Wading in the Velvet Sea

What in the…So I go back inside, and Alissa’s giving Tim a tongue bathe. Heh. That will never get old.

So I relate the conversation, and I’m sure I’ve got some of the dialogue wrong, but the last sentence I definitely didn’t. Was just odd.

As said before, I was exhausted. My body was already thrown off by it’s 5 am wake-up call, and now I was drinking more liquor in an afternoon than I had in the previous month combined. So where do we go? Starbucks of course! Need a little upper to go with my downers. (Seriously, drinking coffee to stay away so I can drink more. Someone find me a 12 step program quickly.)

We then go to the Starbucks from Hell. Now, as one can expect, I have to by now go to the bathroom. Fair enough, they have one. I skip out of line to go before I order by caffeinated sustenance. Lo, it’s locked. Need a key. Wait in line. Get key. Man tells me, ‘Oh, the lights don’t work.’ Huh? He did not tell me that there was also no toilet paper, which lucky I ascertained by wedging the door open slightly to allow a meager bit of light in to the dank dungeon. I seriously expected to see Andy Dufresne in there. Damn. So I get paper, and now I’m in the dark, in a bathroom, in Starbucks. I never knew quite what it was like to relieve myself in a sensory deprivation chamber, but I’m pretty sure I could now give a reasonable estimate.

All this in an hour. I love New York.

Ryan: 8 (1 medium coffee), Alissa, 7 (some ridiculously Starbucks-esque drink).

Kim Bauer, in an ill-advised attempt to gain extra credit for her science project, drops cholera into the NYC water supply. Tony’s pretty sure she’s at her aunt’s house in Santa Monica. Jack is glad he no longer has to kill all those orphans. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK…

7 pm - 8 pm

So ha, funny story.

I figured I’d give Megan a little while, to, you know, regroup. Or finish. Or um, yea. So after convincing my body I was indeed NOT trying to kill it quickly with the day’s imbibement, I decided to call her again. My little phone has a convenient feature that allows me to one-touch redial the last number called. I press it, and in my no longer acute drunken stupor, notice that it’s got a 978 area code. A Boston area code. My first thought is, ‘Whoops, I must typed in her area code wrong and got some random freak who must think I’m a loser.’ Then I realized, yes, the person I called thought I was a loser, but I knew her.

My new York friend was under ‘Gaffney’ in the phone book, not ‘Megan’. Megan is another blog friend. I had never called her before, but she knew, cuz of our online conversations, that I was in NYC, which explains the last comment. So I accidentally drunk-dialed someone who I had never called before. And, as it turns out, I drunk dialed her while she was in the hospital with a sick relative. I am a Golden God. Kill me now.

Just one of the all-time worst first phone calls, ever.

Kim Bauer attempts to do something dumber than Ryan did and fails completely at even that. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK’

8 pm-9 pm

OK, so I finally get the correct Megan on the phone, and she says that we’re meeting to do karaoke at 3rd and 9th. I repeat, ‘3rd and 9th’ so Tim and Alissa could here. Both say it’s close by. I tell Megan, ‘Great, we’ll be there, 9:30 pm.’ So now we have an hour and a half to kill. What do you do? What do you do?

Well, you go to find the place. Only to find it’s not there. There is a karaoke place, but its not called Bar Nine, which is what Megan said on the phone. And then you stand on the corner of 3rd and 9th and have Alissa go a little batshit and just standing around on what is obviously not the corner. And then you have Tim call 411 to find out it’s on 53rd and 9th. Oops. Once again, me and the cell phone are not having a good day. Once again, Ryan and finding his correct spot in a square grid of streets is not having a good day. So, how to kill the time?

You go back to Dempsey’s. Duh. Another round for Ryan and Alissa. Sleep is for the weak. Beer is for us.

So now we get to Alissa’s assertion of the basis of our relationship. She’s mostly speaking English at this point, though generally in rhetorical questions or statements that neither Tim nor myself can really adequately respond to with anything other than, ‘Hmmm.’ Or, ‘Interesting’. Anywho, she’s talking about friendships, and the various bases of friendship. And she says, ‘I mean, some people have common interests. Others, you know, get along based off of unfulfilled sexual tension. You know, like me and Ryan.’

Tim does his best ‘I’m gonna try reaaaaaaaaaaaaaaly hard not to cock my eyes in surprise and just look at Ryan slowly and see if we can Vulcan MindMeld and talk about this’ look. Course, I’m now nine drinks in, so I’m not keeping any inner monologue at all. ‘No kidding?’ I said. ‘Not sure if I’m flattered or ridiculously confused.’ Was as much of a news flash to me as it was to Tim. Mostly notable since, after two years, there’s very little that Alissa can say or do that throws me, but this one did.

Best theory of the night came next tho. Alissa’s having some issues with her boy. Not exactly fair when it comes to the ‘delivering the goods’ department. So Tim and I both suggest a sex strike that we call, ready? Sure? The Alissastrata. Thank You. We’ll be here all week. Try the veal!

Anyways. Fun moment. Maybe you had to be there.

Kim Bauer gets really drunk and tries to strike up a conversation with a dart board based off of their unfulfilled sexual tension. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK…

Ryan: 9, Alissa, 8

10 pm-11 pm

We hop a cab to Bar Nine. No karaoke, but a gaggle of people waiting for us to arrive fashionably late. I met yet another Megan (this is getting a bit silly) and Angel, who read my blog thanks to the NYC Megan who used to be Boston Megan and oh look I’ve gone cross-eyed. I’m on my 18th wind by this point, inexplicably neither very drunk, tired, or coherent, yet all at once. Man, I need a beer.

Alissa concurs. I’m at double digits. Oh hell yes.

The group of people seems uniformly nice. Although nearly everyone is a doppleganger for someone that we know, except for the people who we actually knew before, who looked like, well, themselves. Take for instance, this girl in the middle:

Obviously this is Sarah Dessen’s stunt double. Kinda wigged me most of the night. I wanted to ask her if Mandy Moore was cool in real life, but that would have been bad juju. (BTW---Angel's there on the left. Blondie's name escapes me. I suck. Oh well.)

We took some other pictures there. Tim’s doing his impression of Rudolph:

And Alissa took this one of me:

And then an ‘artistic one’, in her own words, of the table.

Ryan: 10; Alissa: 9.

Kim is temporarily blinded when she points the camera at herself instead of her friends, falls off a cliff face, and crushes Tony, who'd been looking for her. Kim emerges unscathed. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK…

11pm-12 am

Damn. Approaching midnight. I think 10 is just about enough. Tim looks tired, Alissa has drunk dialed her boyfriend three times in the past 20 minutes, I’m pretty tired. Time to call it a night, I think.

‘We’re going dancing!’ Megan says.

‘I’m in,’ say I.

Kim holds an all-night rave in the desert, only forgot to send invitations, so it’s just a her and a copy of ‘Tranceport’ by Oakenfold. Sadly, Mason crash-lands the nuclear device nowhere near her. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK’

12 am- 1 am:

I’ve said my goodbyes to Tim and Alissa, who have both retired for the night. I’m on my 53rd wind, and feeling not necessarily OK, but more, ‘I am gonna milk this night for all it’s worth, so help me God.’ I do however make a small pact with my body, which agreed to get me through the night if I would just put the beer away. Fair enough. I really can’t buy many beers with a 45 Degree Fiver anyways.

‘Now, there’s no techno at this club, right? It’s actual music?’ I ask.

‘Oh sure,’ said Gina’s doppleganger. ‘It’ll be real music.’

Hop in another cab and go to Avenue B. Enter into a club that’s playing hardcore house music. Oh Sweet Lord. I check my coat, examine the drink list, and pat myself on the back to stopping the drinkage. $10 for a drink? Where am I, a Boston bowling alley or something?

The gang all heads downstairs, where to be fair, the techno stopped fairly shortly and got into more mainstream fair. Sorry, gimmee P. Didddy anyday on the dance floor. I’m a populist that way.

The downstairs fit maybe 125 people, in one of those cramped, rectangular, support beams every 10 feet sorta place. Very diverse crowd, generally down to earth, except for Mr. And Mrs. Stereotype. He of the Eurotrash grab, she of the 24’’ waist and implants that came up past her chin. They were cute in that ‘I hate your existence’ way.

Kim Bauer, fleeing from terrorists, opts for implant surgery to disguise herself. Sadly, she tries to do it herself, and mistakenly injects her breasts with Botox. Jack Bauer feels a disturbance in the Force, and sits down, quietly wishing the condom hadn’t broken. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK…

1 am - 2 am

Three short scenes:

1) NYC Megan is a force of nature. Pure and simple. Girl could power a city block. She’s dancing, working it, going all around. At one point she comes to me, and looks me dead in the eye. She has a purpose. A mission. Something incredibly important to ask me. I can sense it.

‘Dude, who sang ‘I wish I was a little bit taller..’ This is KILLING ME.’

After a second, I said, ‘Skee Lo.’ Until the day I die I’ll never know how I came up with that. However, I got to see her rush over to her female friends a few feet away, and then watch her talk, and the look of recognition descend on all their faces, and then Megan pointing to me, and getting a big ol’ thumbs up. Angel later declares, ‘You are officially my one and only idol.’ SUCK ON THAT, REUBEN.

2) I’m minding my damn business when I get bumped into. No biggie, small club. But I get bumped again, and lo, the Walking Silicone Display Case is looking at me. She’s bumped into me and is now staring directly at me.

Being the mature guy that I am, I panic and look away.

So I catch a look about 10 seconds later, lo, she’s still looking. And she says, ‘Hi.’

‘Um, hi,’ I said.

‘I’m Susie,’ she replied.

‘Hi Susie, I’m Ryan.’

This was obviously the wrong answer, since at this point she walked away.

That’s it. That’s the story. Yea, I’m confused too.

3) Like I said before, the place is adorned with support beams. Now, it took me a bit to warm up to the place and the company. While I have no problem making an ass of myself on the dance floor, you just don’t bust out the Roger Rabbit to a bunch of strangers without assuming they’ll treat you like a SARS victim. But around 1:45 am, I’m feeling good, and Prince’s ‘When Doves Cry’ is blasting. So the UNICEF branch of the ‘Ryan McGee Fan Club’ got to see a little pole-dancing action live and in person. Those lucky kids. Sorry, no pictures of that sight.

President Palmer signs legislation that states that Kim Bauer legally never existed. He also signs a presidential pardon excusing Keifer’s career in the mid-90’s. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK…

2 am - 3 am

Hey, this is an interesting development. Who attached fifty-pound sandbags to my arms?

An hour ago, I’m raising the roof. I’m effin’ Habitat for Humanity, raising roofs like nobody’s business. Now, I can barely muster up a groove to ‘Billie Jean’. I did get consumed by an attack called the ‘Megan Sandwich’, although in this case I was glad the sandwich didn’t come with egg. Two ladies getting’ their freak on with me was just about A OK, I shan’t lie.

In general, though, I’m pretty happy this place closes at 3. We pop out maybe 2:45 am, and I notice that there’s a bunch of flowers that obviously I missed as I initially walked in. I asked the group what that was all about.

‘Oh, those are for the bouncer who was killed,’ they say.

Huh? Then I look up at the club name. Guernica. Where two weeks earlier, the bouncer had been stabbed while enforcing the smoking ban. For once, my ignorance worked in my favor, since I would not have had a tenth of the fun I had there if I had known that fact when we walked in.

Kim mistakes someone asking her to try and "raise the roof" and instead "raises a glass of roofies." KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK…

3 am- 4 am

I’m ready for bed. They are ready for a diner. These plans simply don’t go hand in hand. I depart in yet another cab and head for the Path.

$7. I pay with 2 one dollar bills, with the 45 Degree Fiver tucked underneath. I sprint, and I mean sprint, into the Path. Goodbye, Fiver, I’ll miss you.

Twenty minutes later the path shows up, and folks, if you want comedy, take a late, late night shuttle back into Hoboken from NYC. I managed to stand near a fraternity and a woman who used ‘f$ck’ in every part of speech known to Man. And they seemed pretty normal by comparison.

To get to Tim’s is easy…a short cab ride from the station. I get in the queue for the cabs, and right as I’m about to get into one, the woman behind me just collapses, insanely drunk. Her head actually goes over the curb, onto the street, where the cabs are driving towards us. The man next to me had even sharper reflexes than me and got her head out of the way fast. She of course falls head over heels in love with me, thinking I’d saved her life. She asks if I wanted to share a cab. I look at her mullet-headed boyfriend and decide that would be a decidedly unwise idea.

Kim makes a fatal mistake in declaring that ‘Jeter can suck my ass!’ on the 4:23 am PATH to New Jersey. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK…

4 am - 5 am

Back in Casa del Foley. Takes me 30 minutes to unwind from the day. From the $6 Diet Coke until now, quite a day. Not one I’m likely to repeat for a while, which is good, cuz I’d like to see the ripe age of 30, and days like that, while good for the soul, aren’t so hot for your immortality. Nighty night.

Kim’s carcass is carried through the streets of Hoboken. The country rejoices. KA-CHUNK, KA-CHUNK...