"And I do my little turn on the catwalk"

Oh come on, like I could've used anything else as the subject line.

Saturday night was my friend Teal's debut as a model, walkin' for the cause of international media coverage and general festiveness at a local embassy. The chance to see Teal, who is a low-maintenance individual possessing neither cosmetics nor a guilty "America's Next Top Model" habit, doing the catwalk stomp in full makeup and glittery clothes was irresistible. Since being one of the few really tall skinny models in an all-volunteer show provides a certain amount of bargaining leverage, she was able to score six comp tickets to the SRO event. I dragged mah fabulously impractical Shanghai Tang threads and strappy shoes out of the closet's tangled depths, got my hair be-spiked, smeared on a little bought complexion, and clattered out the door.

Some backstory, for the curious: Teal was originally recruited by a friend of a friend at a party, and she was promised that the show would be a low-key community production, involving maybe three or four rehearsals over the summer. This was what is known as a flaming lie of the very highest order, although in charity perhaps it was supposed to be that small and snowballed. Doubtful, but possible. Anyway, rather than the promised mellow, there were weekly rehearsals for most of the summer, despite which the order of the show wasn't decided until about ten minutes before the music started and the models never saw the clothes until the day of the show, and the models were hit up for all kinds of costs, including tipping their stylists. Miss Tyra would clutch her weave and swoon dead away, because demanding that volunteers subsidize the show is a different level of sketchy from the usual pills-and-ciggies stereotypes. But Teal, because she's fundamentally nice, put up with a lot of it, only drawing the line about the four-inch lucite heels and $140 facial.

The show went well from our perspective, although we heard later that there were all sorts of entertaining backstage dramatics, what with the screaming and the frantic clothing shifts and the I already told you I'm not gonna wear the stripper shoes. After we the audience sat through some diplomatic blather ("Hey, the ambassador blames the mainstream media too! Is this what it's like at Republican events?"), the music kicked up; Teal, looking all kinds of fierce in a long peach outfit, stalked out, rocked it on down the runway, popped a hip at the photographers at the end of the stage, and betook herself back; and the show was on. For the next...however long, an hour maybe?...it was glittery things and sexy outfits and, occasionally, male models who generally looked as though they had no idea what they were doing and were either terrified, depressed, or trying not to giggle. Teal got an audible gasp and a ripple of applause in one of the wedding outfits, and all of us conveniently forgot her admonitions about not cheering.

We hit the afterparty for a while, but the Ritz's loudest bar on a Saturday night in Georgetown is very close to my idea of hell, even if I'm knocking back Macallan on an empty stomach, so eventually G-Clef and I prevailed on Teal to come out for a late-night/early-morning meal of some sort (second breakfast? elevenses? tiffin?). We ended up at American City, where the busboys were drowsing in the corners, to rediscover that ancient truth: greasy diner food really does taste best in the wee hours. We probably aren't the oddest things they've ever seen at that time of night, but it was a Hopper-esque scene, G-Clef in his formal suit, me in scarlet silk and falling spikes, and Teal still AquaNetted and Cover Girled to the nines, all of us punch-drunk and falling on the food like wolves. This fashion stuff is a hungry business.

The observant will note that the embassy that hosted all this crazy fun hasn't been named, for the simple reason that sometimes odd people find the blog and I don't particularly want Teal catching flak because of something she didn't write. Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego catwalking?