The Party

Last night was my roommate's joint birthday party with two of her friends. I tell this roommate that she is crazy pretty much every day, and the party (and her friends) were a fitting extension to her craziness. In other words: awesome chaos.

I never ever get dolled up, as you know (if you are a StaciBeth stalker, which I know you are), but as we were VIPing at a club, it was time to do it right. I wore heels. Stilettos. Trust me, if there is any place that could be the worst, most annoying, inconvenient and painful place to wear heels, it is NYC. There are constant sidewalk cracks and holes and bad drivers and rude people and all kinds of other obstacles. I really don't get how people do it every day; possibly they are masochists. After an hourish, I wanted to stab myself in the foot with my stiletto to end my misery. But, I looked freaking hot.

When I say the people last night were crazy, I don't exaggerate. My favorite was this giant, possibly 300 pounds of muscle, loud, charismatic, very Italian guy with a lisp (I love lisps. I think they are incredibly funny and cute. Half of my friends have lisps, and I'm still not over it) who was there with his Russian girlfriend who barely spoke English. I asked where they had met, and he went on about meeting on the plane to Las Vegas (he was drunk, she was attractive and all foreigny) and then spending their whole time there together. Right. You met the attractive Russian girl who speaks no English when you both happened to be alone on a plane from New York to Vegas, and then you both happened to come back to New York at the same time. Totally.

My least favorite crazy person had to be my roommate's ex-boyfriend's date. She kept talking about her job, "To help people live a better life. If you don't love your life from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to sleep, I'm not doing my job. That's what I do. I just want to make other people's lives better. That's my job. That's all it is." At first I thought she meant she was some kind of prostitute, but she explained that she works at some "education" center that runs programs to help people live extraordinary lives. In other words, a cult. She was totally brainwashed. Apparently she turned to my other roommate randomly at one point and said, "I'm extraordinary. Most people are down here. [Hand gestures] I'm up here. Barack Obama? Down here. Me? Up here." But that doesn't mean she wasn't just crazy to start with. Later, in the middle of a conversation that had absolutely nothing to do with this, she leaned over and announced to the birthday girl, "If you need me to sing tonight at any point, just let me know." I said, "Um...why would she need you to sing?" "Oh, I sing and dance and act. You know." Yes, I do know. You have a personality disorder. I get it. You should get help. I realize that personality disorders are no laughing matter, but...this one kind of was. It had to be, or we would have killed her.

Venue-wise, the club was very cool. It was an old synagogue-turned-fabulous drinking establishment, and you had no idea it was a club from the outside. Inside on the restaurant level, there were great stained glass windows and weird light mummies and a tree as well as antlers growing out of our stone table. I will have to track down someone with pictures.

Downstairs, we had this comfy VIP nook that could be curtained off from the rest of the place (but wasn't, obvs). Thank god we had it too, because the place was packed, and I was not in the mood to pick up random guys. Not trying to be conceited (too much), but that's just what places like that are for. Girls get all sexified up to go and gyrate in public and make men (and women) drool all over them, so they can feel good and confident and sexy. And I did feel good and confident and sexy, but for whatever reason I wasn't really feeling like being groped by strangers (yes -- I was pretty sober). It was really fun, though. Also for awhile we had this huge, arms-crossed security guard in our section to stop other people from trying to impede on our awesomeness. Hilarious.

After my roommate got in a fight with the establishment owners because they are racist jerks, we ended up at some really crappy hole-in-the wall back-alley place that was straight out of a 70s movie. When we got there I thought it was a black disco bar, and I imploded with joy. They eventually started playing more modern rappy stuff (unfort), but it was still an amazing find. It had a little dance floor with a stage, piano, big comfy couch and obviously disco lights, and the D.J. was set up on a tiny open balcony above the stage. If it weren't so far away from my beloved Harlem, I would absolutely become a regular there. We closed the place.

This morning, in front of my roommate's friend's Village one-bedroom apartment (!!!) where we had slept, we watched a parade of Catholic Filipinos go by. They had instruments and signs and flower chain things and big Marys. When we asked the policeman what was going on, he said, "I don't know. I'm Jewish. We don't do this at synagogue."