah, booze. When we all plopped down on the floor of Renz’s room once more, the awkwardness sort of wavered. We knew that something was going to happen, although we really didn’t know what it would be. One bottle of Cuervo’s tequila, one bottle of Bailey’s Irish cream, a few bottles of beer and a deck of cards were designated as the night’s activities of entertainment. I immediately immersed myself with the cards — I decided that mingling wouldn’t hurt me and I really,really haven’t played Pusoy Dos and Tong-its in a long time.

The Cuervo bottle was opened; Nicole and I took turns in handing over the shots. During sessions such as these, I always took the bottle because I found it sort of fascinating to remember how the round should go, and it was even made more challenging this time as people kept moving around and exchanging seats. The room had been divided into different sections though, the people really weren’t connecting – I was involved in the game of cards, taking turns to change the loser in one corner; Chenyl, Nicole, Buen and another person who was asleep were on top of the bed talking, the BS Bio majority were on the other side of the room, involved in their own conversations. But everyone was still taking the shots. Weird? Yeah, it was.

By ten-thirty I was getting sleepy, even with the card game, and I could feel that most of the people in there were getting sleepy as well. It felt odd to me, because I’ve never been to a drinking party where nobody was laughing. Hell, no one was noisy, period. So I went over to the bed, chatted with Nicole and decided to play a round of I’ve Never’s. We scouted the crowd and concluded that these people weren’t ready for a game of dares, even with half the bottle of tequila gone. The general rule of the game was that you get shot, pick any person from the group and state a fact about that person. If what you said was correct or true in any way, that person drinks. But if you’re wrong, then you, who stated the fact, chugs the shot down.

This game tested my sociable skills. I was still the one giving out the shots, and boy, it was kinda hard to make half the bottle last. We asked each other questions and I was very much grateful to some of the people who actually got the point of the game and asked the questions to the people in our group. Really, thanks to Steph and Peter who broke the ice barrier between the two groups. Kudos for getting it!

You should know what kind of questions were asked; we were twenty-year-olds with alcohol. That game lasted up until two-thirty in the morning but only the birthday boy got hammered. Well, it was his birthday celebration, after all. We all went to sleep, cuddled up in one bed.

Because we were caught unawares of the fact that the party would turn into a sleepover, none — NONE — of us brought the proper materials for a sleepover. Yeah, kinda gross, but still fun. It turned out to be yet another way of rekindling old linkages to the high school people and we actually got to meet and mingle with new ones.

Happy birthday, Renz! You’re party was a success!