over-gesturing with and unlit cigarette (Med School Mess's Birthday - Day 2)

The night before was Med School Mess’s slumber-party birthday, and around 7am, my body said, “Well, this was fun! I’m ready to go home now.”

I tried to convince my body, “Just lie here for another half hour. I’m sure we'll fall asleep again.”

My body: “Oh yeah? Remember that s’more we ate last night?”

Me: “Fine, fine! I’ll get my stuff!!”

I spent about 15 minutes wandering among the sleeping bodies littered on the living room floor trying to find my coat before I gave up and left. I considered waiting for the crosstown bus back to the west side, but if ever there were a time to spend $15 on a cab ride, hungover and coatless at 7:30am would be that time. When I got home, I set my alarm for noon, anticipating a 1:30 brunch.

Text from Med School Mess: Brunch at 12:30! See you there!

For a second I was kind of hurt! I mean, no one even bothered to ask what happened to me or why I left in the middle of the night. Then I remembered I had tweeted about going home. And of course, TTT had re-tweeted. Which meant The Crew had been making fun of me all morning.

I was quite late meeting the boys at Maracas. In fact, so late that I was only able to get 2 drinks in before our last call! And some asshole decided to add $15 to our tab by getting the “La Bamba” birthday to-do for Bottomless Pitt! I mean, it did warm my heart to see his reaction, but I somehow ended up putting in almost for an $18 brunch.

Because we did brunch so unusually early, we ended up at Pieces about an hour before we’d ever gotten there before, and we weren’t even sure it was open yet. I think the couple of guys that were actually there were friends of the bartender. Once we got our first round of drinks, I got really into what they were playing on the TV. Someone informed me that it was called Arrested Development (I told you I don’t watch much TV, but I promise to watch it if someone sends me the DVD). After a couple of episodes, I suggested we go to Gym Bar since it would be more of a scene and since drinks were only a dollar more.

And a scene Gym was. There was a certain young otter in a deep V that caught just about everyone’s attention. Med School Mess went out to smoke shortly after the otter did, and MicHELLe said she’d join. Here I am thinking she was just going to talk to the guy. No: she actually bummed a cigarette off Mess, lit it, and struck up a conversation with said otter. The cigarette went out about two seconds after she lit it, but she didn’t notice. So there was a good while where she was over-gesturing with and unlit cigarette. I like to imagine that the otter interrupted a long story to say, "Um, your cigarette's out."

The rest of us were inside dying as Med School Mess re-lit her.

Not long after that, I saw a familiar face walking through the crowd. I wasn’t sure if I’d talked to him on Grindr or if I’d met him somewhere. Then I saw the guy he was with, and I yelled out, “Guido!” No idea if Guido’s actually his name or not, but it worked! Turns out yet another one of my blogger buddies, CameraObsessedMichael, is actually a real person (his blog is great: you don't even have to read)!

After a drink or two at Gym, I was starting to get hungry. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one because everyone seemed to agree that it was time to grab dinner. I wanted to go to Tue Thai because, though it was a longer commute (one stop on the train), we could be seated faster. But The Crew wanted the scene of Spice in Chelsea.

After about a half hour of “Oh, just give us 10 more minutes,” (did TTT just bring the trick she was making out with at Gym to dinner? Oh no, he just got him to walk him up before he ditched him.) we were finally seated and able to eat. The plan was to go to back to Pieces before Posh, but Med School Mess was determined to get to Posh early. It was actually kind of nice because it wasn’t ridiculously crowded yet, and the drinks are only a dollar more than Pieces.

Did I mention how much Sunday morning afternoon sucks when you get to bed at 5am after an all-day drink fest? Yeah.

Valentine's Day, Chinese New Year, Presidents' Day, and Mardi Gras, all in 3 days! In honor of Mardi Gras, click here to check out my trip to NoLa for Mardi Gras.


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Photos borrowed from multislackingmama.com, Urban Sprawl's Facebook page, and betweenthemoonnyc.blogspot.com