My Neck, My Back

Another wild New York weekend, what else is new? I was all set to stay in on this particular Friday night, but I received a text from CB luring me out. She was at a free comedy show at the Bellhouse in Gowanus and invited me to come out. I hadn't seen much of her since she had returned from her epic Southeast Asia tour not too long ago so I decided I would make the trek. I arrived just in time for the doorman to tell me that tickets for the show were sold out. I went to the bar and CB came out of the theater so we could decide wtf to do. She was there with a friend from work and couldn't leave him. We pleaded with another surly looking doorman who told us no way. We thought all was lost until a few minutes later when he begrudgingly decided to let us through anyway. Success!
The comedy show was actually pretty good. There were a bunch of comedians who do the voices for some cartoon I'd never heard of. But the crazed fan from Flight of the Concords was one of them and she is batshit insane, along with the guy who does the voice of Archer. He recounted in detail how he had gone to a printshop in the West Village and placed an order for a giant banner reading "God Hates Fags" (ehhhhh). I laughed quite a bit throughout the show, but not as much as the two wasted hipsters behind us, who seriously sounded legally retarded (this got worse when they started openly belching as well).
After the show we were just going to all head home until one of CB's friends said he was seeing an awesome concert in Williamsburg and we should join. I wasn't opposed since it was on my way home and surprisingly, CB agreed as well. But of course we arrived to find out that the tickets were sold out too. We had a drink at the bar next door, which gave me some courage to try again. I walked up to a different bouncer and asked if tickets were sold out. Answer-yes. And is the show almost over? Response--an eye roll and a wave of the hand for us to come inside. Success again! Apparently the door policies in Brooklyn are not so strict. The show was about half over, but CB and I were able to meet up with her friend and see most of it. At one point, a guy at the bar struck up conversation with me and bought me a drink. He seemed very nice and introduced me to all his friends. Problem was, he may or may not have been missing a tooth. It was dark and I chose not to look very closely, but needless to say I did end up "losing" him, though I did feel slightly bad about it. The night continued in typical Williamsburg fashion--after the show let out, we bar-hopped around the hood and somehow got blackout drunk. Brooklyn's payback for eluding its door policies....

After sleeping pretty much all day, the next Saturday, it was time to go back out. I had plans to meet up with Russian Rocher but she was all the way in Soho so I decided to head over to Yahtzee's first, to wait for her to head back our way. I forced down a drink and soon after the Eagle, Deux, and Yahtzee's other roommate, Khia (nickname explanation to come shortly), waltzed in, reeking of the Korean bbq they had just eaten. They were on their way to Pourhouse, which is one of the bro-iest bars in NYC. So Yahtzee and I obviously decided to go. It was a shitshow of NYU juniors and I wasn't too impressed. The Eagle was sucking as usual and Deux had a girl meet him there, his latest prey. I was chatting with Khia. He and Yahtzee had met my dad recently. He had been in town and had come out to trivia with us. Apparently he had mentioned to the two of them, that he had had to ground me for the entire summer before I left for college (true story) but wouldn't say why. I decided to fess up to Khia and informed him it was because I had gotten wasted at a friend's party and had danced on top of her parents' car, with photo evidence to prove it:

Whoops. Khia was very amused by this. I decided to keep it going. A bit later, that song "My Neck My Back" by, well, KHIA, came on. We all know it. It's the disgusting rap song about pussies and cracks from circa 2004. A real heartfelt ballad. So what did I tell Khia? "I used this song as my senior quote". He said nothing and gave me the most horrified look I've ever seen. It was then that I lost it. He actually thought I had quoted that disgusting song in my yearbook?! Amazing. It amused me for the rest of the night, including a bit later, when Yahtzee, Deux, his prey and I went back to the boys' apartment to have some more dranks. I loudly recounted this story and may or may not have sang a few lines from the song before bursting out laughing. Deux then asked me if I was going to any "techno shows". I happened to be wearing my striped, Donna Martin graduates, half-shirt. I stared at him and then said "Why, because of my FUCKING shirt??". Luckily Deux can take a joke and I'm sure was relieved when Yahtzee and I decided to head to Solas (of course) to meet Russian Rocher. The fun was over for me though. I didn't feel like dancing and I grew surly in the crowded club. I convinced Yahtzee to leave with me and we got snacks from a food cart. On the way back to his apartment to eat our delish burgers, I noticed Deux's prey texting alone on a corner and looking rather dejected. Yahtzee was heatedly discussing how uncircumcised guys don't like condoms, so I decided it wasn't a good time to interrupt and kept walking. Back at the apartment, we found Deux passed out on the couch, so I woke him up to yell at him for kicking the girl out when he was done with her. He grinned mischievously and I refused to share any of my burger with him. The three of us sat discussing god knows what while Yahtzee and I ate, and then I headed home, chuckling to myself about my senior quote.

Oh, New York

What a classic New York weekend I had. Fairly outrageous of course. Scheduled for Friday night--Sleep No More, the interactive play that had been a hit in NYC for the past year or so. But first, happy hour of course. I met JM and her coworkers in FiDi after work. I was pumped because I thought we were going to a bar with filled with hotties, which we had gone to before. Turns out I got it confused with the local dive, filled with retired firefighters. Shit. I saw the dismal scene and immediately texted both GF and Prom to come meet me. To my surprise, they both did. I was a little worried about this mix of people, but to my surprise they blended fabulously. GF loved Prom's dry, asshole comments and even tweeted a couple (follow him: White Boy Prblms). In fact two of GF's past tweets involving sharting and the phrase "pound town" were our inspiration for the night.

We continued this on the subway up to Chelsea, after happy hour had died down. Pretty much every statement we made involved on of the two, and every time we would all cackle like the slightly drunk people we were. Example: "Maybe he would like you if you stopped sharting all the time" and "Pound Town? Is that Upstate?" This got even further out of hand when the bar we went to had crayons and a paper table cloth in our booth. You better believe that tablecloth did not stay blank for long.

                                                              That's where they go baby
Unfortunately it was approaching 11:45, our entrance time for Sleep No More, so JM and I had to bid goodbye to Prom and GF. It was too rainy to get a cab so we were forced to walk to the far end of the West Side, to the old hotel in which the play would take place. We were a little bit soaked and I grew even grumpier when the annoying couple in front of us kept making out. That is only acceptable in Europe! Now the premise of this "play" is as follows: It is set in an old hotel. There are multiple floors with many rooms, each one with tons of shit in it. You are allowed to go through the shit and touch what you want, provided you do not speak for the entire two hours and wear a white mask. There are assorted actors running around, performing different pieces with each other. They also don't speak. It is loosely based on Macbeth. NY Mag explains it better: http://nymag.com/listings/theater/sleep-no-more/
It sounds insane but really it's true that it's awesome. There is so much detail in each room and there are also graveyards, an old hospital and old-timey looking bars. You can choose which actors you want to follow around. I saw a fight scene, a poisoning scene, a naked guy and a naked girl. I also at one point had a random guy come up to me and put his arm around me. I shooed him away and it was then that I think he realized that I wasn't actually his date. After wandering around for the time alloted, JM being more preoccupied with the decor and me with the story, we were separated but both ended up in the ballroom for the grand finale, where (spoiler alert) there is a mild orgy scene and a guy hangs himself. You can have a totally different experience from someone else and I if the tickets weren't $90 I would totally go back.
The next night I had couldn't have been more different. I met Russian Rocher out in Alphabet City at Drop Off Service, a bar I had been wanting to go to. She had left some friends behind at Pyramid Club, where we were scheduled to go later in the night, but it hadn't picked up yet. We were meaning to just go for a drink but  we got totally sidetracked by a bouncer standing in front of an unmarked door. We decided to see what was behind it, especially when he turned two other girls away. For some reason he did not do this to us, and we emerged into a Cuban-style speakeasy. We sat for much too long, sipping expensive specialty drinks until we realized Russian Rocher's friends had been waiting for us at Pyramid Bar for quite awhile. We headed back over and I immediately did not like the place. It had been a popular bar back in the 80s and was now 80s themed. The main resemblance I could tell was that the clientele looked like the freaks at table 9 from the Wedding Singer. A bunch of old creepers with quite a few overweight lesbians thrown in for good measure. Even the 80s music couldn't lift my mood and it certainly didn't improve when some guy spilled his drink on me. I half-heartedly danced around for a bit and was relieved when people decided to head out.

I was set to go to another bar but the concensus was to call it a night, so I power-walked through the East Village down to the Lower East Side, trying to catch a cab (b/c once again, my subway line wasn't running). It was proving to be impossible and I was basically to the Williamsburg bridge before I spotted one. I sprinted over to it, and as I was opening the door I heard yelling. I looked up and a guy and a girl were running towards me waving their arms. I shrugged and dove into the backseat anyway. I heard the guy start to yell that I was a bitch and looked up to see them knocking at the window. The girl was trying to shush him and asked if I was going to Bushwick. I told them that we could share the cab, provided he stopped yelling obscenities at me. They got in and I noticed how wasted they were. He was also French, not surprisingly. They were also weird as shit but they soon became my bff's and even invited me to a party with them (I politely declined). The swearing French man even ended up paying for the whole cab ride when they got off at their stop. An interesting turnaround.
The cab driver had been paying attention to what was going on and said that he had seen me first and that the guy seemed like a huge asshole. I informed him that it was probably because he was French, but he argued that it was because "he seemed like a Jew". Ehhhhh. I nervously said that I thought it was because he was French and that I had dated an asshole French guy. The cab driver then asked me if I had ever tried Russian, then proceeded to tell me that he was Russian (hint hint). I sulkily replied that I hated all guys at the moment (I had just gotten no response from a booty call text I had sent to Law School Bro...fail). The cab driver's response to this: "Well, you could always try girls". He then laughed heartily. Luckily we were at my apartment, so I thanked him and hopped out. By far my most interesting cab ride in NYC to date.

Oh, Dating

I was pretty jaded and slightly bitter after the whole Mason debacle. I was getting extremely fed up with dating in NYC, so I swore it off for awhile. I decided I would look into adopting seven cats instead and take a break from the boys. Do we think this happened? Absolutely not.
My (rough) introduction back into the scene came one Saturday night with JM. We decided to once again take advantage of the free bottle service in Meatpacking. Tonight was RDV which I hadn't been overly-thrilled with last time. I was less so this time. The table was crowded with a bunch of mean-looking, not so cute girls. One, who really resembled a mole, even had the audacity to grab the bottle away after I had poured myself a drink. She held onto it and glared in our direction. This really got JM going, who glared right back while telling me she was ready to take her if need be. It was so out of character for sweet and sunny JM, that I was a little terrified. And she was not the only nasty person present there that night. When I got confused by the lack of organization of the bathroom line and unknowingly cut in front of some people, some nasty bald Brit yelled at me to get to the back. Chill the fuck out SIR.
Needless to say after scoring some free drinks we decided RDV was not our scene and headed to a nearby bar to escape the club scene. Since JM is a guy-magnet, literally as soon as we stepped foot in the door, there was a guy there offering to buy her a drink. Luckily I was able to reap the benefits and he bought me one as well. Except the thing was so strong that I almost gagged when I took a sip. He was apparently there with his two buddies, celebrating one of their 30th bdays. What a celebration. I'm also convinced that the number was closer to 35, but we will never know the truth. The guy whose bday it was, was not bad looking at all but their friend looked like a cross between JM's lesbian college volleyball coach and Bruce Jenner.

                                                                   Terrifying

Luckily this guy bowed out gracefully and left early, leaving JM and I with our new antique friends. My guy (bday boy...ahem man) was actually pretty nice. We surprisingly carried on a decent conversation and we agreed to head to the diner with them after last call. I chatted with the guy throughout dinner but there were two red flags though which gave me a snob alert--asking where we had gone to dinner before heading out for the night and asking me not once, but twice, what my parents do. Come on guy. You don't ask that to someone you've just met unless you are shaaaallow. And the other guy turned out to be even worse. We both went to go to the bathroom and he let me go ahead of him. While inside, I heard him basically yelling to the guy behind him that he needed to get laid tonight. Can't you even try to be discreet about it??
Needless to say they did offer us to stay the night at their apartment instead of going all the way back to Brooklyn. I think my guy got the hint though when I asked how many beds he had. He then tried to give me cab money, which was very gentleman-like, but I did not accept it. He asked for my number but I never heard from him. Probably not a huge loss. But JM and I once again violated our rule of not accepting more than one drink from guys we aren't interested in. Instead we made out with about 3 free drinks, and a free meal. Oops.
Now here come the actual dates. This developed quite randomly and like Mason, was another blast from the past. I had of course gone to my favorite bar, the Ninth Ward for Mardi Gras celebrations and was gifted with an absolutely gigantic, Flava Flav-sized mardi gras bead. I posted a pic of me with it on good ole Facebook and noticed that Jersey had liked it. Now I had met Jersey one summer in Cuse, roughly 7-8 years ago. He was visiting fam there and we were getting late night food up on SU hill. We chatted and he took me to a ridiculous house party, like the ones you see in teen movies, a few nights later. We talked on and off throughout college on AIM but I hadn't seen him since that night. In my drunken haze I decided why not reunite again. I sent him a message to which he responded with an enthusiastic invitation for dinner and drinks. Pleasantly surprised I agreed and about a week later we were out. As I clomped towards the restaurant (Morimoto) I began to get really nervous. WTF was I doing, agreeing to go to a nice dinner with someone I barely knew?? The Mason thing was fresh in my mind and my self-esteem was not quite where it should be.

I thought that I would be able to shake it off during dinner, but to my surprise I could not. I was nervous and felt like an awkward high schooler. He was shorter than I remembered and though very nice, he was also very intense. He kept looking at me very intently while I tried to gracefully eat my giant sushi roll (impossible). We did manage to have a decent conversation but the whole thing was just a bit too much for a first date. And speaking of too much, I had overlooked the fact that everything I had ordered contained raw tuna. My mercury level was through the roof and I was starting to feel sick. I'll blame this on the fact that when he tried to put my jacket on for me, I decided to rudely and awkwardly grab it away from him instead. I'm not really into chivalry to that extent and apparently don't know how to conduct myself in public.

Needless to say I was convinced we wouldn't be going out again. But to my surprise when I sent him the polite thank you text the next day, he asked me out to a second dinner. Luckily this place was a bit more casual and I was feeling a bit more myself. The date went much smoother and I even agreed to go out with him about a week later, when we took a walk on the Highline and got a drink at the Standard Beer Garden (my other fav bar). He started to joke around a bit more that time, which was a relief. I'm currently on the fence about this one. Pros: polite, remembers things, always pays, could be opening up. Cons: loud voice, bit of a Jersey bro, still do not feel quite at ease.
But as we all know, New York has its dating surprises, so who knows where this will go...

Bosston (not Bawseton)

In the midst of the whole Mason ordeal I decided to take a last minute trip to Boston. Now I've had very bad luck with guys from Boston, but Mairey was working there for the week and had a free hotel room. So I decided to escape NYC for a day or so, to take my mind of the situation.
Mairey met me at South Station and we took the T to her hotel, which was in the middle of a huge mall. Retail therapy. We shopped, without even depositing my bags in the room, until we had to meet her friend at a sushi place for dinner. Said friend was also from the Cuse and had moved to Boston to escape that hellhole. Her boyfriend was the bartender at the restaurant so of course all our drinks were free, which was just what I needed. The text exchange with Mason had literally gone down just before dinner and I wanted to put it far behind me. Luckily d-lish spicy tuna rolls and champagne did the trick. Also the fact that Mairey's friend I figured out we had common friends (not so surprising since this is Cuse we are speaking of)--the two guys I had gone to Mardi Gras with. I knew that one of them had a good girl friend living in Boston but I had no idea it was her until we randomly hung out. Such a coincidence.
After dinner we met another girl from their crew and after taking forever to get ready we finally headed outside, where her friend was picking us up. He was a tiny little man, who looked like he should be an extra in 8 Mile, driving a BMW which reeked of weed. I have no complaints against this man though--he had a table at a club and I did not pay for a drink all night. We had the velvet rope lifted for us and were led to the vip section of the club, bypassing the huge line outside. Even though it's kind of sleaze, I still love getting into places vip (and I had even managed to the night before in Meatpacking with JM). Once settled in at our table, the largest bottle of Moet I have ever seen was brought over to us. I was in heaven--I love champagne and drank roughly 16 glasses throughout the course of the night. There was house music blasting so I was relieved about this. The shortie's friend showed up, who was the whitest black man I have ever encountered and had just returned from a tour of Afghanistan. Despite the see-through shirt I was wearing Mairey was the star of the night. The white/black guy was hitting on her but then when the shortie moved in, he gave up and then proceeded to hit on me. I wasn't pleased with being second choice but I refrained from being rude and talked to him anyway. This is how the night continued--I drank, I danced and at one point ended up standing on top of a couch with a rando guy, who informed me the girl shooting me death glares was his girlfriend. uh-byyye.

This is when things took a turn for the worst. I decided that I was going to remove Mason as a friend on facebook. Such an appropriate time to be doing that; I shouldn't have even taken my phone out with me. But in my state and with the impossibility of using facebook effectively on my phone I somehow ended up setting his name as my status. Just his name and I couldn't figure out how to delete it. I was drunk and panicked and promptly burst into tears of embarrassment. Black/white guy came over to save the day--he deleted Mason for me, deleted my status and literally wiped my tears away. It was very noble of him and I am thankful. Unfortunately I did not get to thank him before we were separated outside and it is likely he now thinks I am a bitch. I found Mairey and the girls, and informed them of what I had done, half-laughing and half-crying. They thought it was hilarious and luckily the bartender boyfriend was there to whisk us away for late-night Chinese. Mairey took me to the bathroom to get me acceptable-looking again and when we had returned he had ordered our food, along with beers in sprite cans, since it was past last call. He of course also paid for the whole thing and drove us back to the hotel. There are some nice guys out there after all.
Needless to say, the next morning Mairey and I were on our asses. We were finally able to stumble to brunch at 1pm. I felt like death and looked like it as well and of course this is where I literally saw the hottest man I have ever seen. I think I may have even stopped in my tracks as we walked by him. I spent the rest of brunch, peering over at his table to get a glimpse. Boston may be filled to the brim with hot guys, but the brunch is not so great. I really have started to take it for granted living in NYC, where every brunch, no matter how hungover I am, has been delicious.
After a nap, I was finally able to roll out of bed, just in time for it to be getting dark out. My cousin had recently moved to Boston and I had made plans to meet up with her. My aunt also happened to be in town, so it was going to be quite the family reunion. I cabbed to the bar overlooking Fenway, where they had been watching basketball for the afternoon. They were with a big group of people, including two of my aunt's friends and 3 of my cousins guy friends. We relocated to another bar, that was a perfect dive. Beers were handed to me and I tried not to salivate over the hot ass bartender. Cousin's guy friends were very nice, with thick Boston accents which was amusing. Speaking of thick accents, at one point a pretty drunk guy came up to me and said something. I asked him to repeat it but I still had no idea wtf he was talking about so I looked at everyone at the table for help. They were silent and shrugged. He repeated it once more but to no avail and then wandered away.
Later we migrated back to the area of my hotel. I was starving at this point so our group split up--Cousin and two of the guys and I went to eat Thai food while my aunt, her two friends and the other guy kept drinking at a bar across the street. During our "double date" I discovered that one of the guys also likes house music and often comes to nyc to visit some of his ibanker friends...intriguing. After din, my aunt and her friends were ready to head in, so Cousin had to take them back. The problem was, Mairey was still at dinner with her friends. I decided that I would just have to stay out and asked the two guys if they would mind me tagging along with the. They obvs didn't, so I followed them to a bar where they met up with some other friends. They  apparently all worked or had worked as waiters, and knew the bartender, so once again all drinks free. I ordered what I thought sounded like a delish whiskey cocktail, but turned out to be a highball of straight whiskey. Keep in mind that this was a Sunday night, not very late. But since it was free I had no qualms about not finishing the whole thing. I was pretty pleased at how this had turned out, and I had no problems being among strangers, basically.
When the time came I parted ways with them and met up with Mairey at the end of her dinner. The bartender boyfriend had apparently paid for everyone's and immediately ordered me a drink when I walked in. These people were all so nice and so welcoming and it was exactly what I needed after yet another dating disaster. They even helped to eradicate some of my preconceived notions about Boston and I'm looking forward to going back.
And as a follow up, I did text Baweston when I decided I was going to be making the trip. He seemed enthusiastic about hanging out but then he never responded to my follow up text until a couple days after the weekend saying he had "gotten too loose" and lost his phone. Sure, flake. Oh, boys....