White Pants Night

Contrary to virtually all other posts, the few quotes in this one aren't paraphrased.

In her university days Hillary was, by her own description, a bit of a party girl.

I won't go into detail at this point. The engineers at Queen's University have a bit of a reputation for drinking and general merrymaking. All that I heard from Hillary supports this. More on this another time perhaps.

Regardless, she enjoyed dancing, drinking, and going to clubs. At least during the time that I first got to know her. Later as we got older and more boring she'd note that she was glad those days were behind her. Though she still enjoyed dancing.

Anyway, going to clubs wasn't really something I enjoyed all that much at any point in my life. I think I went to legit 'club' flavoured clubs a very few times times. Bars where dancing was the central point maybe a couple of dozen times. Of those, three were memorable and two were enjoyable.

This was one of those enjoyable times.

The things I will relate here are not in chronological order. Nor are they in order of importance.

Item one

I am a terrible dancer, this hasn't changed. Hillary commented on it, with a smile on her face and as she pressed her body into mine.

Item two

It was reasonably cold out and certainly before we'd decided to move in together. I'd put it at October or November of 2004.

Item three

We went with a bunch of friends, but if they were Hillary's work friends, Queen's engineering ladies who were visiting or our Ottawa friends, I have no idea now. Likely some combination as I'd bet heavily that Val was there that evening. I'd also put money down that Laird was there. But who knows.

Item four

So I think the club was China White. I can't find any information on when it opened, but it's location in the Byward Market is roughly correct and the name rings a bell, so let's go with that.

Related, that was fourteen years ago and China White still exists as a place? Isn't the shelf life of a club like fourteen months?

Item five

Towards the end of the evening, I was merely inebriated and she was a couple of drinks ahead of me. After one of the songs, I felt I had something I needed to say right then. I pulled her into an alcove near the entrance.

"I think I'm falling in love with you."

"Wheeeeeeee!"

She had a huge smile and started to shake her arms excitedly as she would. Then she grabbed me in a huge hug. Then looked around to make sure no one really saw that as it was very undignified. Then, deciding to forget everyone else, she proceeded to get close as we talked about meaningful nothings in the alcove until the rest of our friends were ready to leave.

Item six

Hillary was wearing a very tight pair of white pants. These pants did things for her lower half I wouldn't see with other pants until she started wearing yoga pants. Months and years later, Hillary would refer to this event as "White Pants Night" when we would talk about it.