too crowded; too homogenous; and too gay

No, nothing ever happened with the blast from the past!  But it was nice to see him.

My mom flew in on a Saturday, so I went out to Bumfuck Egypt Hollis, Queens to go see her at my grandmother’s.  She picked me up at Jamaica Station, and we had a great talk on the way back.

“So, I’ve been wanting to ask you this for a while now.”  Great, here it comes.  “Are you seeing anyone that I should be introduced to?”

“No, not anyone.”  I answered a little too quickly.

“Oh, sorry. Okay, next subject.”

“Haha, no, I’m just not really seeing anyone seriously.”
“Well, is your social life good?”

“Oh, yeah!  My friends are great!”

Wait, what did she mean by “social life”?  Damnit!  

If that seemed a bit ambiguous, I'm out to my 'rents.

I should explain that it's likely that this convo took place in this way because my older brother was the player of all players.  He would bring a different girl to every family function.  Most of them were really great, but they rarely lasted more than two events.  He did this for years (specifically, from his mid 20s through most of his 30s) until he introduced us to a very nice girl at my dad’s family reunion for the first time a couple of summers ago.  The next major family event was their wedding.

The rest of the ride to Hollis was pleasantly uneventful, and watching my mom and my grandmother make fun of each other shortly after our arrival reaffirmed where my sense of humor comes from. 

“Your mother must be spending all winter with me.”

“Mother [my mom and her brother are the only people I know who address their mother as ‘mother’], my bag is not that big!”

“You packed that much for a week?”

“Well I had to bring these sympathy cards for you!”  Why is my mother smuggling a box of sympathy cards in her luggage from SC for my grandmother?  When she took them out of the suitcase, it didn’t make that much difference.  “All I brought were [list of clothing items].”

“You still can’t pack.”

“Well, how about next year I stay my butt in South Carolina, and you can come visit me!”

I could tell this was going to be a great thanksgiving. 

That Sunday was the big Pre-Thanksgiving dinner.  Bronx Newbie was hosting and had asked everyone to bring something.  I was really getting into it because it was a) a practice run for the cookies I wanted to bake for actual Thanksgiving and b) an excuse to party all day (and still get to be at a reasonable hour)!  I decided to take an active role in making sure that the Ivy League Crew had good representation at this event, so I texted the girls: I’m going to Bronx Newbie’s place at 3.  You coming? 

Well, after running around WaHi and Hamilton Heights trying to find  cookie sheets ("ecooking sheet?"  "No, a cookie sheet!"), 3:30 turned to 5.  Half of my cookies ended up burning at the bottom.  I haul my cookies up to the Bronx to find that most of the food was gone.  Between my tardiness and my lactose intolerance, I was restricted to turkey and (burnt) cookies. 

After stuffing my face, I caught a glimpse of total hotness on the other side of the room.  I was talking to Bottomless Pitt as he walked by me, so I turned to him and very plainly asked his name.  We struck up a conversation, but 2 minutes into it, he revealed that he was still in college and majoring in something finance related.  Done.  Next.  Bottomless Pitt engaged him for a while longer, but I couldn’t deal. 

Boy, pointing to a subway map:  “I live right here, and I work right here.”

Pitt: “Well, I live right over here.  See that.  We’re in the same neighborhood.” *flashes smile*

Me:  “I can’t.  I need a drink.”

So then someone put on Danity Kane.  Bottomless Pitt and I worked that one out (she's really learned quite a bit of the dance!).  Then someone put on “Single Ladies”, and Med School Mess knew a surprising amount of the dance.  It was somewhere around the 2^nd verse that I realized I was definitely not getting laid at this party.  What was really bad was when I got begged to do it again (which is kind of a corny thing to ask, but even cornier to actually do). 

Around 7, the liquor ran out, but it took about an hour after that for the troops to rally and figure out the next step.  Bottomless Pitt grabs my arm, “Get your coat; we’re taking the D down to 59^th st.”  On the way, I find out that her friend is having people over on the upper west side.  Bottomless Pitt had only managed to get Urban Sprawl on her way out.  I didn’t know what the stipulations of the invite were, so I didn’t want to invite anyone else since I hadn’t been invited by the host.  But Bottomless Pitt said we should get MicHELLe to come to.  Then MicHELLe turned into an additional 3 people for a total of 7 of us.

After a long-ass train ride and a trek past the projects, we realized that this guy’s place is a studio the size of a small living room.  He was very hospitable and accommodated his unexpected company quite graciously.  He had a small bottle of tequila, which we finished before heading to 1Oak ("No, Kareem, not 10 Oak.").  

While we were in the lobby of the building waiting for everyone to get it together, this really hot Latino guy walked past us and out the door.  Urban Sprawl's tongue was on the floor.

The oh-so-trendy guys who work in "fashion" insisted on taking a cab (which, if we didn’t have to worry about flagging down 3 or 4 cabs that far west, could have worked out cheaply), but the Ivy League Crew headed straight directly for the train.  Urban Sprawl and a friend were walking about 15 feet ahead of us, and we passed by Hottie Latino at a phone booth.

Bottomless Pitt (loud as hell): "Urban Sprawl, the guy you were checking out before is using a pay— Ow!  Why'd you hit me?"

D. Kareem (hissing): "Because he's 3 feet behind us! "  1o paces later: "You know all the stores this far west are closed now!  That's a long walk to buy a re-up for your pre-paid!"

God, we're catty.

As soon as we walked into 1Oak, I could tell it was going to be a little too much like Hiro for me: too crowded; too homogenous; and too gay (music wise).  We were there for about 5 minutes (just long enough for Bottomless Pitt to run to the loo and douche) before Pitt, MicHELLe and I ditched the others for Küte. 

After quite a bit of hair tossing, yelling, and dancing, MicHELLe decided to go home while Bottomless Pitt and I finished our cocktails and headed to XES for Karaoke.  Peppermint was delightful, as always.  The singers, not so much.  The highlight of the talent was a guy who got on stage with a really weird opera/broadway voice that no one listened to because we were all cheering for Peppermint, who as slowly taking off his shirt. 

Some Euroboy was beside us with an amazing ass stuffed into jeans with no back pockets.  We spent half our time watching him drunkenly jump around.  I spent the other half trying to stop Bottomless Pitt from grabbing/slapping/biting an amazing ass stuffed into jeans with no back pockets.  The two of us started to build a nice rapport with a really cute cub, but he was moving somewhere in the Midwest the next day.  As much as I’ve been into cubs/bears lately, I wasn’t trying to be anyone’s last hurrah. 

Fuck, it’s 2am!  Did I mention I have to work tomorrow?  Yeah.

Click here to read about a drag-queen disaster!

Note: you may find the "Topics of Discussion" (now on the right) and the Cast of Characters to be of help in navigating this blog.