sake is an acquired taste.

Anyone would dream for 2 weeks off from work, right?  Especially around the Holidays.  10 business days to do whatever you please without having to check emails or answer stupid questions over the phone.  16 days to read or clean or practice a new hobby!  

Well, instead of doing anything productive during the day, I would mostly laze around the apartment recovering from the night before.  A day or two of that is cool, but by Saturday, I was going a little stir crazy (I'd returned to New York from SC on Tuesday morning).  Urban Sprawl needed to go shoe shopping, so I joined him on an afternoon Century 21 excursion.

 

I walked in the doors, and it was madness.  The above song just happened to be playing on my iPhone, so I charged through the crazed lemmings shoppers with rhythmic determination.  Just follow the red footsteps to the shoe section, Urban Sprawl texted.  Those damned footsteps went up the stairs, to the other side of the store, down two flights of stairs, and around a corner.

Urban Sprawl found herself a couple pair of simple shoes for work (I tried to get her to buy pointy shoes, but apparently that's not acceptable among the train drivers) whilst I pondered whether a shoe repair shop could turn a one-inch heel on a boot to 2.5 inches. 

. o O (A few guys I know could use an extra inch and a half.)

Once the shoes were purchased, we had no idea how to pass the time in Lower Manhattan.  Frat Boy was supposed to join us since he lived about a half block away (there was talk of drinks at his place after), but he had taken some boy who was in town to fuck visit him to Rockafeller Center. 

Both of us: “Pieces!”

Our favorite bartender under 25, 5-foot 8x6, was there screaming as usual (“I’m a virgin!”), and he poured us intolerably strong drinks.  Nearly intolerable.  And who shows up from the back of the bar?  Fruit Bat! 

Urban Sprawl stays for a couple of drinks and then ditches to “drop his stuff off at home” (i.e., ditch... bitch).  Fruit Bat and I talk for a while, and I’m noticing she’s being really friendly with people in the bar.  She's there more than I am, so I'm surprised to find that she doesn't know all these people she's yelling at across the bar.  

As soon as I connect the dots, she transforms into That Drunk Girl.  A guy that she has started talking to buys a drink for me and a cute random sitting beside me, so I start talking to the random.  Next time I look over, Fruit Bat is almost passed out.  There's a glass of water sitting by her head, and the bartenders are whispering.

“Okay, Fruity, let’s get you home.”
“Okay, yeah... But I’m not that bad.”

I gave her a look.  “Purse?  Phone?  Shoes?  Let’s go.”

When I was growing up, my mom taught me that when you drop a female off at her home, you wait til she gets in the front door to pull off.  I made the mistake of applying this rule to the cab.  Too bad she lives in QUEENS!  The first cab driver kicked her out of the cab (sometimes, they don’t like crossing bridges... or cleaning barf out of their back seat).  As soon as I look to hail another one, she’s like, “Oh my god!  I want Papaya Dog!”  Don’t you have food at home?  I take her to get drunken munchies food, stuff her in a cab, and wave as I cross the street.  The cab pulled off with no problem. 

It was around this time that Litre-hosen met up with me (2 nights in a row… yeah, I know).  We grabbed some food before heading over to the E.vil for yet another one of Urban Spral's straight girlfriends’ parties (he knows more straight girls than any gay man I know).  As bad as the E.vil sounds, the party turned out to be a karaoke party in the back room of a restaurant.  I’m assuming they weren’t being charged by the hour like most karaoke party places (I hope so b/c they didn’t ask for money, and I didn’t leave any).

“Oh, we don’t serve liquor.” 

*Kelly from "Shoes" voice* Oh.

 

While stuffing his face, Morehead decided to wash it down with hot sake.  Litre-hosen thought this would be a good idea, too.  Always remember: hot sake is an acquired taste.  I coughed down a couple of shots before singing my karaoke song. 

Not long after that, we walked around the corner to Urge to meet up with some of the other boys.  Litre-hosen and I had a very sentimental moment where he really opened up to me.  He said he had to head to Splash to say hi to a friend.  I figured I wasn’t missing anything at Urge (it was pretty low key), so I said I’d go with him.  After all, he lives in Chelsea.  And this was more-or-less our second date.  And it was 1:30 in the morning.  You see what I’m getting at.

Well, it turns out he knows almost everyone that works at Splash on a Saturday night (most unexpected scene queen ever!).  We danced there til about 3:30, at which time he walked me to the train.  

Shit, we have really good chemistry, and this guy is not trying to give up anything at all.  He’s probably looking for something more serious than I am right now [I guess I should mention that SoHo Crush broke things off about a week or two before Christmas].  I should probably let him know.  Shit!

Did I mention I really didn’t want to make that phone call the next day?  Did I mention that he wanted me to sing a song for him at the karaoke party... but my go-to song for karaoke is "Bye Bye Bye"?  Yeah. 

Morehead has a six pack.  Check it out here.


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