Last Night’s Top Ten: A Highlights Reel

Highlight #1 occurred early in the evening when Bartok and I were playing a little game I like to call “try on every piece of clothing each of us owns at least twice.” Being the irresponsible influence I am, I kept trying to get her into dresses that fell five inches from her waist. Finally, she came into my room in a stunning, strapless, black number that was a booty-short-necessary length. I dropped my hairbrush in joy and pointed at her vehemently, “YES! Wear this one.” Bartok then informed me that this “dress” she was wearing was actually a skirt from Banana Republic that she had hiked up above her boobs. I then tried to convince her to wear it anyway while she decided to go with a safer, strapless black number that I can remember her wearing when we were sixteen. Because of her indecision, being the fabulous friend I am, I stuffed the Banana Republic skirt in my fake Prada in case she changed her mind again and wanted to change dresses while we were out.

Highlight #2: Us on my least favorite A C E subway line all dolled up in jewelry, dresses, with big hair and make-up to the max. Yes we were classily wearing flip flops and carrying our high heels in our hand. No one on the subway wanted to stand near us, and Bartok and I made a ridiculous spectacle of ourselves when joyously sprinting from the local to express train like boisterous children.

Highlight #3: Since I had never before attended the exclusive New York tradition called “French Tuesdays,” I was slightly nervous and concerned about how smooth our entry process would be. A friend had put me on the list, but by the time I called around to get Bartok on it as well, I was informed the list was closed – no exceptions. We had the cell number of a friend of a friend to call who could get Bartok in without being on the list and without the obligatory non-member $40 entry fee. Putting our faith in this total stranger, we called him when outside. He kindly responded he’d be out front soon to retrieve us. The door policy looked ridiculously strict and they were actually checking people’s IDs against the guest list. So much for trying to pull a “Hi, I’m Elizabeth Smith / the most generic name of your choice.” Luckily, before our savior the stranger could even get to the entrance to help us, a small jovial looking man with a clipboard working the door, Pierre, ushered us past the Fort Knox list stating that “we should get inside immediately” and that “French Tuesdays would be honored to have women like us in attendance.” What he meant by “women like us” (women who wear dresses that are way too short for their own good? Women that look like baby prostitutes? Women who are thinner than they should be?) is unclear. However, Bartok and I weren’t complaining. As if that weren’t enough, Pierre instructed a super cute cocktail waitress with a tray to bring us a round of champagne. He quickly paid for it by stuffing cash in one of the waitresses empty gin glasses.

The Low Down on French Tuesdays:

-This one was a champagne party, with bottles for $75 – a steal if you’re used to the absurd prices of normal New York bottle service (Grey Goose for $700, it’s disgusting). In short, we drank A LOT of champagne since we were with a group of friend and bottles just made more sense than by the glass.

-Very friendly people. People were extremely nice and hospitable, even when we pseudo took over their couch facing the central park view and ate some of their almost finished guacamole without explicit permission. Everyone was exchanging cards like there was no tomorrow. If you are or consider yourself a networker, French Tuesdays is where you gotta be.

Highlight #4: The most delicious beef skewers I’ve ever consumed in my life. After mooching off other peoples appetizers for half the evening, our table of friends finally decided to invest in some ourselves. Bartok and I fought so vigorously about who got to eat the last piece of beef on the only remaining skewer that we actually tore it apart with our teeth to split it when nobody was looking.

Highlight #5: The most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen at the table next to us at Serafina. We decided an 11 p.m. dinner was in order since we’d been drinking since seven thirty and it was destined to be a long night. No, I did not follow my own advice and eat a proper meal before leaving my house. Between getting out of work late and working to transform my tired, beaten self into something attractive, there had been no time left for food. I insisted we only needed some appetizers to eat. I was proven wrong when our party of five consumed two appetizers, a king-size pasta and two pizzas. My wonderful roommate Tatas joined us here as well.

Highlight #6: The French Tuesday Party @ Location #2. Confusing, right? Yeah, well apparently they had their champagne cocktail party early and the “real” get-crazy party late night at D’Or Amalia. We didn’t stay here long since it resembled a castle dungeon and was more crowded than I think any party I’ve been to in the past year and a half. It rivaled Pink on Hamptons night, so we took up residence at the upstairs bar near the door and (surprise surprise) drank more champagne. Part of our group was tired and going to hit the hay, we continued on with my Brazilian friends Classic to an Italian party downtown.

Highlight #7: My Bartok dancing on a cube with an Italian man named Marco who we code-named Lord of the Dance. It only occurred to us the day after that he was undoubtedly on E since he was dancing with his shirt unbuttoned like rabid animal for four hours straight.

Highlight #8: Our group of friends sitting at an empty table at the aforementioned Italian party, now at 5.30 a.m., technically long after the club’s closing time. We lounged around exchanging embarrassing stories, mainly about me and how when staying with Bartok and her boyfriend at the time in Venice I’d “Moo” like a cow on the street (it was a pre decided signal) for them to let me in at crazy hours of the morning. Bartok’s boy lived above his bar and there was no doorbell. If there was, no one told me about it.

Highlight #9: Transferring at Bartok’s drunken persistence to an after-hours party where beer was served, sandwiches were bought, and most people at the party were rotating getting in and out of the very large Jacuzzi-style bathtub.

Highlight #10: Somehow making back to my apartment with all our possessions and Bartok cooking a large vat of macaroni and cheese for us. She played mommy since I felt like men with drills and chains saws had taken up residence in the back of my head. Welcome to a pure champagne hangover. I would’ve cried had I not fallen asleep so fast.

The Forth of July…“Be Prepared!!!”

The title of the entry is supposed to be sung. More specifically, it’s the lyrics of menacing Uncle Scar’s ballad to the hyenas in Disney’s family classic, The Lion King. If you’re too cool to admit you know every world to The Circle of Life and would like a refresher on the Be Prepared song I encourage you to listen to an excerpt of it here. What does any of this have to do with the Fourth of July? Bear with me. I’ll connect the dots, I promise. I’m not high on do-it-yourself-firecracker’s second hand smoke…yet.

Thanks to the evil forces that exist in the universe, Fourth of July falls on a Wednesday this year, right smack dab in the middle of the week. So unless you’re privileged or organized enough to take a full two days off from work (which I imagine the most of us barely functional, blog-reading human beings aren’t), there’s no long weekend in our future. You’re stuck in city central with a lot of humidity and a lot of extra noises. While this highly unfortunate timing made me insanely pissy for the month of June, now that it’s July I’ve taken on a new, refreshing, positive outlook on the Wednesday Holiday. If only my ex the Life Coach could see me now. He might skip a salad serving from pleasant shock.

So what’s my new reformist attitude? It’s called “Party-so-hard-Tuesday-night-that-I-forget-my-name-and-continue-the-debouchery-all-day-Wednesday-till-I-pass-out-like-a-12-year-old-on-Petron.” No long weekend? Well I’m gonna perform what the Life Coach would call a “perception shift” and instead of whining, fit an entire long weekend’s worth of partying into one 36ish hour period. That’s a challenging task folks. Luckily my ultimate partner in crime, the lovely and recently single Miss Bartok herself will be here in New York to supervise the entire event. Under normal circumstances, I’m not sure I’d be up to such a mighty task. With the girl who I used to crawl home with on the streets of Florence at seven am, I think I can handle it.

The rough itinerary thus far is drinking at a French party 8 pm – 11 pm, drinking at the ever so obnoxious Cipriani’s Upstairs from 11 – 1:30 am, drinking at an Italian festa and after hours from 2 am – 5 am, drinking at more after hours on my rooftop from 5 am – 8 am, resting till noon, then a rooftop barbeque Wednesday where I plan to be
a) still intoxicated
b) still drinking, and
c) eating a juicy hot dog larger than my head.
If I survive to witness the Wednesday night fireworks that will be a plus, but I’m not counting on it.

Now here’s where Scar seeing “Be Prepaaaared” comes in. When you’re trying to stuff a long weekend worth of fun into a single evening and afternoon, you need to plan ahead. Thus I present you with Model Behavior’s “The Night Before Misbehaving Regime.” If you’re planning on your Fourth of July being nearly as intense as mine, I suggest following some of the steps outlined below…

The Night Before…

1. Get MANY hours of sleep. Nine is good, twelve is better. How? I suggest taking a Ambien, Lunesta, Nyquil / nighttime narcotic of your choice to knock you out at 7 pm the night before so you can get a looong night’s sleep without counting any sheep. Your body will love you for it later when you’re salsa-ing on tables.

2. Take a lot of vitamins. When partying, you’re denying your body of everything it holds dear: sleep, nutrition, hydration and TLC. You’re going to bruise yourself on bars, fall down stairs, share drinks and germs with fifty other people, and run in and out of humidity and air conditioning all night long. My preparation suggestion is:
a. The daily vitamin you never take
b. Extra vitamin C
c. A hearty glass of Airborne
d. A force feeding of spinach
e. Two pills of Echinacea the day before and after to up your immune system
f. Two large glasses of orange juice (No, OJ mixed with vodka doesn’t count)
g. As much water as you can stomach

3. R & R. This means no gym, no working out, no crunches on your yoga mat. Save all that energy for the dance floor, cuz by Ricky Martin I know you’re going to need it.

The Night Of…

1. Eat a real meal two and a half hours prior to going out. By real meal I mean REAL. Not Sushi, not a handful of goldfish, not a shake of Slim Fast. I suggest pasta because it helps coat your stomach from all the evil toxins you’ll soon be unleashing on your inner organs. Timing is everything. You want to eat long enough before going out that you’ve digested enough to not feel like the 300-hundred pound woman at the freak show and feel confident in your minidress, but not so long before going out that you don’t have anything left in your tummy to soften the blow of the six kamikaze shots you’ll inevitability consume before midnight. Think all this through.

2. Pop two Excedrin Migraine before leaving the house. If I know it’s going to be a long night, these little pills have an incredibly positive power. Excedrin Migraine is a perfectly legal over the counter headache medicine that happens to be 85% caffeine. When mixed with alcohol they have an effect similar to many of the world’s favorite recreational drugs without the danger, hassle, and messiness. I don’t think Excedrin Co. has approved of people getting shit-faced while on their medicine, so please; Try only at your own risk. Bartok and I have been enacting this tradition since childhood and are still functioning with near normality.

3. Don’t be afraid to puke. Throw up is your friend. Puke in the toilet means no hangover the next day (at least for me). The bad stuff is out of your system – relish in that fact (yeaaay!). You got to enjoy the positive without the negative side effects of calories and drinking it out of you with water the next day. I’ll never forget at age 17 at VIP in Cortina I embarked on a vodka drinking competition with a 40 year old man, uncle on my male companion at the time. I excused myself at one point to go to the bathroom, threw up like a wild animal, retouched my lipstick, and retuned to our table to continue drinking.

God I’d do anything to be seventeen again.

In case the above info didn’t make this self-evident, considering the condition I’ll be in on July Fourth there will be no new post on Wednesday. Assuming I survive, blogging will resume on Thursday.

Have a safe and enjoyable Independence Day everyone!