Lascivious Labor Day-- Part 1

Keeping with the tradition that every official 3 day weekend in NYC has been exceptionally rowdy, Labor Day weekend proved no different. And despite the fact that I was missing Electric Zoo, this was quite a feat. That Thursday night I met up with friends who were in town for Electric Zoo. You've been formerly introduced—Le Canard and Ginger, the two boys from Ultra. I headed in to Manhattan to meet them for a drink before I had drinks part 2 with Coffee, who was also in town for the weekend, but for the US Open rather than Electric Zoo. I decided to take the boys to Beauty Bar, since it was near where I was meeting Coffee and I had never been. This bar is a bit of a hipster bar—it has old school salon-style hair dryers you can sit in and you can even get a manicure if it suits your fancy. Of course I ordered a PBR and we sat chatting. I was pissed I was missing Electric Zoo, but ticket prices were outrageous, especially on my limited budget. After another PBR, I divulged to them my drama for the following night. Benny kid was in town for the weekend as well and I had somehow agreed to let him stay at my apartment the following night. I was nervous, since I barely knew him and was worried that he could perhaps murder me in my sleep. The boys found my predicament comical and assured me that I most likely would not get murdered. It was around this point that Coffee showed up to escort me to the next bar—Please Don't Tell. We parted ways (I could tell Coffee was relieved) and headed to St. Mark's. PDT is one of the more popular speakeasys in the city—you enter through a phone booth inside a hot dog shop. Once inside, you pick up the phone and the hostess lets you through the door, but only if you were lucky enough to get through the constantly busy phone line to make a reservation. Coffee had and we were led into a small bar filled with taxidermied animals. The cocktails on the menu were some of the most ridiculous combinations I had ever seen. My first was relatively tame, with champagne and blueberries, but the next contained beer, gin, hot sauce, some other ungodly ingredients with salt and pepper lining the rim of the glass. It was delicious, as were the tater tots I forced Coffee to order me after our first drink. We had a good time chatting but I knew when we left the bar and were heading to my subway station (the same one where roughly 2 weeks later Ibanker would break things off with me) that I had overdone it.

And I was right, as my next day at work I was pretty hungover. Luckily Benny had decided to spend the evening with his friend so I was free to go home and take a nap until later that night when we were to meet up. Since neither of us could afford the ridic E Zoo tickets, we decided go to one of the afterparties at Pacha to see Fatboy Slim. I was a little nervous, since it was just going to be us and we had only hung out a couple times. So I made a fatal mistake—drinking 4loko on the subway on the way to meet him. I should have known better, since I have never fared well on the nights I decide to drink this poison beverage. It started out seemingly harmless though. Benny and I were getting along well, just as we always had. We had a couple drinks when we got inside and I should've known I was taking a turn for the worst when I wasn't even on the lookout for any outrageous looking guido's, which Pacha was infamous for. Once FBS came on we headed down and I did my traditional M.O.--get drunk, listen to DJ's and makeout. I was doing a great job until I noticed that my phone was not in my purse. I kept digging, as Longchamps tend to swallow them up, but it was not in there. This was around the same time that Benny later told me I had started to sway a bit and he was having to hold me up. It sounded eerily similar to Paul Van Dyk over the 4^th of July, but not quite so bad, if you can believe it. After an unsuccessful search of the place for my phone, which Benny aided me in, I decided all I was lost. I burst into tears. I somehow was able to speak to the manager and I remember standing there, dabbing at my eyes like a mourning mother, swearing to him that someone had stolen my phone. He was understanding and took down my info but I never saw that phone again (RIP). Luckily Benny convinced me to stay for the rest of the set, and we had fun, though I can't remember much of it. We stumbled out at roughly 5am and took the subway back to my apartment. I figured at that point Benny must've been fairly horrified by my behavior but he didn't argue when I told him I was too lazy to blow up his air mattress. Scandalous behavior followed, but in light of what was to happen with Ibanker, I think I am ok with it. We didn't leave my apartment until 5pm the next day, besides a short trip to get food and provisions (where I know Benny was concerned about my neighborhood). I was finally not hungover and I was heading straight to the Verizon store in Soho to attempt to get a replacement phone. Benny and I parted ways and I was pleased to find that it was not at all awkward. A trip to Soho and then up to Columbia finally yielded me a new phone. I called JM to see what she was up to for the night and ended up heading back down to the West Village to meet up with her. After getting traditionally lost, I met her at the bar. I was slightly horrified to see she was with two guys she had just met—Australians. I have had multiple bad experiences with Australian men. I find them to be extremely pushy and just after one thing and they arrogantly think they can get it because they have an accent (as is the case with most foreign men). But JM is so nice that she will talk to anyone and she also has not experienced this Australian predator the way I have. I was too tired to fight it though and when he left the bar a bit later I was hoping we could lose them. Wrong, so wrong. They had sniffed out their prey and there was no way they were letting us get away. They followed us to the pizza place next door and accompanied us into Soho. One knew of a good Russian vodka bar and before I knew it, we were being swept into a downstairs bar with Cyrillic writing everywhere. I was hopelessly underdressed but decided to enjoy my vodka cocktail nonetheless. They had of course each picked one of us to concentrate on—divide and conquer. I was fairly grumpy between my excessive drinking and lack of sleep the night before. But when my particular Australian began rubbing my back and attempting to hold my hand I decided enough was enough. I forced JM to make a bathroom trip with me and told her the plan—we were going nowhere else with these guys and we had already made a big mistake by letting them buy us more than one drink. It was going to be tough but we were going to have to squeeze our way out of their iron grip. I waited until we had left the bar and started walking to tell them we were tired and going home. They of course said they had a large hotel room and we could all go back and drink some wine. Absolutely fucking not. I explained this wasn't in the cards for us and maybe we could all hang out the next afternoon. They pushed and pushed. I spotted a subway on the corner and decided that this would be the one we needed to take, even though it was not my line home. I interrupted them mid-sentence and announced this was were we were headed. Before I knew it, the Aussie had my face in his hands and his lips pressed to mine. I tensed, was finally able to pull my face away and gave him a wave and a high-pitched “Bye!” before literally running down the subway stairs, with JM close behind me. We waited awhile and when we finally emerged from the station I was almost surprised to see that they weren't there. We walked up to Union Square where we could catch the L. And in a weird twist, as we were waiting for the train, we randomly ran into the handless friend that JM had brought out with us when we had to run from the Russians—our second time running from foreigners! To be continued....

PS- About two weeks later, I received an email from my Aussie, saying he had a great time with me and to come visit him in Australia any time. I had never given him my email address. This was an exceptional predator and even across the world he was still pushing!