It's been a bit longer than normal since I posted and I thought an explanation was in order.
Well, as I mentioned, I'm trying to fill up all my "free" time with socializing and worthwhile endeavors lately, so it's not "free" for any BS to creep in. In keeping with that, I met up with my old crew from college for a long-postponed reunion in the city. It was just supposed to be a late lunch at four o'clock, shopping, a visit to a wine bar and then clubbing, but by 4:15pm, we already knew those plans were dust.
Of course, it's 4pm, it's past lunch but it's not quite dinner but with this ridiculous NYC heat and humidity sapping the life out of us, we were already hungry. Did we grab a quick slice? Did we hit Subway so we could eat and shop? Patronize the nearest Gray's Papaya? No. Instead, we went to a ridiculously overpriced restaurant in the Village, specializing in Asian-Brazilian (or "Braz-Asian", a term coined by my loctician) fusion. It was restaurant week in NYC, and we could have gotten a full course dinner for $30. Did we do that? NO!
Instead the hostess seated us at a booth where we were promptly distracted by hot Brazilian men in soccer shirts (and we spent a good fifteen minutes debating whether to switch tables to be closer to them), and real Carnival dancers sashaying through the restaurant every fifteen minutes. Needless to say, that made choosing from a menu a little tough, so, FOR NO REASON AT ALL, we decided to pretend we were ballers ("pretend" is the key word, as with all of us being no more than three years out of college, NONE of us are ACTUALLY ballers) and just order a bunch of things to be shared amongst the table. Reminder!: We had NO restaurant week coupons.
The waitress came and we each pointed at about menu items like we were choosing from the dollar menu, when they were really about $16 a pop, my girlfriends drank cocktails like they got free refills (NO, they did not), and when we were still hungry after a table full of tiny (but tasty) expensive food (including half a lobster), we ordered a table full of dessert. Basically, each time the waitress came by, we ordered something new, and we kept laughing amongst ourselves that there was NO reason for us to be doing this. But hey, it's NYC, and sometimes you just have to blow some cash.
When the check came, the party slowed down a bit: $193.47. Let me repeat that again: $193.47. For THREE people, for LUNCH. Oh yeah, we were pretending to be ballers, and next week, we'll be pretending to be BROKE. With tip, my girlfriends paid $90 (EACH), and I paid $60 (giving up alcohol may be the most cost-effective lifestyle choice I've ever made).
After that catastrophe (which we all stayed good-humored about and could, thankfully, actually afford), we decided to make ourselves feel better with a little retail therapy. 'Cause that makes sense: sad about spending too much money? Spend more money! We visited an adult shop that I've accidentally been to about four times (I keep thinking I'm going to a different store until I get inside) and joked about the ridiculous contraptions and costumes all over the walls (all of which looked slightly dirty, like this was a delayed shipment from 2002).
Next, my girlfriends felt like their buzz was wearing off and we ALL agreed it was time to see some beautiful Black men, so we went down to a Caribbean hot spot for drinks and a little nosh. We flirted with the bartender, we openly oggled the waiters and any man not with a date, they ordered several CARAFES of rum punch and wings, my friend dropped it like it was hot in a classy dress better suited to the Kentucky Derby, and added some more friends to our little "I Love NYC" party. The waiter actually commented that I was the sane one of the bunch, probably because I was the only one who hadn't been drinking since 4pm (it was 8pm now), and because the most sophisticated one of us was now dropping F-bombs like confetti.
Our new friends hadn't eaten, so while they stayed in theVillage, we went Uptown for cheap karaoke. The DJ there was hot, but not sending any play our way. There were clearly several other parties including a bunch a Latino folks (and no offense, karaoke sounds horrendous enough in English, but to add that I couldn't understand what they were saying and that each song was about EIGHT minutes long, I was about to blow my eardrums out on purpose), and a group of people that were clearly models, as they were almost killed by the air conditioning unit on the low ceiling of the stage and because they were way too tall and perfectly beautiful to be normal people. One of the friends from the Village finally joined us after he'd eaten and TWO HOURS LATER, we finally decided to head BACK to the Village to go clubbing.
We searched everywhere on the strip for a club with enough Black men for our tastes (and a new friend we'd who'd met us along the way had a few hookups along the way to avoid all the covers as we perused the club's racial makeup). Unfortunately, we came up empty, and settled for cheap shots at a hookah bar until we remembered the Caribbean spot we had drinks earlier is a club in the late night hours, so we went back.
When our friend who normally clubs for free and our grad student friend found out the cover was $10 (some strange man we THOUGHT worked for the club got us a discount from $20--he didn't actually work for the club and kept saying "I could sell ice to an Eskimo."), they passed and it was just me and one girlfriend left.
Immediately, we enjoyed that our people were thick in there--so thick the heat and humidity INSIDE was stifling. A man, out of nowhere (and wearing shorts and athletic shoes in a CLUB), picked up my friend and started twirling her around. It took three people (including our friend from outside the club who acted as our guardian angel the entire time in the club) to get her down.
The time was now 2:30am. We didn't get home until 6am. To be continued...
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