Poverexic in NYC

Two blackout weekends in a row… who knew November would be so exciting.  This past weekend was the Harvard-Yale game, or for most Harvard/Yale kids, the one time a year that they actually “go crazy” (read: drink like normal college kids and then get sent to UHS).  Harvard-Yale for grads usually means reuniting with old friends, re-lighting old flames, crashing undergrad tailgates, getting shitfaced and urinating in public.

This year the game was at Yale, which means 8am party bus to New Haven.  After a night at the Standard Biergarten for the pre-party, I woke up Saturday morning pumped and simultaneously feeling like death.  I wake up roommate M, who is also in poor shape, and we both pick up S to go head to the bus.  M had brought his flask of Svedka, I had brought my usual HY goods of 2 bottles of champagne and a bottle of Jim Beam, and S had brought an entire fucking cooler.  Talk about over-generosity.  Everyone was told to just bring booze/food for themselves, and S brings 100 Bud Lights, a bottle of champagne, an entire handle of Corner Creek, and a dozen sandwiches and wraps.  Good thing I hadn’t had breakfast because I just ate 2 wraps from S and 1 breakfast sandwich from F, and I was ready for my booze.

I’m not sure when I stopped feeling like death and the booze started to kick in, but I think it was when I was about half way into my second bottle of champagne and F started to play “we found love in a hopeless place, we found love in a hoooopeless plaaaaace” and “I will never be the same without youuuu, withouuuuttttt youuuuuu.”  Whenever I hear techno music I can’t help but start jumping around like I’m on a shitload of drugs (I wasn’t but probably acting like it) and jumping on everyone in sight, which is what I did in the bus and consequently fell into at least half a dozen people and gave myself half a dozen bruises.  All worth it.

When we got to Yale, we immediately invaded the undergrad finals clubs tailgates, stole all their booze and made them serve us their burgers and hot dogs.  The food was great.  I don’t remember the rest, but apparently it was quite the eventful HY this year.  For example:

1. Our friend P got arrested by New Haven popo even before he got to the tailgate.  For being blackout?  Well, kinda.  Because he had thrown a pile of leaves in a cop’s face.  P, you make me proud.  I’m not sure why he got arrested though to be honest — must have been bad luck because I similarly threw a bunch of balloons in a cop’s face my senior year at Harvard but nothing happened.  Except that he tattle-taled on my house masters and dean and tried to get me to not graduate from Harvard, but I did with zero issues.  As black people (and I) say, Fuck the PO-lice!
2. Someone got run over by a U-Haul and died or something, apparently some 30-year-old person who had no affiliation with Harvard or Yale.  My first reaction was, why was a 30-year-old at an undergrad tailgate… but then I remembered I am not that far from that.  Anyway, I guess that’s what people are starting to do to non-HYers who are crashing HY tailgates — talk about elitism.  You can also bet your ass U-Hauls will be banned from HY tailgates for the rest of our lives (as if banning kegs wasn’t bad enough).

Anyway, the tailgate ended way too quickly, and it was time to return to our party bus before I knew it.  The return ride was even more amped up with techno and dancing, and I felt like I had seriously just been to a 3-hour mobile Avicii concert.  The rest of the night went downhill from there — M/F/I ordered a shitload of Chinese, I passed out on F’s couch, I was kicked out of F’s apartment, then passed out on my own couch.  I think it was only like 10pm at this point because I woke up at 6am, and I was wide awake and couldn’t fall back asleep.  Naturally I had to find something or someone to do, which is what I did 15 minutes later.  Nothing like a 6:15am booty call.

It took a full 24 hours to recover from the weekend, and my arms are still sore as hell from swinging from the party bus like a monkey.  Go Crimson.

I was a complete blackout wreck this weekend, and I hadn’t had this much fun since 5th year reunion.  It was my kitty MS’s wedding in DC, and I knew this weekend would be a shitshow.  This was also the first wedding I had ever been invited to just as a guest and not as a bridesmaid.  Up until now, I’ve either been in the weddings or disinvited from weddings.  I interpret this to mean people either love me or hate me, which sounds about right.  I’m touched to know there are still people out there who just plain like me.

The weekend already started out fantastic when I arrived to my hotel starving to find the best gift bag ever come to my rescue.  This was one serious gift bag — there was an entire bag of jelly bellies, and entire bag of Godiva chocolates, popcorn, cheese straws, granola bar, cheese crackers, 2 vitamin waters, 2 apples, 2 oranges etc etc etc!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gift Bag

I was so impressed.  After chomping into half that bag, I took a delicious 3 hour nap before getting ready for the ceremony at Halcyon House at Georgetown.

While being just a guest meant not having a bride tell me what dress to wear, how to do my hair, what earrings to bring, how much to drink, etc, it also meant not having anyone tell me when to be where and how, and I was completely lost.  I had no idea when I was supposed to arrive to the ceremony — was it acceptable to be fashionably late to these things?  Apparently not, according to all my other friends, unless I wanted to be caught creepily walking down the aisle next to the wedding party.  So of course I show up to the ceremony a good 20 minutes early, only to find that I am the only guest there early besides family.  Derrr…….

Well everyone else eventually arrived, a good 30 minutes fashionably late.  And it was a beautiful ceremony filled with my favorite Jewish traditions.  When the ceremony was done, cocktail hour began upstairs with some incredible butler style hors d’oeuvres, including lamb chops and a guac table.  Yes, a guac table.

GUAC TABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had never seen a guac table before and I was completely overwhelmed.  But at this point in the night I was more concerned with getting in line for the bar to get my scotch on the rocks to get the party started, my drink of choice at weddings (and the best part was that the bartenders were serving all the drinks in wine glasses, including my scotch on the rocks).

At the start of the reception we were all welcomed with the most exciting sign:

MENU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

JUST LOOK AT THAT!!!!!!!!!!!  Unfortunately the multiple wine glasses full of pure scotch were kicking in by now, and all I remember are memories of “rearry dericious” with regards to the appetizer/dinner/dessert flights but no specific memory beyond that.  However, it’s comforting — and simultaneously disturbing — to know that apparently even in my most blackout-ness I always somehow remember to take pictures of everything I eat:

Appetizer Flight

Entree Flight

Dessert Flight

Beyond that, who the fuck knows what happened but it was a blast.  All I remember from the rest of the reception is getting super excited for the hora, the bride slipping off the chair during the hora (terrifying for a split second, but she was fine), screaming for joy when the band started playing Taylor Swift, dancing with more than one suitor exuberantly, and having one of the best nights I’ve had in a really long time.

Here’s what actually happened that night:

• According to G, I was “falling all over the dance floor, flashing your undies countless times, eating other people’s desserts, and falling on the stairs… other than that, you were pretty normal.”
• According to C, I was spitting like a true chink the entire night and getting in a seriously aggressive face slapping war with him.
• According to W, I was “totally behaved at the wedding.  Everyone was having a good time jumping around on the dance floor.”

I didn’t really know whose story to believe since I have zero recollection, but I do vaguely remember falling on my ass at least 4-5 times throughout the night.  After the reception ended, I somehow miraculously made it to the after party where the bride and groom were still raging strong — what a champion couple.  I on the other hand didn’t make it long before I tripped over some poor girl, fell again on my ass, and then I knew it was time for me to go.  I guess it was no shocker that I left empty handed that night, or rather, empty pussied.  I passed out in my hotel bed only to be woken up at 4am to a text from NYC f buddy T (what a tease) to whom I explained my situation, and even he encouraged me to “Go find some dick.”  Appreciate the thought, but it didn’t happen.  Even W (who is a straight male with a girlfriend) got more numbers from dudes at the wedding than I did — apparently man dates and bromance were in.

The next morning I woke up at 7am to the worst splitting headache and nauseating feeling in my stomach.  I look over at the floor, and my beautiful silver heels look like they’ve murdered someone or something because they are covered in red stains.  Apparently when I fell over the girl at the after party, I brought down a glass of red wine with me and spilled it all over my shoes.  Either that or I was on the dance floor pouring wine into my shoes then pouring it back into the glass.  I wouldn’t put it past me.

Anyway, getting over the confusion of how my silver shoes were covered in wine and trying to piece together the night, I went to the bathroom where I puked some disgusting green liquid, which I at first thought was the spinach soup I had for lunch before the wedding ceremony, but yeah nope, nope, that was pure green bile.  After spending a few minutes worrying about the integrity of my esophageal lining and tooth enamel as a result of my alcoholimia, I quickly got over it, chugged 2 Execedrin with one of my vitamin waters, and I felt like a million bucks when I woke up 3 hours later.

I was starving and grateful that there was a post-wedding brunch at the Fairmont Hotel, which was an incred spread of everything I wanted — bagels and lox, plenty of breakfast meats, scrambled eggs, fruit, oatmeal, yogurt, etc etc.

Brunch

I couldn’t believe how quickly the weekend had flown by, but it was seriously the most fun I’ve had in the longest time.  I was sad to say goodbye to all my kitties, but the “adventure” didn’t end there.  Like NYC, DC has some really odd cab drivers, and I unfortunately got one of them on my way back to Union Station.  I hop in and the driver is this huge fat black guy with dreads who looks like he’s been smoking and selling pot since he was born, who tells me “Welcome, welcome aboard!”  What.  What a creep.  I smell something sweet, and I look behind me, and the rear window is literally a shrine to creepy bobble heads with baskets full of blow pops, to which he points and tells me, “Take one!  Make yourself at home!”  I was slightly terrified I was actually going to get raped in this cab, and not in the good way.

Luckily I made it safely and un-raped to the bus station, where I took the Bolt Bus back to home sweet NYC, where I was hoping to get back in time for my Sunday night TV since my bus left at 1:30pm.  Somehow with Veteran’s Day traffic, it ended up taking 7 hours — yes, 7 hours — to get back home.  After the frustration of the unacceptably long bus ride and all my pent up tension from not getting laid at the wedding, I was grateful that T was back in NYC on Sunday to be there for me in this time of need.  I was glad I was able to close this epic weekend with a bang.

This morning’s walk of shame was never filled with more soreness — my body was covered with bruises from my multiple falls on the dance floor/stairs/bar, my feet were all blistered from the hours of insane dancing in 5 inch heels, and I couldn’t move my neck from the wedding aftermath.  A true sign of an amazing weekend.  Congrats M & J!!!

Last week I got a forward from my puta J asking “are you going to this?” to an invite from our high school that was like, “I wanted to invite you and a guest to join us on Wednesday, October 12th for dinner to thank you for your support of Greenhill School and reconnect with fellow alumni.”  Um, am I going?  I didn’t even get an invite, and I was confused and offended, despite the fact that I knew they were just hosting this dinner only to get money from alums.  I mean, I was 30% of the reason why the school’s rankings were so high in everything (I was Asianly ambitious in high school, naturally), so why wasn’t I on their free dinner mailing list (answer: probably because I don’t give).

Anyway I thought about it for two seconds and was like fuck it, they owe me a free dinner, and I made the decision to get myself invited.  I emailed the alumni director demanding I be put on the mailing list, and in contrast to my bitchiness she was incredibly nice and overly excited that I had reached out and encouraged me to let her know of any and all other alumni she had left off the mailing list.  I took that quite literally and proceeded that very day to forward the dinner invitation to 20 other people who were three years younger than me.  Interestingly enough, I recently reconnected with high school class of ’05/college ’09 people through Texas sports watching in NYC.  I don’t give a shit about Texas sports, but I do enjoy beer, wings and a room full of dudes, so obviously I partake.  Also ’07-09 have always been the better classes over ’06 so I was confident that when our powers combined we could turn this stuffy, “business attire” reunion dinner into a complete open bar shitshow.

So the dinner was this past Wednesday, and we successfully turned it into a complete open bar shitshow.  Arriving to Trattoria Dell’ Arte in Midtown West, I was curious who all would be at this event.  Would other random people from my high school be there that I hadn’t seen in a decade?  Has anyone gotten fat?  Has anyone gone gay?  Answer: nope.  I get there and literally the only people there are myself, my puta J, the headmaster (who hadn’t aged a day in the 10 years I hadn’t seen him), my choir teacher (who of course before he even says hi to me is like ARE YOU STILL PLAYING THE PIANO?!?!?), and then the 20 class of 09ers I had invited to this dinner.  Proud.

I thought this dinner would be family style, but it was quite the nice sit-down dinner with the open bar I expected, a starters table with plenty of antipasti, and then penne pasta to start, three choices of entree, and cannoli and chocolate mousse for dinner.  I had a glass of red wine during the headmaster’s speech, a glass during antipasti, a glass with my penne, a glass with my medium rare steak, and a glass with my chocolate mousse and I was having a grand old time.  I suddenly really liked my high school that night.  Probably a temporary feeling.

Lately I’ve been going out a lot more during the week and doing a lot more day drinking on Saturdays and Sundays, which I can’t figure out if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.  I have mixed feelings about going out hard during the week.  On the one hand, it helps to break up the work week, but on the other hand, I’m exhausted by Friday, especially knowing that I’m going to start drinking again on Saturday morning.

This past Thursday we had an impromptu roommate dinner, which we hadn’t done in a long time.  Roommate M had a Groupon to this place Bento Burger, which sounded fascinating — Japanese burger fusion.  Having never been to this place before, I of course immediately turned to the world wide web.  Their website looked pretty awesome, but what was even more intriguing was what came up on Google Images for “bento burger.”

Frog Bento Burger

Monkey Bento Burger

Bear Bento Burger

Obviously I chose to believe what I saw on Google Images over what was on the Bento Burger website because that made more sense.  I coordinated after-work meet-up with roommate M at King’s Cross next to B Bar with A, who apparently was holding a NYC Triathlon Meet Up event there and picks the weirdest bars to go out to.  There were a total of 3 people there, including A, and neither of the other 2 were triathletes.  This bar was also one of the saddest places I’d ever been to in Manhattan, where we were literally the only customers there.  Upside?  The bartender was so grateful he had paying customers that he got us all free shots of Avion Tequila (can you say… Entourage?), which was a great way to kick off our Thursday night.  The weird part though was that the bartender encouraged us to try out Avion by — instead of taking it as a shot — sipping on it slowly and enjoying the flavors by mixing it with some iced water.  What?  Who was this guy.  If you’re a tequila, act like a tequila.  Don’t try to be a scotch.  This made me hate Entourage even more.

After we were done with King’s Cross, it was off to anime-land to get our bento burgers.  We arrived all excited, and when we finally found the restaurant, the first thought that crossed our mind was: rape town.  I mean, we were right in the middle of nowhere East Village, and this restaurant was dark and hentai with the only people there being one bartender and one waitress (and they were WHITE).  There were definitely no anime bears and frogs and hello kitties, and this place definitely wasn’t run by the Japs.

We sat down and ordered some drinks, which were actually quite delicious, and we started out with some calamari and tempura green beans, which were awesome.  To make our meal even more enjoyable, Corona was having a promotion at this restaurant, and since we were the only customers there, they gave us free Corona after free Corona after free Corona.  We win!  After that we all ordered our bento burgers, and I ordered mine medium rare with Asian rice bun.  I assumed that meant they were actually going to be buns that were made of sticky rice, but instead, it was just a burger patty, and a side of rice.  Hmmm… regardless, it was incred.

My Burger Bento

After our burger experience, our next stop was Brother Jimmy’s for the Yankees game.  I don’t give a crap about the Yankees but I do enjoy beer so our Thursday night continued and I stumbled home shortly after the Yankees lost.  Successful Thursday night.

Thursday I organized my first Harvard 06 mini reunion at Brinkley’s, aka Martignetti’s.  It was awful but amazing because we all just got smashed.

I knew this event was going to be a failure going into it because I had inadvertently organized it on Rosh Hashanah, and half of Harvard is Jewish.  Yeah, fucking Shana Tova people.  This is when I really wanted to pull a GET A LIFE JEWS and wave my swastika pillow sham at them.  Ugh, whatevs.  As an honorary Jew, I should have known.  It was really my fault… actually, I fully blame this on my Jewish friends who should have told me.

Needless to say, the only people who showed up to the event right at 7pm were myself, because as the organizer I had to, and M, because as a best friend of the organizer I forced her to and she wasn’t Jewish.  And S who showed up a few minutes later because he too is a good friend.  So with nothing else to do, we started drinking heavily by ourselves.  For the past few years my “thing” at Brinkley’s has been getting dirty martinis in a tall.  I can’t remember when, but one of the times I was there, they served me a dirty martini in a tall because they had run out of martini glasses, and I fell in love.  I loved how the olives floated around in the tall glass, and ever since then, that’s all I’ve ordered at Brinkley’s.

Thursday I started out with 2 dirty martinis in a tall before my other friends started to show up, both of which S bought for me because he felt bad for how pathetic this event was turning out to be.  W, N, F, and my roommates showed up a little later (clearly since this was my event I didn’t just invite “Harvard 06” people — obviously I invited 05-09 and my non-Harvard friends)… and some other 06 people I didn’t recognize.

Some lessons I learned for my next event:

1. Don’t call it a Harvard party — it’s an oxymoron and no one will come
2. Make sure I make it clear that these events aren’t actually organized by the “Harvard Activities Committee” — the “Harvard Activities Committee” = just me, and was just a term I made up to make myself sound legit… that obviously backfired
3. Don’t organize it on a holiday
4. Start event later so people get that it’s supposed to be “going out hard on a Thursday” vs. happy hour

Despite points 1-4, my party did get HOPPIN” around 10pm and tripled in size when the entire Harvard 07-09 football team in NYC showed up.  They always know how to have a good time.  It was pretty much like being back at the Kong again.  By this time I was definitely on tall martini #5, none of which I had paid for at this point (not sure how I pulled that one off).  Everything gets blurry after that, but I’m pretty sure I had at least 2 more tall martinis after the boys arrived and, before I knew it, started engaging in some shameless heavy petting action at the bar with an 09er.  None of us can remember what happened after this.

Apparently we all blacked out because the next morning I got at least a dozen emails from friends being like “GREAT PARTY.”  I guess any party can turn into a great party when you’re on 10+ drinks and in a room full of football guys.

Today I woke up to the most amazing email from L:

Subject Line:  whatcha doing tonight

Body:

im not going to this but i totally think this screams your name.

http://thrillist.com/links/2348616/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5iYWNvbmVyeS5jb20v/direct

Its called Baconry and its a bakery that puts bacon into anything it
makes. Its online but they are having a launch party tonight where
they will be giving away there stuff.

Party at 730p tonight at Tenth Rail: 413 10th Ave, nr 33rd St; Hell’s
Kitchen; 212.643.0873

Website
Read more: http://thrillist.com/food/new-york/baconery_american_bacon_breakfast_delivery_online-shops_snacks_websites#ixzz1ZFKQWkaA

WHAT!!!  OBVIOUSLY I’LL GO.  I immediately gchatted the only other friend I have who is almost as enthusiastic about food as I am — J.  I knew I could count on her.  After emailing this out to my closest 20 friends, she was of course the only one who wrote back.  I know my friends well.  Fuck the rest of you.

Because this sounded like an amazing event, J and I were concerned about how much free food we would actually be able to score at this event, thinking this launch event would clearly be over capacity.  The event started at 7:30pm, so just to be safe, we decided to meet up at 6:45pm so we could get “front row seats” at this launch event and ensure enough bacon consumption.

When we got there, we realized we were in the shit hole of Manhattan — all the way on 10th Ave where I hardly recognized the city anymore, and this restaurant was next to the largest McDonald’s I’d ever seen in the city (it was two floors, what!!).  Seriously, what was this place, and where the fuck was I.  J and I sucked it up, went inside, had a happy hour drink while we waited for the crowds to arrive.

The crowds never arrived, but the party did begin promptly at 7:40pm, and it started with some appetizers that were amazing looking but had no resemblance of bacon.

Chicken/beef skewers and vegetable quesadillas

Pulled pork sliders

Lots of good food.  No bacon.  What was going on?!?!  I thought the sliders were bacon sliders, but no sign of bacon.

After chugging two more $3 margaritas, the Baconery goods finally started to appear.  It was every kind of baked good you could imagine, all filled with bacon — bacon pumpkin muffins, bacon brownies, bacon blueberry muffins, bacon rice krispie treats, bacon chocolate chip cookies, bacon oatmeal raisin cookies, bacon M&M cookies.  It was absurd.

Bacon pumpkin muffin

Bacon brownies

Bacon rice krispie treats

@Baconery was getting at it.

At the end of this event, J and I were so full we didn’t even want to start to think about Rosh Hashanah.  We had eaten way too much pig to start the high holidays so soon.  Whatevs.  In the words of Ana Gasteyer’s son on Curb Your Enthusiasm:  “GET A LIFE JEWS.”

Shana Tova!

I had the most incredible experience on Wednesday.  After a long day of meetings, I was invited to dinner with a group of about 25 NJ folks to Carmine’s in Times Square before they were headed out for a group outing to go watch Jersey Boys (so touristy).  Being the anti-cultural/anti-touristy person that I am, I turned down the invite to Jersey Boys but of course took them up on the offer to go to this group dinner.

If you’ve ever been to Carmine’s you know it’s family style, and they bring all the dishes out onto these humongous plates.  No joke, I think the person coordinating this dinner over-ordered by like 25 people.  We literally had like 10 courses.  For each group of 5 people, they first brought out salad, then fried calamari for appetizer, then another appetizer plate of sausages, stuffed mushrooms, mussels, clams, fried cheese, etc; then they brought out some delicious penne pasta, then angel hair pasta with garlic tomatoes; then they brought out parmesan chicken, then some really good marinated chicken, then steak (!!!), and a side of steamed spinach.  Then we had a dessert plate of chocolate cake, ice cream, chocolate covered strawberries, etc.  Not to mention the pitchers of beer and bottles of red and white wine that never ran out at the table.  It was incredible.

What was even more incredible was that understandably we did not finish all this food, given most everyone got completely full after course 3.  I have to admit even I thought it was too much food, which really says a lot.  By the end of dinner, there were plates and plates and plates of food that were literally untouched.  The people at my table were overwhelmed by the amount of leftovers, and they started to discuss what to do with all this food.  “Well, we can’t take them with us… how are we going to take all this food in with us to Jersey Boys?  I think L has to take it all since she’s going straight home.”  Clearly that was the plan I had in mind all along, but I had slowly throughout the course of dinner been planting that idea into people’s heads… like INCEPTION.  http://inception.davepedu.com/

I am so good.

It was raining that night and it was impossible to catch a cab back home, but with both hands carrying two very, very heavy bags of 7 large aluminum trays of leftover food, I was determined to bring it all home, even if that meant sweating in my nice suit and heels that would have to get dry cleaned the next day and getting soaked as I walked several blocks to the Times Square subway station and awkwardly smelling up the entire subway car with Italian food as I took the NRQ and L back home to Stuy Town.  It was hard work, but worth it.  The look on my roommates’ faces when they saw the 7 aluminum trays full of delicious Italian food was as if they had just seen the biggest tits they’d ever seen in their entire lives on a tiny 5’0″ girl.  Yes, they got a foner — a food boner.

This is how much food there was when I brought it home:

Carmine's Leftovers

After 4 days, there are just 4 trays left now.  Roommate L has eaten 3 of them by himself.  I am slowly making my way through the leftover angel hair pasta with garlic tomatoes.  I thought this would be enough food to last us like 3 weeks, but apparently it’s going to be more like one week.  That’s still ok.

Since high school I’ve only seen my parents once a year — in college maybe once every two years.  Despite the fact that I shamelessly love Most Eligible Dallas (watching it as we speak obviously), I actually hate Dallas and refuse to go back unless a best friend gets married there and forces me to come back to the city I loathe.  My family doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving (I mean… we’re Japanese — my mom’s version of “Thanksgiving” is serving ham over a huge bowl of rice), and I hate religion and my mom is too lazy now to care about religion so we don’t really celebrate Christmas anymore either (funny… considering my mom used to send me to Vacation Bible School when I was little — times have changed).  Point being, I don’t go home for the holidays and haven’t for about a decade now, so I pretty much never see my parents.

Living in NYC has brought us closer together, though, because they actually come to visit every year.  Oh, but do they come to visit me?  No.  They come for the US Open.  Why?  Because they are completely obsessed with tennis and live and breathe tennis even though they’re not even that good at playing.  They travel around the world for tennis — French Open, Australian Open, US Open… they love tennis.  They don’t even go for the good games though — I feel like if you’re paying for tickets, you might as well go for the semifinals/finals.  But no, my parents always go for the first 3 rounds of the tournament because they want to watch the Japanese players play, and all the Japanese players are out by like round 1 (sports not our strong suit).  This year apparently all the Japanese players retired or something (???) so you can imagine how disappointed my parents were.

Regardless, when my parents come to visit NYC every year for the US Open, they barely make time for me.  I’m just being a needy daughter trying to get a good meal out of my parents once a year, and it is nearly impossible with their schedules packed full of tennis watching during the day and getting blackout with their Japanese tennis friends at night.  Like mother, like daughter.  I do respect my parents for that.

The good thing is that the US Open falls around my birthday every year, so that gives me a legit excuse to pick a nice dinner spot for some “nice family time” but more importantly for some “great poverexia time.”  This year I made my parents take me to Wolfgang’s.  My dad joked that it was about time I started picking up the tabs for these family get-togethers, and I laughed in his face.  Clearly he’s in the dark about poverexia.  Here’s what I ordered knowing I would not be paying for any of this:

Canadian Bacon and Clams

Steak 1

Steak 2

Steak 3

I was shitting for like 48 hours straight.  It was exhausting.  I hadn’t had that much meat in a really long time (that’s what she…).  It was really incred, and it made me forgive my parents for completely forgetting my birthday one week later.  Go Djokovic.

Well my birthday weekend was a mess/success.  My Mexican friend was visiting from Mexico City to spend my bday with me, and so I had taken a half day on Friday so we could do touristy things like go to Central Park and drink all day at the Frying Pan.  The day started out great when my friend picked up my lunch tab of chili burger and bowl of chili at Big Daddy’s as an early present, and even better, earlier in the day I had received a completely unexpected surprise at work when a box of 18 Sprinkles cupcakes arrived at my desk from my sister (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

The day was going great, and for dinner we went to my new fav restaurant Shitty Crab with S, where they have half-price appetizers, half-price drinks and $1 oysters after 10pm.  After finishing two dozen oysters and two Strong Island Ice Teas for dinner, things started to go downhill.  We knew we had to save up for my bday party the next day on Fraturday, so we decided to take it easy and go nearby for one birthday shot (my Mexican insisted) and go home to pass out.  None of us really know how, but somehow one birthday shot turned into five and before I knew it, I was partying it up with the old Harvard Rugby coach and his married friend, and my Mexican and I were dancing to music videos at Nevada Smith’s until 3:30am before we realized that was a bad idea.

It was a bad idea.  The next morning I woke up to a lovely bday gift from my stomach to the toilet of bright green/yellow bile.  The more lovely gift though was from my roommates when they surprised me in the living room that morning with an incredibly impressive handmade pop-up dick card and a massage/beauty package Groupon.  Yes, a pop-up dick card!!  I opened up the carefully hand crafted card and out popped a very life-like dick, complete with pre-cum made of glue spewing out of the tip and a heartwarming message: To another year STD and baby free… May all your men be hung and 6’3″.  I was truly touched.

Anyway this year I decided to take a big risk and break my three-year NYC trend by NOT hosting my party at New Ashiya and instead trying out a new place, Japas 27.  I had never been to this place before but I had heard it was essentially New Ashiya meets Chorus — it’s all you can eat, all you can sake bomb and all you can karaoke for two hours for the same price as New Ashiya.  This place had a lot of promise.  I felt uncomfortable not having my party at New Ashiya this year and needed to maintain some semblance of bday tradition, so I of course wore my Sugar Babies bday suit, which is my go-to outfit whenever I’m feeling especially slutty and special.

I arrived to Japas 27 after a good hour of pregaming with peach sorbet vodka floats (not as good as they sound) to find my next big surprise of the weekend: M, K and W also all dressed as Sugar Babies to be my backup singers for the night.  After singing my signature Lady Gaga “Edge of Glory,” the night started to blur and all I could remember was SB forcing shot after shot of sake down my throat, and before I knew it, apparently our two hours were up and we were being hustled out and yelled at by the Japas 27 staff to PREASE REAVE.

The rest of the night gets even blurrier, but apparently we headed to Rodeo Bar afterwards where things got even rowdier with continued bday shots for the next few hours.  According to other less blackout witnesses, SB was pretty much trying to rape every guy in sight with her tits, SK had already fallen over about 4 or 5 times in the men’s bathroom, SL was put into a cab by some randos on the street who caught him stumbling around in the middle of the street, and I – the most calm of all – tripped on my fuck-me-heels and fell face flat in the bathroom once and with my poor bruised knees stumbled 20 blocks back to F/G’s apartment in Stuy Town at who knows what time, where I apparently passed out curled up on their living room floor with F’s blanket like a peaceful sugar baby.

Well wasn’t that the pussiest hurricane that ever hit America.  We were all hoping for some excitement this weekend, and all we got was a shitton of rain.  With all the evacuation mandates, I wasn’t concerned about my or others’ safety — what I was really fearing was: 1) will Seamless be up and running on Sat and Sun, and 2) if our power goes out, how the fuck was I supposed to watch True Blood and Curb Your Enthusiasm on Sunday night.  I was in Zone B (if my disapproving Asian father had found that out, he would have angrily asked, WHY NOT ZONE A?!?!??!), and I knew that if Seamless or power went out anywhere, Stuy Town was going to be the first to suffer.

So with those two major concerns in mind, I packed my bags and sought technological refuge two avenues away at S’s apartment for the weekend, which was on the edge of Zone C.  I contemplated moving to an even safer zone at B/T’s apartment, but I changed my mind after realizing that would mean having to listen to their literal gay love making sounds in the middle of the night in their nice studio apartment.  Also, S was better prepared for the weekend — he too fearing that Seamless would be down for the weekend and no delivery boys would be available for service, S had gone ahead and ordered about 6 meals for himself, which I had also obviously planned to partake in.

S's Fridge

The day was still young and in keeping with our weekend daytime drinking routines, B/T/S and I went searching for bars in the area, but unfortunately pretty much all of them were closed because none of the poor workers who lived in the other boroughs could get into Manhattan to work the kitchen due to the subway shutdown.  It seemed the only bars that were braving this storm were Penny Farthing and Pourhouse, which is exactly where we spent Sat drinking while we all waited for the storm to come.

Oh, and I guess Pete’s Tavern was open too:

Pete's Tavern

Unfortunately after almost the full day had passed it was still barely even raining, and we were all getting a little frustrated with Irene — seemed like Irene needed a good ass raping to get her to start shedding her tears on NYC.   Given this weather  disappointment and in true frat form, M was actually hosting a bday drinking fest in LES, so I left the popped collars at Pourhouse to join some hipsters down at some unknown bar in LES followed by another unknown bar in th East Village followed by McSorley’s.  By then I had lost track of time with one too many drinks in me, and when I finally took a second to look outside it was suddenly already pitch dark with some ridiculously heavy rain pouring down on the street.  I quickly took a cab back up to S’s apartment where B/T had already gone several hours ago (apparently every cab was charging a flat rate of $10 to get anywhere within a few blocks, which was bullshit — despite the fact that I took a cab, I somehow still managed to get completely soaking wet just crossing from one side of the street to the other).  Luckily S had found the one restaurant that was still delivering a few hours before the heavy rain had hit and had ordered yet another huge meal of fajitas, quesadillas and chips/guac to last us all through the night.

Hurricane Storage

Fast forward a few hours to 1am when I was already passed out from one too many bourbon drinks, and I get a call from F who was just coming home from the wedding he was at.  Peripheral friend E had gotten married at the Harvard Club on Sat, which probably could not have been worse luck.  Poor E’s hair and makeup person had already canceled earlier in the day, and A had to bring her computer to the reception as backup in case the DJ canceled as well.  The most ironic thing was that E’s mom’s name is Irene — yikes, she’s probably really blaming herself.

Despite the natural disaster, apparently the wedding was still a blast and F was completely shitfaced when he came back to S’s apartment.  By the time he came home the storm was actually pretty ridiculous outside, yet F was determined to go back out there to find some late night food at 7 Eleven.  I wished him luck and fell back asleep, but when I suddenly woke up at 4am to find F still gone, I got a bit worried.  I went to the bathroom to find – oddly – Chinese food spilled in the bath tub; I went to the front door to find it wide open; I went to the living room to find no F.  Confused and concerned I went to S’s bedroom to – oh there he is – to find F snuggling with S with both of them snoring loudly.  I should have figured.  The next morning I found out that F had indeed gone out in the storm to get some 7 Eleven, had lost S’s umbrella to the strong winds, had found some really old leftover Chinese food in S’s fridge but then had spilled it all on the floor so had attempted to flush it all down the bath tub, then had disrobed, changed into one of S’s polo shirts, and joined S in his bed.

After a long, restless night, the next morning we all awoke to find some seriously disturbing post-disaster scenes:

Hurricane Casualties

On top of that, Seamless still wasn’t working.  “No damage done” my ass.  The true test of when NYC will be restored back to normal will be when ethnic delivery boys are running around on their bikes again, those unwanted Brooklynites go back to their own borough instead of infecting ours, and the city rats go back underground to the sewers and subways where they belong instead of roaming the streets of Manhattan.  Only then will I feel safe again in this city I call home.