Graduation party

InshaAllah the next time I'm invited to a party by Muslim ladies... I'm going to ask... is this a ladies-only party? So inshaAllah next time I won't be unprepared, expecting to be wearing a scarf the entire time and covered, then show up and everyone else looks like a doll and is dancing and I just feel like an uncomfortable oaf.

Now, it wasn't that bad... but it wasn't great. I was invited to a party for a certain sister's graduation. This sister has to be the shyest person I have ever, in my life, known. So.. a party? Seemed strange to me, but nevertheless I went. And the poor girl spent a large part of it out of sight. The first shock when I arrived, however (which was late, as I often make it a point to arrive late to such events--arriving early means more socializing with strangers...) was that I didn't recognize anyone. I just walked into a room of Muslim sisters that I see on a semi-regular basis, well enough to pick any of them out from across a room or in a crowd, even with hijab on (in a room of hijabis) just by noticing their habits, how they stand or tie their scarf, etc. But without a scarf... I'm looking at everyone's face, staring, trying to remember their names! "Uh.. you look kind of familiar..." How embarassing!!

But it was fun anyway. Once I got into it, figured out who everyone was, had some sugar (necessary for dancing...) and made a fool of myself trying to almost pretend like I knew what I was supposed to do when they turned on some Arab music. Event of the evening... what's strange is how I can liken it to a sorority semi-formal almost! Granted, there were mostly two age-groups. Quite a bit older than I am, and quite a bit younger. The college-aged group accounted mostly for me, Sara, Sarah, Nema, Razia, another girl whose name I never learned, and Safiya. The older than I am group started at about 10-15 years older. This group of girls is relatively close to my age, going to about 20--the younger girls, except for maybe 1 or 2, started at 15 and just went down... way down to the little girls. So you had the mothers and the friends of the mother, and their daughters basically. And then a few more single chicas like myself. And there was dancing. Despite being mostly not college aged girls, they weren't afraid to dance and have a good time... though it was this uppity mideastern stuf instead of hip hop (I can do without lyrics telling me to shake something up in someone's face, honestly). And sure, it was fun. Most of the dancing we did at formal/semiformal was just girls--the dates (the men) weren't so into it usually.. and it was kind of a lot like this! Everyone dressed up (except me...). Not quite semi-formal but they did all look nice.

Anyway... nice way to spend an evening.