jeremy’s slate and party crashing

My friend Jeremy is a fellow Pew Fellow and just got back from six weeks the Ivory Coast. Until now, you’ve been able to read about it on his blog.
But now you can read about it in his five-day series of “Dispatches” on Slate. From a blog I host to a legitimate, respected publication! Sniff — I’m tearing up with pride!
Jeremy and I did some drinking this weekend, and he showed me some admirable techniques for crashing parties where you know no one. We stumbled out of one house party near Capitol Hill Saturday night and wandered down F Street until we heard Outkast blaring from a random apartment. Jeremy took it upon himself to invite us both in. After equipping ourselves with some mulled wine, he decided it was time to set up our defenses with his patented two-step method:
– Introduce yourself to someone who looks like he won’t be too inquisitive. Preferably someone involved in an activity (in our case, closely watching a game of beer pong), so he’s likely to be too distracted to ask what your connection is to the party’s hosts.
– Then move away from that guy to another room. That way, if someone does later ask why you’re at the party, you can say, “Oh! I’m a friend of [insert name here]!” and hope you’re out of his earshot.
Worked well. Too bad they were almost out of mulled wine by the time we got there. We left after 20 minutes or so. Jeremy did make sure to say goodbye to our new friend, who was very sad to see us go.