September 25, 1998: Sutapa’s Party

Sutapa had a cook-out party at the pool of her apartment complex in Chapel Hill on the same night Celine Dion played the Dean Dome. I left work late at 7 and expected to get to the party at 7:30. Maybe I was going to go home and change first, I don’t remember. Having recently moved to the Triangle, I had no friends and was desperate to meet new people. But because of Celine and her throbbing, heart shaped stage, it took THREE HOURS to get to Sutapa’s party from RTP. There I sat, on I-40 surrounded by women of all ages crammed into SUVs and minivans, rocking out to “My Heart (throbbing, surely)Will Go On.” I remember rolling down the window at one point and yelling at another driver, “May I please pass you to exit right out of this traffic? I promise I’m not going to Celine Dion!” As she was a Celine Dion fan, all about love and yummy goodness, probably from some nice town down east like Wilson or Mt. Olive, she let me pass. (Thank you, lady!)

Finally, at 10:30 I got to the party. I had missed the food, some of the drinking, and an appearance by the genuine Carolina ram, but fortunately Dawn and Katie were there. I’m not sure how we met, but here’s what I remember about the conversation between three of us, Dawn, Sutapa, and Liz:

Dawn: “I watch Buffy! Angel is awesome!”
Liz: “Me too!”
Sutapa: “Oprah has a book club, I think it would be really cool to be in one!”
Dawn and Liz: “We do too!”

One of the great things about Sutapa is that when she has conversations like this, she actually follows up! A month later we had our first meeting.