What is with New Yorkers and keeping the blinds open?

The weekend started early with happy hour drinks on Thursday. Bree and I headed down to Phebe’s in the bowery to meet up with Rob, Dana, and five of their friends (three guys and two girls). I of course don’t remember their names, but I think one was a Mike. Anyway, the point of catching drinks was so that Dana could set up two of the mutual friends. Well I don’t know if the couple got a chance to talk privately because the conversation was in full swing. We started off with frat and sorority stories, walks of shame, and then slipped into odd places people have urinated while drunk (not us, just people we know or have seen). I still do not understand how a guy can think a closet is a bathroom. Poor Bree admitted that she was once peed on by a freshman frat guy. The guy was literally standing over her (and her boy at the time sleeping on the futon) and spraying them back and forth like a lawn sprinkler. The boy victim unknowingly went to class without changing (typical college behavior where you wake up five minutes before class starts) covered in dried piss. Bree later got a bouquet of flowers from the freshman saying “it is better to be pissed on than to be pissed off”. Ah ha ha.

Later, the gang headed across the street to the famed Bowery Bar (B-bar). The place has the lour of old Hollywood, etc. Surprisingly the girls started talking about their love for big buck hunter (the new golden tee). I know first hand the addiction people have with that game. I remember one time Farrell was playing the game and his drunk and annoying ex girlfriend kept shouting at him “you can’t provide for me”. Bitch.

Anyway, later we were standing by the bar when a girl stepped on Bree’s foot….with a high heel! Yeah, the girl basically punctured Bree’s foot. Okay, who puts weight down when stepping if you feel something squishy under your heel? Poor girl, it still hurt a few days later.

Eventually the group called it a night (like at 2am) since we all had to work the next day. I do admit that I was sad to part since I have officially formed a girl crush on Dana (you know harmless like when guys have guy crushes on Derrick Jeter and stuff).

I skipped out on swimming on Saturday morning. Mark, the “swim boy” told me I missed out on some real drama at the pool. I guess a jerk guy was weaving in a lane and ran into a woman. He then yelled at her to stay in her “lane” (ie swim straight) even though he was the culprit. The lifeguards saw the whole thing and dragged the guy out kicking and screaming.

So when I was supposed to be at the pool, I went down to Union Square instead. I had some errands to run and to my surprise ran into a street festival. Okay, I looove street fairs. They have all sorts of yummy food and cheap goods (400 thread count sheets for $10, inde jewelry for $2, 6 for $10 NYC t-shirts, etc). I took a picture to convey what it looks like (typically they are on larger avenues so it is more spread out). Any good fair is full of psychics and massage enthusiasts. One old Asian woman grabbed me by the arm and tried to pull me towards her massage bed saying “you come now, I give free sample massage, you like…” I just pulled away and ran. Yeah, living in the city makes you numb to human emotion. You just learn to avoid eye contact and glaze over any suffering on the streets.

Off the main street was a quaint gated street with lots of old world charm. The street was cobblestone and the houses were all historic. I guess it houses the NYU grad department of language arts (the French department building was the neatest). The end of the block dropped me off at Washington Square Park. Now this park is in the center of NYU and considered the epicenter of the village. I know it as the park where everything goes. Seriously, you cannot walk thru there without smelling weed, seeing street performers and artist with their easels out, oh and of course the most unusual hobos (yeah, I’m talking like weirdest of the ultra weird there). I spent thirty minutes of the gorgeous day hanging out in the fountain (there are steps in it that you can sun lounge in while dipping your feet in the water).

Once I got my fill of the good life (and plenty of people watching), I made my way down to SoHo to pick up a pair of $5 imitation designer sunglasses. Yeah I have a habit of breaking them by either sitting or stepping on them. Good thing I only pay $5 for my Diors.

That night I met up with Bree, Rob, Chris and his girlfriend to watch a sketch comedy show called “Kidnapped by Craig’s List” that was getting good word on the streets. Basically it was a group of four who acted out two minute sketches based on odd Craig’s list postings (yes they were all real). One of the opening acts was a song titled “I don’t like it when you stick things in my ass-hole”. Yeah, they went there. It was made even more awesome by they way the actors sang (they tried to mimic the a-hole with their mouths…you had to be there). Some other highlights were “hey cute naked guy from across the street, please close the blinds because gay men like me who live across the street have to work in the morning and cannot spend all night watching you, and if you start to stroke it, for goodness sake, finish it so we are not left wondering what you were thinking;” “hey all men of brown color out there, use it to your advantage, freak out white people on the train by acting suspicious and keep opening and checking in your large bag;” “for sale, seven Jesus plates that give me bad luck, please only serious buyers who will display them like they should be;” “if you are a girl and want to go to Atlantic City for the weekend, please call me, I will even pay for your hotel room since you will be sleeping with me to pay for the ride;” “missed connection, you: the girl throwing up repeatedly into a trash can at grand central, me: one of the men in the crowd watching you, I know you saw be between the heaves and I know we had an instant connection, call me;” and my favorite “I know the subway is crowded, but sir you don’t need to be rubbing your hard-on on my butt, I know you are doing it on purpose since the hip thrusting is obvious, I hope a gay man with a hard-on presses it up against your backside at the next stop”.

The playhouse was this hole in the wall theatre (the PIT) in Chelsea. Although the place was tiny and dark, they handed out suckers to all the audience members. Score! At first, the group was hesitant to eat them in case the actors would emerge laughing at us because the candy was laced with mouth dye or LSD. Also the front row held a lady with the most annoying laugh…ever! Seriously, I kept doubling over at the begging of the play, laughing at her laugh. It was like “HA! AH AH AH! HA! EH EH EH!” Yeah, we all thought she was a plant or something and the actors were a little caught off guard by it. Every time she would laugh, everyone would look at her (in an obvious way) and then start dry-heave laughing. I had tears running down my cheeks I was laughing so hard. I also took a picture of the flyer advertising next show coming to the theatre “why is this man naked?” Bree and I decided to put that on the schedule because we have never seen a fat man naked….wait does that make us some weird fetish perverts?

After the play, we headed down to the lower east side. We attended the opening of a bar called Spitzer’s Corner on Ludlow and Rivington. It had these long wooden tables (that Bree and Rob were intoxicated with) and a large Belgium import list. The beer of the night was “delirium” which was 8% and super smooth, plus it promised to make you see pink elephants after consuming it…yeah we got drunk but alas no pink elephants. Now Bree and I have a habit of getting all judgmental and evil when we drink. Case in point, the rhinestone pocket girl. A group of Jersey girls walked in with their one shoulder tank tops and jeans. Well one had accessorized her back jeans pockets with all sorts of jewels. Bree said “it is like she is advertising that she owns a be-dazzler”! Ah ha ha ha.

We headed down the street to Hotel Rivington because Rob new the bartender there. Yeah we totally bypassed the “list” by dropping the name. Hurrah for pretending to be swanky. Rob wanted me to meet Billy the Bartender because he hopes to set us up. Well the guy is cute and kept handing us fresh drinks when ours still had a third left in them. Oh did I mention he comped all of our drinks….yeah, sweet sweet sweet deal. We kept tucking money into his breast pocket…okay me so I could feel what he had under his shirt. Hey anyway to cop a feel.

Well to thank Rob for hooking us up with such a sweet deal, Bree and I decided to find him a woman. He is shy and has problems starting a conversation with women. We tried to talk loud about subject matter near a group of girls and then turn to them and ask them what they thought. Granted we were pretty drunk so we may have come off as more the annoying drunk people next to them. Bree left early to head back to Spanish Harlem, so when Rob went to get refills, I was left to fend for myself. Soon some Aussies came over and tried to make conversation. I was not in the mood and wanted to scare them off (so that Rob and I could get back to women hunting), so I used the “I am into girls” lie. I was tempted to start making faces at them, but I didn’t want to come off as the lunatic. Wrong. Aussies I guess are really into the lezzies. I pretended to go to the bathroom, hid behind a corner, and caught Rob as he was returning.

After plenty of drinking and predator like behavior, we stopped by a local pizza joint (okay where in New York can you not walk two blocks and stumble into half a dozen late night pizza places). My new favorite (or at least when I am finely intoxicated) is tomato, basil, and mozzarella. Mmmmmn! I hoped in a cab and headed uptown. While in the cab, I called Bree to make sure she got home okay (she left about an hour before us) and a man with an Indian accent said hello. I quickly said wrong number and hung up. I thought that was odd, but sure enough, it was her number. I called it again, and timidly asked if Brean was around (okay my heart is racing and I’m thinking she was abducted and is being forced to empty her bank account or something). He said “oh she left phone in cab”. Phew! I offered to pay the fair necessary to have him swing by my apartment and drop off the phone. Before he agreed he asked “how do I know you are her friend and that you will give her the phone” to which I thought “okay buddy, who else but a friend would be calling at 4am to make sure she got home alright”. While waiting in the lobby for the cabbie to stop by, I chatted with the graveyard shift doorman. He informed me that back in the 1970’s, 45th street (my street) was know as drug alley. I guess this was the place to be for drugs and prostitutes. My building (the Camelot) was called the “cum-a-lot”! Thankfully times have changed and we keep hooking corralled on the 14th floor.