In practice, we found ourselves on the train in surrounded by fifteen guys and two girls, all of whom could have been our children considering their ages. They were drinking, shouting across to each other, sharing train tickets, offering large cans of beer to each other, passing bottles and phones to each other, over and around us. They were figuring out how to get to the bar. They were high-fiving each other and the guys in the band--some of them were in a band, I think. They were drinking booze out of soda bottles--or some of them were just having an adverse reaction to soda judging by the wincing every time they swigged from the bottles. They were sharing bottles, meaning they were sharing mono. They were psyched! They were ready to party!
I was ready for bed.
Eddie and I had our own fun. Instead of pre-gaming, we played around with the options on his phone camera. He finds this entertaining:
Because the theme was Red and Black and it was a party, I'd let Eddie pick out my outfit, which of course turned out to be a dress--black dress, red boots. These boots are my velour spiked heels tight pull up dressy dress boots. Perfect for summery and springish weather. When we stepped out of the station and onto the subway platform, the cold air of winter went right up my dress and sent me into a chillllllllllll. So that I had no chance of ever warming up, the MTA decided to confuse me by sending the C line on the D line and we had to get off after one stop and change trains again at another freezing station.
The upside? Violin music on the platform. Eddie asked if I wanted to dance. I did, but I turned him down, informing him about the recent wrath of police arresting people who dance in public. The thieves who prey on iPod users and little old ladies are much more difficult to catch, so dancers beware.
We got to the party at a little after 10:30 PM after two rides and some walking. In the flurrying snow. Yep, flurries, me and my pretty red boots and short black dress, stamping through the NYC winter night. It sent me back to my undergrad days when I was a sophomore at SUNY Oneonta and I went out in a tank top in zero-degree weather. Back then, I was young and stupid. Now? Well, kind of the same.
When we got to the door, the woman asked if we were there for a party. Eddie said yes and told her his friend's name. She was like, Oh are you him? Ummmm, if it were him, wouldn't he says, Yes I'm here for MY party? So no, it wasn't him, and she told us we were the first ones there.
Of course we were. It wouldn't happen any other way.
We got our hands stamped and then proceeded into the bar. Let me repeat, we got our hands stamped.
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| This stamp did not come off my hand until three days later. |
Basically, Eddie asked for a Ketel One and Seven and got a Grey Goose and Sprite, which is different in the way that Coke and Pepsi are different. It was like the poor man's Ketel One and Seven.
I got a rum and Diet Coke because I'm watching my girlish figure.
For kicks, I was like, How much do you think the tab is? Neither one of us drink anymore and when we do, it's rarely in the city, so I wanted to see how close we could get. Eddie said, 16 or 18. I was like, nah, it's gotta be 20.
The bartender put our drinks down in front of us and shouted, 27!
Bah HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
How far out of the loop are we? Twenty-seven dollars for two drinks? I could buy an entire bottle of Grey Goose and stick a straw in it for twenty-seven dollars. We looked at each other and realized that the amount of money we usually spend on a date--forty bucks!-- is what we spent on two drinks.
We sipped and stirred, sipped and stirred, milked them for every penny. The upside: they were amazing. It was the best rum and Diet Coke I've ever had. Dude knew what he was doing when he flipped those bottles.
Finally, other people showed up in their kind of red and black. The birthday boy showed up not too much later. We yelled over the music. We watched The Three Stooges on the large screens over the bar. We tried to figure out what the two people on their laptops were doing and why they were doing it in a bar. I took a picture of two ultra skinny girls who posed as if I were the photographer for Vogue and they were on a professional shoot.
And then, we were ready to go so we could catch the 1:40-something home. Eddie had football in the morning. I had a whole list of chores. Big weekend!
The train ride home was not the drunk train. It was the train before the drunk train that had drunk people on it, but not the sickly and stupidly drunk. Most people were either eating pizza, on their phones, or giggling. We? Were taking pictures of ourselves. It's what we do.
At some time later after he'd left for football, I somehow got myself up and into the living room. Where I sat on the couch. And sat some more. And then lied down. Then sat a little. And then hung off of it as I drifted into some limbo between awake and asleep. I had a one-drink-hangover that was not fading away silently. Instead, it was ravaging all it could and leaving a carcass of a gal behind. Even now, it's a blurrrrrrrrrrrr. Eddie came home at some point. I ate something at some point. But really, the only clear thing I remember is not wanting to be awake at all ever.
This is much unlike my undergrad days when I'd wake up at 7 AM after getting in at 4 AM and then work out and hang out and maybe crash around 4 PM but then bounce back for dinner around 6 PM and then hang out until 10, 11, 12. Sure, I haven't done that in a long time, but not so long ago, I did go out and stay out and then function the next day. Maybe I need to start drinking more.
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