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Archive for going out
January 20, 2007 at 2:08 am · Filed under friends, music, going out
It’s been quite a while since the Gang got together. In fact, I haven’t seen some of these people since August/September last year, or at least not all together. Things have mainly been individual lunches here or dinner there or coffee when we found the time. Tonight, in honor of a birthday, we gathered (all of us, almost) for a late dinner at Anthem. It’s always nice to try out a new eatery, especially one that I hadn’t even heard of before.
By the time everyone trickled in, we moved the conversations from the bar to our reserved table for 16. Along the way, like one of those handshake games where you go around and shake everyone’s hand exactly once, we all naturally fell into a ritual of chatting, clinking glasses, and going out of our ways to say hi to every person, even the one headed toward that far other end of the table. As I glanced all around me, I saw hugs, kisses, winks, happy laughing faces, and smiling faces who radiated back genuine happiness at seeing me, and each other, again.
I felt like I was in the final scene of those romantic comedies that come out around the holidays, where everyone’s gathered around a big table, laughing and happy, but you can’t make out what any of them are saying because warm and fuzzy music is playing, leading to the credits rolling. So this time, my life felt like a happy movie. The best part is that this is just the beginning, and not the conclusion of my movie.
Unfortunately, the night had to end with the restaurant playing The Scientist by Coldplay. I never really paid attention to the lyrics, nothing beyond the eerily haunting melody. Ironically, I looked up the lyrics just earlier today. They are quite sad, but somehow right for my life at just about now. I cut the night short (the others were all going out, albeit only having about an hour before last calls), wanting to come home instead and just curl up against my pillow with my book of the moment.
January 3, 2007 at 5:49 pm · Filed under friends, going out
We rang in another year, next to some fishes and turtles this time. I like New Year’s Eve parties with open bars :)
High school friends at the SC Aquarium celebrating New Year’s Eve
(left to right: Ryan, me, Lauren, Mary Ellen, Jen)
Lauren told me to look “angry” for the camera … probably a bit too un-sober to appear angry enough :)
September 16, 2006 at 2:02 pm · Filed under going out
I’m sitting at home, extremely bored (for once!), and I’m staring at my bike. I just realized that I was gonna go on a team ride with the MIT cycling club this morning. Except that ride started at 9am, and I didn’t remember the ride until just now. Probably when I went to sleep last night, the whole concept of riding a bike at 9am was lost on me. My brain blocked out the thought and thus I never set an alarm to wake up in time.
Any jazz fans? I went to this ridiculous show last night at a local jazz club played by John Pizzarelli. What a phenomenal entertainer, comedian, musician, vocalist! It was also at one of those places where the venue is rather lounge-like, and the audience is seated at cocktail tables. I felt like the audience in the Jerry Seinfeld sketches that play at the beginning and end of Seinfeld episodes. Aside from a couple of teenage kids there with their parents, we were definitely the youngest people at the club, perhaps by decade(s).
As for the parties this weekend … I think I settled on which one I want to go to tonight. I skipped out on all of them last night, opting for some chill jazz instead. I’ve just felt really mellow lately with no desire to get dressed, to go out, to go partying, though a friend did manage to twist my arm enough to convince me to go to Middlesex with him Thursday night. I wasn’t too keen on going because I was feeling pretty comfortable at home, but he offered to pick me up and drive there, which immediately lowered the energy barrier for going out. I actually had a fantastic blast after I got there. The great thing about Middlesex is that you always run into people you know.
August 29, 2006 at 3:13 am · Filed under going out
Talk about missed connections; I’ve had two in the past month. That’s not a particularly good track record. Not to mention that I think I may have isolated some friends with my recent erratic and overly un-reined-in behavior. No wonder, with the amount I’ve been going out and drinking lately, my feelings would be hurt by me too. Granted, my friends have been just as crazy as I have been with the partying, but when we are sober, we all sorta pretend that things aren’t weird. Pretty bad, I know. We talk to each other as if nothing happened when we were tipsy/buzzed/drunk, and as if there are no tensions to speak of.
The really bad part is that the gang’s not really stopping … it’s only Monday, but enough people have sent around emails already that we have a party/club lined up every night beginning Tuesday night. I didn’t even party this hard in college. Maybe we are consciously seeking for the alcohol-induced loss of inhibitions so that we can be a bit more honest with each other.
Unrelated, but worth noting: I had two different people ask me today if a friend of mine is gay. He’s not, but how do you tell if a guy is gay anyways? I was at a gay friend’s birthday party Sunday night. It was attended by mostly men, who were all so unfairly attractive that I was even convinced that god did indeed spend a little more time on them. Given the crowd, I was extremely confused as to who was fair game, and who wasn’t. Frustrating at best.
When it comes down to it, these situations are lose-lose to me anyways, no matter how I look at it. The gay guys make a losing situation; they are definitely not fair game. The not gay ones … well, I usually find out they’re not gay by seeing them being totally into another girl, by which point, the situation is also totally completely lost. *sigh*
February 20, 2006 at 6:25 pm · Filed under going out
As indicated by the lack of many strike-throughs on my to-do list, I hardly got anything done this weekend. Instead, I spent a lot of it partying, sleeping, and being dazed and confused about life.
Usually when I am confused about life, I am complaining about how I lack direction professionally/career-wise. This time, for once, I am not going around in circles because I am debating where to go academically, educationally, schooling-wise, etc. etc. I am dazed and confused about the sudden turn in my social life, my precipitous transition from “quiet night with thoughts of marriage on my mind” to “party party party like there’s no tomorrow and no looking behind.”
This self-reflection was brought on by the fact that, while trying to explain to someone why I didn’t have time to meet up this weekend, I myself realized, and ultimately became quite embarrassed by, just how ridiculously much I party and drink now-a-days. It goes completely against the shan of yesteryears who frowned upon clubbing (in fact, I used to hate clubs), bar-hopping, drinking, and general debauchery. I am torn between letting loose/having fun and being ashamed at having an image of “hard core party girl who drinks like a fish.” I have always looked down on people with that image, and here I am, building up my reputation for that exact image I shunned in others while sitting on my high horse a couple of years ago.
I look back on this weekend, and it consisted of a blur of nightclubs, pubs, beers, drinks, and men. Imagine one of those music-infused collage sequences you see in the movies: heavy metal banging in the background as disco lights flash and the camera cuts from one party to the next to the dancefloor to the scantily-clad beautiful people gyrating their hips to dim lighting to the drinks to the bar to waking up the next morning groggy-eyed with the sun beating down on the pillow. That’s about how my weekend went Friday AND Saturday nights. Sunday, I suddently felt that perhaps life ought to have a bit more meaning than partying and going out. Partying seems so superficial. But then again, what more meaning is there a need for when I am simply doing things that I enjoy, that make me happy?
There is also a second part to the daze (and confusion) of this weekend, but since I strive to keep this blog abstract and general, I will skip the second part. (Don’t you hate it when people do that? When they say that they know something, but then say that they can’t tell you what it is? Yeah, I always hated that, too. But if you have talked to me recently, like REALLY honest-to-goodness talked to me, then I have probably already told you, to more excruciating detail than you ever cared to know, what this second part is about. So quit moaning and complaining and accusing me of withholding information! ;)).
January 19, 2006 at 1:59 am · Filed under going out
33 drinks in 2 days, and these are the only pictures we have to show for them …
January 16, 2006 at 9:39 pm · Filed under friends, going out
Philip, an old friend from UVA, visited me this past weekend. It was a weekend of birthday dinners, salsa dancing, sprained ankles, fraternizing with the Blue Man Group, Dr. M, ghetto rabbits/frogs, meeting ee of ees, chopsticks, stalkers, spheres, trying not to watch 24, pittsburgh & carolina, beers with 9.5% alcohol content, keyboards, clam chowdah, cab drivers who don’t know their way around, glamour shots, and a whole lot more alcohol than we should have had.
The highlight of the weekend was probably us hanging out until 2:30 in the morning with Meridian and Shaneca of the Boston Blue Man Group. In addition to being incredibly talented percussionists, actors, dancers, performers, they’re also just a couple of super sweet, laid-back guys who know how to enjoy the moment and have a good time. Many thanks to Billy, the Charles Playhouse Lounge bartender/assistant manager for introducing the boys to us!
The highlight residual of the weekend has got to be the list of toasts that we now have. Every drink that Phil and I had, we drank to something. We tried to keep a record of all of them (which became quite difficult sometimes), and in turn documented the people, the events, the jokes, and just how much we actually drank in 2 days…
the things that phil and I drank to this weekend:
1. to 1 out of 30
2. to getting phone calls from people we like
3. to tillett - teaching us what not to do in the future
4. to getting wet on saturday night (get your mind out of the gutter)
5. to bouncing hug checks
6. to never giving up - restoration ball 2006
7. to moving up on shan’s list of guys
8. to the monkey
9. to being above ground and sucking on the grass roots
10. to bartenders
11. to making every hour count, every minute worthwhile, every second last
12. to blue men
13. to yushenkov’s poison
14. to shankar’s shot
15. to meridian & shaneca
16. to old flames
17. to not speaking chinese
18. to looking good with black
19. 2 years 2 long
20. to monkeys and frogs and rabbits
21. to not being taken
22. to listening to your heart but following your brain
23. to jaeger
24. to another jaeger, and-in phil’s case-to finishing karen’s drink
25. to stroking the f-key
26. to being admired, but never loved (so depressing, but probably true)
27. to greatness and bitterness
28. to being/getting on top
29. to not being desperate … and still drinking triple sec
30. to sexing it up with Maxim (by Phil)
31. to not talking
32. to always having fun and having limited responsibilities
33. to shan being naked in public*
* clarification: this didn’t actually happen; we just drank to it **
** further clarification: shan did not endorse this toast. she lost a bet ***
*** author’s note: yes, shan does speak about herself in the third person
Thanks for coming Phil; I had such a blast!! Next time, we will go for the nation’s capital :)
January 4, 2006 at 12:33 pm · Filed under going out
Here is Paula’s account of our New Year’s Eve, in case you need another opinion. I joined in starting Act II Scene 3. I’m mentioned by name, except where I’m mentioned as the “bond girl”. Yeah. Anyways. Just chalk it up to high school.
January 1, 2006 at 10:27 pm · Filed under going out
The first time I celebrated the turn of any year was New Year’s Eve 2005. As the clock struck midnight, I stood to clink my champagne glass with a friend’s … only to find a gay man sitting on the floor of my gay friend’s apartment hugging my right leg, tugging on my jeans, and regretfully proclaiming, while he gazed into my eyes, that if only I didn’t have a boyfriend, he would give me a New Year’s kiss. With this delectable memory of my first new year’s eve celebration, and with the bye-bye of the aforementioned boyfriend who hitherto stood between me and my flamboyant kiss, I had nothing but the highest expectations for the ringing in of 2006.
In the company of only one gay man last night, five high school buddies and I hit up Broad Street. One buddy was our “in” to the Charleston social scene, promising us pubs, after parties, and his hunkish straight med school friends. There were no disappointments before midnight as the rounds of drinks poured in, and we girls were surrounded by hot, southern, funny, and charming doctors-in-training. Less than an hour after the ball dropped at midnight though, the ball also dropped on our show. Our social butterfly of a buddy ended up sick over a trash bin at the pub, and was driven home by his roommate. Another friend was beyond inebriated, with a guy none of us knew hanging onto her shoulders not ready to let go anytime soon. There were dynamics of somethmm-somethmm developing within our group. Later, completely unrelated, there was a bathroom stall sharing incident, the details of which are a bit fuzzy.
With our “in”-buddy passed out in his roommate’s car en route to bed, we had about as much chance of finding the after party as we had of not being stupid enough to try anyway. We ended up walking for an hour through quiet residential streets with multi-million-dollar, porch-lined, southern mansions loudly debating whether “legare street” is pronounced luh-gair or luh-gree (luh-gree; it’s “french”). We never found the after party, but of course someone inevitably had to urinate in the drive way of a gajillion-dollar mansion. We did manage to eventually all end up at our friend’s place downtown without being stopped by cops, where we crashed for the night.
The highlights of the collective aftermaths today include a lost contact, a clogged kitchen sink, a bloody eye, a lock-in that really wasn’t, shrimp and grits, a Hillary Clinton spotting (that’s Senator Hillary Clinton), and a phone call from a guy whom I apparently gave my number to.
Happy 2006 everyone. I was too busy with libations last night to make resolutions, though it may not be a bad idea to start with “to drink less.”
*Addition* - Reminesce 2005 with Dave Barry in his annual month-by-month year in review.
February 13, 2005 at 10:55 pm · Filed under going out
This weekend, Ryan got an invite to a “dress to impress” party, which further cemented my interests in such parties. Maybe they are a new thing, or maybe I’m only just now becoming old enough (or more probable, “cool enough”) to know about their existence. What exactly is a dress to impress party? If I want to impress the nerds, do I dress up as a calculator?
But somehow, I think that’s not exactly the point of dressing to impress. Ryan was lost when he read “dress to impress” and said something along the lines of “what exactly is THAT supposed to mean?” I, on the other hand, immediately got very excited as I saw yet another opportunity to get dolled up and go out. Maybe it’s a girl thing, maybe it’s because my friend Gretchen introduced me to it on her blog (forget the exact entry), maybe I just have spider-senses for dolling-up parties, but I knew what “dress to impress” meant as soon as I read the invite.
Anyway, so it’s cool that Ryan got an invite to dress to impress, but not cool because he can’t go (which means I can’t go) because we have to get up early the next morning to go hit up some slopes. So much for all the excitement.
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