A family portrait

On a whim, Matt and I went to a party on-campus at the Art Museum late last night. It was supposed to be a Versailles party, so there were some people dressed up in clothes from the Louis XIV era. At the entrance, we were given bead necklaces and gold masks. There was live music, a scavenger hunt, a magician, a caricaturist and plenty of French food. Since it was free, we just wanted to check it out, eat some food and leave. At first I didn't want to go (the party went from 10pm to 1:30am), but Matt kindly reminded me about the time in NYC that I slept in instead of going down to Rockefeller center--and not appearing on live TV on the Today Show like he did.

We immediately realized that this was for undergraduates, so we tried not to look so old and mature and married, and we kept our wedding ringed hands out of sight. The magician was cool, our wedding reception food was better, but the caricaturist was the best. This is what we came home with.


It's pretty nerve-wrecking to be sitting in that chair while the students waiting for their turn watch the artist do his thing. Their shock, wide eyes, pointing fingers and belly laughs really take a toll on your self-esteem. As we sat, we asked the artist how he chooses which part of the face to accentuate, and he said it comes at first glance, the features that stick out immediately. He said some faces are a challenge, in Matt's case, for example, "because there's so much to work with." But he also assured us that those were the faces that were most fun to draw. I, on the other hand, have a boring face. And when we got our drawing back, I couldn't see myself in the drawing and whined that he spend so much time on Matt that I was just an afterthought. Matt reassured me that the drawing did look like me for the blank, ditsy expression.