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....

Happy Fucking Valentine's Day

Like most people, and all single people, Valentine's Day is certainly not my fav holiday. You can't dress up in a fun costume nor eat a big meal and the last present I received was 4 years ago when dead flowers arrived on February 16, due to an ill-fated snowstorm. Last year was alright because I received a "happy v-day" text from 4 different guys. This year? A big, fat zero. Not even from Mason, whom I had been seeing for four months. We'll get into that in a second.
The day had started out alright. I had killed a presentation that morning at work (my second day, boom) and was feeling pretty good. I had dinner plans with JM and a couple of her lady friends in the East Village. I was ignoring the fact that I was very pissed at Mason and had basically decided to write him off. I was also ignoring the fact that the awesome gold flats I had purchased were a size too small. I could barely walk down St. Marks and I later discovered that my toes were actually bleeding! Unfortunately my glass of wine at dinner put me in a melancholy mood and I was starting to get a bit upset realizing things were Mason were finished. I kept it together though and afterwards got on the First Ave subway to head back to the Shwick (passing by the infamous spot where Ibanker ended things, Happy Fucking Valentine's Day, huh!). As I sat on the train, I began to feel terrible. My stomach was in knots and I was starting to feel very nauseous. The crepes were not sitting well. I was sweaty and kept squirming in my seat. I'm sure the guy next to me thought I was insane. A couple stops before mine I knew I was going to vom and I even debated running out of the car to take care of it. I decided I couldn't face the humiliation though and kept holding it in until I got to my stop. I ran back to my apartment, swallowing it down the whole way. I was able to hold it in til I walked in the door and then pretty much threw up all over myself. I spent the next two hours curled up on the bathroom floor, puking my guts out. Happy Fucking Valentine's Day.
This is also a good analogy for how I feel about what went down with Mason and I. My suspicions were correct--things were ending. The unfortunate part is throughout our 4 month long "courtship", I knew things were not right. I had thought about ending it a couple times, but unfortunately never was able to man up and do it. We started out strong for the first 6 weeks or so--we were going out all the time, doing cute shit like carving pumpkins and got along really well. Around the holidays things started to decline but that's to be expected. We picked back up again after the new year, and were doing alright even though we should have been more comfortable than we were with each other at that point. There were qualities that I really didn't like about him--he was cheap, a bit selfish (esp in bed) and too serious. But I kept cutting him slack because of a tragedy he had endured not too long ago. There were a lot of times I didn't even think I liked him but I kept holding onto the whole thing out of a sense of boredom or morbid curiosity or god knows what.
Unfortunately my inability to act caused him to do it first, and that may be the thing that bothers me the most. He didn't text me for a week, including over Valentine's Day, so I knew what was up. I was over it and was planning to ignore the whole thing. Then I got the text asking me to meet him after work and I knew he had won. There was no way I could willingly walk into a conversation like that; it was humiliating enough having Ibanker see me cry and get upset. And though Mason is certainly no Ibanker, I still did not want to chance it, so I refused to meet him. Maybe not terribly mature of me, but what was the point of talking about it? This was what I said to him and his response made me glad I didn't meet him--"I just can't give you what you deserve". No shit, buddy. He really wanted me to waste my time going to have a chat with him when he was going to feed me lame excuses like this one, which he must have read in a guidebook on how to dump someone. I called him out, told him he should've been honest, and not dragged it out (though I am more to blame for that, considering I recognized he was not interested even before he did). And that was that.
Though what I really wanted to tell him, was that the Magnum condoms he used--totally unnecessary.
Happy Fucking Valentine's Day!!

                                                                          Don't bother.

Notable Nights in NYC

The first was a weeknight where GF successfully convinced me to meet him out. He was on a "date" at Flaming Saddles and apparently wanted some company to coincidentally drop by to help alleviate the awkwardness. So off to Hell's Kitchen I went where I met GF and the "date", a much older, but extremely nice and successful guy. It turns out he went to the same college and was in the same frat as my crazy friend from Hamburg (the third member of Team USA), which was a strange coincidence. After buying us a couple rounds of drinks, he headed out and GF and I took the train to the West Village where he wanted to meet up with a former fling. We figured we would be heading to a gay bar, we were just surprised at the type of gay bar. It was filled with waaay too many women and when GF made a comment, we were informed it was a lesbian bar. That explained its name, the Cubby Hole. Ehhh.
So instead of letting lesbians hit on me and buy me free drinks I went the opposite route and yelled at one for cutting in the bathroom line. It's amazing I did not get my ass beat. The former fling was with his best girl friend. I had met the two of them before, months ago, and I happen to love this girl. She was hilarious and kept yelling that this bar "was the tits!". She also listens to me rant about stupid guys that I'm dating/have dated. We had a couple of drinks and even though GF tried to convince me to stay out, I knew I needed to call it a night early, since I had to work the next day.
Later this week I also went out with Russian Rocher. She is very in the know, and was privy to a private party at one of Meatpacking's most exclusive clubs, the Boom Boom Room. There is no way in hell I ever would've been able to get in on my own so this is why I agreed to go out, late night, on a Tuesday. After work we met at a gallery opening for some free booze and then hit up a Mexican place in the West Village for dinner. That killed enough time so that we could make it to the party on time, but not too early. We stood in the short line and watched people being turned away who were not on the list. Luckily we were, and we were let in. We took the elevator up to the penthouse (Boom Boom is located on top of the Standard Hotel) and were let out into an opulent space, with views of Manhattan on one side and New Jersey on the other.

                                                                                Ballllllla
Unfortunately being in surrounding such as these comes with a price--drinks were almost $20. Russian Rocher and I bought one and nursed it the entire night. Every girl there is also absolutely gorgeous so the guys weren't exactly rushing to buy us drinks. The people-watching was phenomenal. The waitresses resembled Greek goddesses, and I witnessed an old black man in sunglasses and a cape dancing with a Heidi Klum lookalike wearing a woman's tuxedo. Even the bathrooms were ridiculous--each one had a floor to ceiling window facing out over the NYC skyline. So you were literally peeing looking out over New York (and since I am scared of heights, I was slightly terrified).
Russian Rocher had been able to get us on the list courtesy of her friend's brother, who throws parties at clubs in Meatpacking. Both were there, both were French and both were super nice. I talked to the brother for awhile on the rooftop, while the gaggle of Aussie girls they were friends with smoked cigarette after cigarette. They were all very nice though and I felt bad when I acted super awkwardly when one told me her grandmother had just died. I am the wrong girl for things like that, and I had to stop myself from saying something along the lines of  "Well, that's to be expected". Another ehhhh. RR and I made a night of it and I didn't get home until nearly 3:30am, when I had to wake my roommate up because I had left my keys in my other purse. Well worth it for my one night at the Boom Boom Room!
Russian Rocher, GF and I tried our hands at being VIP again, courtesy of the same French guy, a couple weeks later. We had been put on the list for another exclusive club in Meatpacking and I was pleased. GF and I had just found out we had both gotten jobs and we were out to celebrate. And celebrate we did, by popping a bunch of adderall and drinking too much at his apartment beforehand. I am pretty sure his roommate wanted to kill us when we were both screaming out stories about our shenanigans at 100 miles an hour. Then we met Russian Rocher in Meatpacking, whom I think was as equally overwhelmed. When we arrived, we were greeted by a huge, surly-looking bouncer with a checklist. RR informed we were on the list and he smugly told us he was not using the list tonight. He also did the same for the people behind us. Even when we called the French guy to come out the bouncer was a dick to him and wouldn't let any of us in. Oh, Meatpacking. Remember the scene from Knocked Up when she yells at the bouncer for only having power between midnight and 4am or whatever? This guy exactly. What a douche bag.
After being rejected from yet another club in Meatpacking, we headed to one of the only normal bars in the area, the Tippler. Things there were fine until they escalated. A very drunk, older guy came up to me and asked if I wanted a drink. Not sure if I should accept, I turned to GF and he signaled for me to do it. I tried to  half-heartedly make conversation with the guy as he ordered our drinks. I chimed in ones for RR and GF as well and this is when his mood turned. He yelled that he wasn't going to be paying for those drinks and I told him that there were for my friends and they would of course pay. In the confusion, the bartender poured too many and the guy began to get angrier. I decided I needed to remove myself from that situation immediately so I turned to GF and RR and told them we were leaving. The three of us basically ran out of the bar, leaving the horrible angry man with 4 shots and 2 drinks, all unpaid for. I don't normally do stuff like that, but this guy was a real ass and deserved it.
Feeling dejected we for some reason decided to try our luck at Le Bain, the other club on top of the Standard Hotel, and also notoriously hard to get into. The gods were finally smiling at us, and we were let in, no questions asked. To celebrate GF ordered us a round of shots and drinks, which cost him over $100. We went to dance and after a few minutes, I realized that all the adderall mixed with alcohol was not a good idea. I apparently left to go to the bathroom twice in 10 minutes and I don't remember any of this. I guess GF and RR were concerned and decided that we should leave. Once again, my drunkface ruins the party. We had a good time while it lasted though.
I stayed at GF's that night and in the morning decided to get brunch at Schiller's. Except I only had my little dress, lacy tights and heels from the night before to wear. I decided I might as well really go for it, so I neither brushed my hair nor my teeth and left his apartment with makeup smeared all over my face. We walked in and a woman looked me up and down, with a disgusted look on her face. While we were waiting to be seated, I loudly thanked GF for taking me to brunch "since they don't normally do that", making sure she could hear. Luckily we were sat right near her, so all throughout brunch, and every time the waitress came up, GF would ask me questions like "So how long have you lived in New York?" or "So what do you do?". We were cracking ourselves up and they soon digressed into the raunchy, such as "Don't worry, that rash should clear up soon". I'm sure that woman did not approve, but what else can you do when you're wearing lacy tights at 11am? At least I didn't really have a one night stand. This time.

The Ski Trip (Part DEUX)

Once everyone had had their fill of skiing, a few of us stopped by the local grocery store to pick up food for dinner, which ended up being a massive feast. I somehow ate 2 huge cheeseburgers and drank a bunch of beer and was still standing. I was a bit concerned about having to put on a bathing suit later that night, but apparently the friend who met us earlier in the day at Killington wasn't. His response when I said I wouldn't play hands-free flip cup after dinner because I was wearing a white shirt was that I should simply remove my shirt. No thanks, guy. We did play some other card games but the mix of the huge dinner and the long day outdoors was making everyone a bit lethargic. Russian Rocher and I had a conference downstairs and decided that this party needed to pick up. We changed into our suits (despite my food baby) and ran upstairs. There were no shot glasses in the house but there was plenty of tequila, so I poured shots into wine glasses and doled them out. I did not measure well, so it looked everyone was drinking a glass of chardonnay instead of tequila.
After, it was hot tub time where we managed to squeeze 9 people into it and a very wasted Deux managed to spill an entire drink down my back. As we all sat uncomfortably close to one another, our topics of choice included my blog, how it was unbelievable that all of the spice girls were still alive and how we were probably all going to get a staph infection from the hot tub, which was beginning to smell strongly of mildew. We slowly started to trickle inside and someone put Zoolander on the tv. I was the last one sitting in the hot tub and by the time I got inside I was disgustingly wrinkly. While I had been roasting outside with a couple of the others, the people inside had started to couple up--Russian Rocher and her guy, as well as JM and the guy's roommate were all getting pretty cozy. Now I was slightly disappointed in the Eagle. We had been talking a lot the past few weeks when we all had gone out, but we had barely spoken on this trip. I had been prancing around in a bathing suit the whole time and he had even walked in on me in my underwear, to no avail. A couple minutes after I sat down with everyone in the living room, he announced he was going to bed and quickly locked himself in his room (his own room!). I gave up--perhaps the Eagle was a bit too boring for me anyway. Plus I had noticed when he was laying on the couch that his hair was not as full as it looked from the front. A Bald Eagle!
Now Deux was throwing back beers in lightning speed and was quickly getting more wasted. I laughed at him while he tried to eat a leftover cheeseburger, which he had piled high with salsa, and could barely stand.

                                                              Blackmail shot
Back in front of the movie he sat next to me and pounded a beer. He then very slyly tried to hold my hand. I contemplated it for one milli-second, until I realized that he had passed out in the chair. I then decided it was absolutely time to call it a night. I woke up early in the morning and noticed a guy in the bunk bed across the room from me. It couldn't have been Deux since he had spent the night in the chair. I put my glasses on and for some reason, decided it was Yahtzee, even though in the full light of day it was revealed that it had been Russian Rocher's dude the whole time. Whaaat.
Half the group split off from us to spend the last day skiing. I had vetoed this immediately. I ate the breakfast that Yahtzee and the Eagle cooked and then crafted my message for the cabin guest book. It reads as follows:

WHAT a weekend! 11 single people in one house makes for some interesting times. Especially when you have the Ultimate Dance Party-1997 cassette to set the mood. We left it behind as a gift, so hopefully future cabin go-ers have the same luck. We also enjoyed our time skiing and it was a success because no one died. Afterwards we took a rejuventating dip in the hot tub (yes, we fit 9 people in it, beat that bitches!), which, fyi, is starting to smell a bit mildewy. We will keep our fingers crossed that there are no staph infections in our future.

Thank you for letting us use your cabin to escape the rats and garbage of NYC for a glorious mountain retreat. For the rest of my life, the wafting aromas of booze and bacon will remind me of this weekend. We heart Vermont.

Xoxo,

“Our initials”

It was time to put the cabin behind us. We split off even further. My carload was the four main girls--me, JM, Russian Rocher and her friend. We wanted to try tubing, so we drove to the place and were thoroughly disappointed when the hill was barely a hill and filled with children. We vetoed it and decided on the next best activity--visiting the Long Trail brewery. Indoor booze, so I was pleased. It turned out to be cute as shit. Next to a river, with a heated deck and a campfire, plus awesome food and a delish sampler of beer. I thought of the other suckers, freezing up on the mountain, while we were cozy inside and I was pleased with our decision and with Vermont. This took an abrupt turn when I took a wrong turn when leaving the brewery, to head back to NYC. The GPS led me up a small road next to a river. It was growing steeper and icier and there was no guardrail. Before I knew it, the road was barely wide enough for the car and my wheels were making bad noises on the ice. I was terrified we were going to plummet down the cliff into the river. We came to the top of the crest which I thought was the light at the end of the tunnel. It turns out, it was a dead end. I could go no further so I had to back down this icy road of death until there was enough space for me to do a 27483 point turn, to turn around. We slid the whole way back down the hill with me cursing the whole time. We made it without falling to our death and it was then that I couldn't wait to get the hell out of Vermont and back to the City. We were of course stuck in traffic for most of the way home and by the time I drove into Manhattan the Volvo was making a terrifying high-pitched squeaking noise. We had made it home alive and though I enjoyed my journey into the countryside, I was glad it was only for a weekend.