Immaturity 101

Since my romantic life has been voided any substantial activity, I’ve regressed to infancy and have been indulging and posting about things that make me feel like a child again. Previous examples I’ve used have been things like playing Frisbee, karaoke, dancing, salsa, and sleeping outdoors in the grass.

At a recent birthday party, I experienced one of the best things of all.

Goodie bags.

No, not gift bags, those promotional pieces of baloney they thrust at you for attending some stuck up, overrated event, but goodie bags. Like the ones you got when you went to your neighbor’s birthday party in third grade. The contents inside included things like plastic flowers, gum, fart bags, party hats with Mickey Mouse on them, and most importantly, celebratory plastic horns so we could make an outrageously annoying amount of noise. In addition to this fun mix, there were tongue tattoos (banana flavored!) and the kind of balloons magicians use to make animals. Naturally, we got too distracted contorting the balloons into different types of phalluses, but other than that and the fact that I was high on white wine, I truly felt like I was eight years old again.

The whole experience brought me back to my actual eighth birthday, one of the few birthdays I didn’t have a tantrum or throw things at my innocent guests. I had a unicorn cake. I wore neon blue spandex pants and nobody judged me for it (just another of the many benefits of being a child). It was a gymnastics party, which in retrospect makes no sense because I never really liked gymnastics, but I guess it was a party theme that got boys more involved than if it were ballet.

What’s awesome about birthdays is that you get to be the center of attention for a prolonged, constant amount of time. People also feel uncomfortable denying you anything, so you just for fun, you can ask for really outrageous things and watch them squirm. But adult birthday parties become cluttered with so many complications, like do I invite all of my ex-boyfriends or just three? Do I serve quiche or sushi? Can I even afford sushi? Do I hire a bartender like some self-righteous, snobby person, that I secretly envy? Or do I just throw down a lot of orange juice and make people stir their own drinks? What assortment of mixers do I need for Bacardi? Should I wear something casual like I’m too cool to worry about the fact that it’s my birthday? Or should I wear something that’s reflective / glittery / neon so that if anyone has any doubt about whose birthday it is, they’ll know it’s me because I look like the human equivalent of a disco ball?

No. When you’re a kid these things don’t matter. You don’t lose sleep about who caters your unicorn cake, you just throw on aquamarine leggings, put obnoxious sparkles in your hair, and you’re ready to rock ‘n roll. And I think that’s the key to a successful adult birthday party, especially in New York, where we’re so egocentric that it would take an industrial strength Buddha squad to straighten us out, is to make it the one day out of the year where we’re not so self-conscious.

This is exceedingly difficult because birthdays provoke self reflection, facing the reality that we’re getting older and wrinkly, and are probably the time when were most self-conscious (aside from swimsuit season and what our mother’s in town, of course). So forgoing the billion person blow out in lieu of something more relaxed, with people you can be yourself around, and enjoying the childish stink of a fart bag with, might be the viable way to go. I’m going to keep that in mind for my upcoming summer fiesta, perhaps steering the opposite direction from last year.

Model Behavior’s Quote of the Month

I was recently at a friend’s post-scavenger hunt birthday dinner, a party concept so genius that I’m displaying a section of the invite here:

You knew this day would come and now its here. You finally get to show your love and support of the world's biggest tourist - . Starting 2PM Saturday afternoon, you will be required to show up at the Irish Pub on 7th and 54th where you MUST be wearing ALL of the following tourist accoutrement to participate: - Baggy College Sweatshirt - Tight Jeans - White Sneakers - Fanny Pack You then will be divided into teams and each team will receive cameras and detailed scoring sheet - this sheet will provide you with Photo Ops (ie, "Stereotypical Tourist Photos") that will be ranked by a point system. Your team will need to capture as many Photo Ops as possible over several hours, and points will be assigned accordingly. You and your team can earn additional points for dressing above and beyond the 4 required ensemble pieces, such as money belts, turtlenecks underneath, foldable maps on keychains, whacky tourist hats, etc, and of course, each team will be required to demonstrate their own choreographed stretch routine at the end of the evening for the talent portion.

Needless to say, conversation around several large dinner tables in Little Italy after the scavenger hunt’s completion consisted quotes like:

“Did you guys get a photo with a midget?”

“No. We could only find a dwarf.”

“How many points for a midget?”

“Ten.”

“Ten. I thought it was twenty!”

“No. Twenty points is for documentation of gay sex.”

“Do teenagers making out in a bathroom stall at Macy’s count?”

“We got kicked out of FAO Schwarz. And Saks.”

Sadly, I was leaving this delightfully raunchy crowd a bit early to meet up with another friend at a nearby Sushi joint, but I asked them where the party train was headed later.

“Mason Dixon in Times Square,” the birthday boy proudly informed me. “We’re going to ride the mechanical bull.”

Me [distracted, not hearing him over the party noise]: Great. We’ll see you at Amazing Dicks later then.

The entire thirty-person table falls silent, then the laughter’s deafening.

Mason Dixon = Amazing Dicks.

Freudian slip?

Who knows.

I giggled along with them before making a not-so-graceful exit. I console myself with the fact that I was being taunted by people wearing fanny packs.

News from Outer Space

News everybody: Douchey hotspot Pink elephant is now establishing status as its own planet. That’s right. PLANET. I refer you all over to tonight’s incredibly trippy online video invitation here where Pink announces its transformation from NYC Pink Elephant to Planet Pink.

For those of you who couldn’t make it through the four minutes of spinning, silver craters, the gist of the video is that tonight we celebrate the existence of the charming and notoriously fab nightlife promoter Roberto. And according to my sources, his birthday has turned into an excuse for some major extraneous PR and an opportunity for party planners to go giddy with excitement and take everything a step too far. Rumor has it that everyone in Pinkland has sunk a whole lot of effort and cash into transforming the club into an outer space adult playground.

You got it. The theme is ‘Space.’ I’ve heard there will be large (papier-mâché?) planets hanging from the ceiling, additional disco balls with orbits (as mini planets?), extra industrial strength fog machines to create fog up to people’s knees at all times, a play spaceship people can ride in, and a redone interior entrance complete with stars. Reflecting on the theme, all of Roberto’s invitees are requested to wear silver as this will grant them entrance into the roped off birthday area privet.

So am I attending this horrific demonstration of New York nightlife at its absolute most obnoxious? Hell yes! As a longtime Pink junkie, I’m extremely curious to see how effectively they’ll transform the successful club into a theoretically glamorous galaxy.

Will the whole thing look like a Star Trek convention gone wrong?

Will a drunken go-go dancer have an unfortunate collision with a planet?

Will Darth Vader make an appearance?

I plan to find out!

Last night, I went to the Nikon Four to the Floor event at Buddha Bar. For the first time in almost a year, a New York open bar didn’t disappoint me. It truly was an open bar, not a watered-down Svedka vodka only giveaway. They had complimentary hor'dourves, which any starving girl on budget always appreciates, and at one point while seated a waiter dropped an entire basket of sushi in front of me. The event was a little ‘corporate’ as it was mainly for the press, but the music was outstanding. Then all of a sudden, soulchestra extraordinaire, violinist Karen Briggs appeared and played both solo and along with the house music. Beats your average drummer, right? She was actually amazing.





After Karen took her break the night seemed to slightly drag. People started shuffling out to other destinations, and when I saw two seemingly corporate girls in the center of Buddha Bar grope-dancing each other like strippers with a circle of tossed one dollar bills around them, I knew it was time to go home. As I passed, some nice gentleman gestured for me to join the erotic duo. Geez, aren’t men in New York just charming?

Who knows? Maybe tonight I’ll get lucky and meet an alien.

911 & Stretching Out the Birthday

No one (especially me) is over the fact that the birthday is over and life has to now resume seeming normalcy. In an attempt to stretch out the birthday madness as long as possible, I encourage you all today to check out Ha Ha Sound’s especially humorous recap of the party.

Last night, Bartok and I spent an hour getting pedicures in an attempt to revive our feet from the brutal treatment they’d received the evening before. We then foolishly entertained the idea of going out before passing out on my futon with Chipotle burritos watching reruns of 30 Rock and Entourage. Now that I’ve had a reasonable eight hours of sleep drained into my abused bodily system, there’s no way Bartok’s letting me keep my ass on the couch tonight. No official plans have been made but I have a hunch we’ll end up at Pink (Cajun, feel free to grab a gun, hunt me down, and shoot the heels off all my stilettos. I deserve it. I’m a full blown Thursday Pink addict.) The good news is the club’s ridiculousness never ceases to amaze me, and I only gain delightfully absurd story after story when I attend. Tonight Bartok and I plan to shake things up at the club by pulling out some of these new super sexy dance moves we’ve learned from James Brown’s instructional video.



I think the men are going to go gaga when we start rocking this stuff on the table banquet. Depending on how much energy and how much liquor we’ve consumed before going out, we might even practice the moves at my apartment so we can perform them in unison. So I’m going to leave you with that visual. If you want more entertainment check out these real 911 calls for a chuckle. Reports about tonight’s outing tomorrow…

BELIEVE it or not, these are REAL 911 Calls!

Dispatcher : 9-1-1 What is your emergency?
Caller: I heard what sounded like gunshots coming from the brown house on the corner.
Dispatcher: Do you have an address?
Caller: No, I have on a blouse and slacks, why?

Dispatcher : 9-1-1 What is your emergency?
Caller : Someone broke into my house and took a bite out of my ham and cheese sandwich.
Dispatcher : Excuse me?
Caller : I made a ham and cheese sandwich and left it on the kitchen table and when I came back from the bathroom, someone had taken a bite out of it.
Dispatcher : Was anything else taken?
Caller : No, but this has happened to me before and I'm sick and tired of it!

Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What is the nature of your emergency?
Caller: I'm trying to reach nine eleven but my phone doesn't have an eleven on it.
Dispatcher: This is nine eleven.
Caller: I thought you just said it was nine-one-one
Dispatcher: Yes, ma'am nine-one-one and nine-eleven are the same thing.
Caller: Honey, I may be old, but I'm not stupid.

Dispatcher: 9-1-1 What's the nature of your emergency?
Caller: My wife is pregnant and her contractions are only two minutes apart
Dispatcher: Is this her first child?
Caller: No, you idiot! This is her husband!

Dispatcher: 9-1-1
Caller: Yeah, I'm having trouble breathing. I'm all out of breath.
Darn....I think I'm going to pass out.
Dispatcher: Sir, where are you calling from?
Caller: I'm at a pay phone. North and Foster.
Dispatcher: Sir, an ambulance is on the way. Are you an asthmatic?
Caller: No
Dispatcher: What were you doing before you started having trouble breathing?
Caller: Running from the Police.

The Birthday Recap

DISCOVERY: Plastic glasses are not champagne flutes. Despite what I wrote in jest yesterday, last night on my birthday I, a stunning model of good behavior, intended to remain cool, calm, collected and not drunk like a proper hostess my mother would be proud of. This quest was thwarted: Why? Because plastic glasses are not champagne flutes. This may seem self-evident, but allow me to explain. When drinking in a club or bar one can at least attempt to keep track of how much alcohol they’re consuming. Theoretically at a house party you can do the same. Yet the liquid volume of a champagne flute is miniscule compared to the volume of an even half-filled house party plastic cup. Hence we can construct a mathematic formula that goes something like “every 1 glass of house party champagne = 3 glasses of champagne if we were measuring in flutes.” Unfortunately, the average party-goers brain is not aware of this discrepancy, causing them to think they’ve had 5 glasses of champagne when in reality they’ve had 15. I was a victim of this logic. What can I say? I never made it past pre-calculus. Throw in 3 Bacardi mixed drinks and the occasional shot and you have my mental state last night. I’m actually listening to throbbing house music right now on my iPod to prevent myself from falling asleep over my desk and to wean my body off the party train / the reality that I’m no longer mistress birthday girl of the moment. Even with the music it still feels like midgets are building a fortress with electric drills in the back of my brain.

Flashback to yesterday: After coming home from work, stopping to get another round of liquor on the way (and haggling the price of my Malibu down $2 – go me) I hoped into the shower and began a lengthy beautification process. The majority of this process is always taken up by deciding what to wear. During our pre-party lunch conference, Bartok and I deiced that we wanted to go casual: jeans, a nice top, maybe heels. I even managed to fit in time for a power shopping spree on my lunch hour to purchase a new top. Our overall outfit goal with the casual route was to send the message, “This party is no big deal. We throw fifty-five person soirées all the time, no sweat.” Needless to say, we began trying stuff off and ultimately were both dressed up enough to go pick up Oscars on our way home. Tatas and Bartok ended up in fancy black dresses and somehow talked me into this obnoxiously shiny gold mini-skirt my that (surprise surprise) my Barbie-doll mother bought for me when I was sixteen. Jeans. Who were we kidding?

Since the party was at Mr. T’s place, next we had the delightful challenge of transporting cake, ice, cases of beer and liquor and mixers for fifty-five people to his house without the aid of professional moving men. Tatas had the genius idea of using this ginormous suitcase I keep hidden behind our futon. I only use it when moving between New York and Italy. This suitcase could fit furniture inside. So all the booze and mixers were stuffed into this enormous wheeling duffel bag, which Bartok and Tatas later told me they took TO the liquor store earlier that day to wheel all the gin, rum and bottles of champagne back to my apartment. I’m really sad I was at work and missed that visual.

So we loaded all the stuff onto my building’s bellhop wheeling transportation device and somehow talked a cab into taking us, with all our luggage, just five blocks up into Soho to Mr. T’s. Men on the street would happily approach us eager to help lift the duffel bag (thinking it we were traveling and it was filled with clothes) and then reel when it weighed more than six human bodies. That was highly entertaining.

Only the ever gentlemanly Classic and his friends arrived at the scheduled party start time of nine p.m., but by ten we had a pretty full house. Perhaps the most delightful surprise is that my fabulous girlfriend Safari solved all my woes about whether to serve food or not / what was cheesy and what was not (see yesterday’s entry) and arrived with an entire gourmet rotisserie chicken, couscous, arugala salad, dill, French bread, potato salad, salmon and chocolate meringues. Talk about a good friend! We set up an entire top notch buffet.

A lot of my college friends, most everyone from the New York clubbing circuit, and even a few fellow bloggers were in attendance – the majority of whom brought champagne. At around eleven p.m. we had a vodka shortage, at which point Safari kicked in yet again with a forceful champagne PR campaign. I literally think we had enough champagne to fill the Hudson. Some guests even splurged on the nice stuff – Moet, Veuve and crazy French names that I can’t pronounce. My childish ice cream cake was presented with the appropriate number of candles which I managed to blow out in entirely after having happy birthday sung to me in both English and Italian. Needless to say, the Italians were the life of party with friends of friends of friends from Sicily in continual arrival. They also orchestrated multiple encores of happy birthday and popped a lot of champagne. The Brazilians played their part as well, especially when my friend Classic force fed everyone in the kitchen tequila shots at around eleven thirty. The party plundered forward into the early morning and according to my cell phone text messages, I got home at around two thirty. Many guests headed over to The Box at around one a.m. Thank God they couldn’t convince me to go with them. My night was spiningly joyful enough without getting lost in the vortex.

Happy Birthday to Me

That’s right. Today’s the day. It only comes once a year. Fortunately, I’m still at an age where birthdays are an excuse for out of control fun and a lot of naughty behavior, although watching your youth further recede into the distance is never a good feeling. So what’s the plan? Bartok is arriving from DC yet again, totally breaking her bi-annual visit rule (we might die, link here for our previous adventures). Her arrival can be compared to having Santa Claus sled by twice in one season as Bartok was just in New York over the fourth of July. Basically, we’re going to stop being the irresponsible freeloading party crashing alcoholics we always are and instead are going to actually host – that’s right HOST my party at my close friend T’s SoHo loft. Why there? Because it’s significantly larger than my living room which can barely fit an extra five fold-out chairs. Plus Mr. T’s pad has a much better stereo and ambient lighting system. I’m really into ambient lighting and at my apartment the only tools I have to work with are the stove and oven light. That’s just not as fun as professional dimmers.

Group and personalized email and text invitations have been sent out to mine as well as Mr. T’s friends. The confirmed count at this moment is about fifty – but this is New York, this number could quadruple or disintrigrate to twelve at a moments notice depending on how the Manhattan party Gods are feeling. The sky got all the rain out of its system yesterday, so bad weather shouldn’t deter people from coming out. Isn’t this weather intolerable? I think we should stop calling the warm season in Manhattan “summer” and refer to it instead as “the monsoon.” I’m seriously thinking of investing in some yellow rubber duck boots and one of those absurdly large umbrellas that people steal from hotels.

So, I’ve decided the most responsible thing to do as co-hostesses of this party is for Bartok and I and my fabulous Asian roommate to get completely shit-faced the three of us before the first guest arrives at 9 p.m. I mean, how could it possibly be a bad night with us pre-drunken running around and making merry. The guests, cake, and perhaps gifts just become an added bonus. I also plan on a hugging reward system for anyone who brings liquor. I also plan on one of us monopolizing the stereo the entire night (music control being the biggest perk of the house party). That means Euro house trash, my nineties favorites, T’s Brazilian stuff, and inevitably a teeny bit of Kylie Minogue.

My preparation list so far looks something like this:

1. A bottle of vodka too big to carry (preferably something cheap, Svedka or Finlandia would be great. Perk of cheap vodka: it goes down easy!!!)

2. A similarly large bottle of Bacardi (I don’t think the euros in attendance will be able to live with their Cuba Libras.)

3. Mixers: OJ, cranberry, tonic, sprite, coke, anything else more creative that I can find. Pineapple would be swell.

4. The men’s favorites: Jack and Rum.

5. Limes (thanks to Mr. T for reminding me of this one)

6. Ice (yeah, how we’re going to get all of this to T’s house in one cab ride remains a mystery)

7. The cake – this is a coffee and chocolate ice cream cake with health bars in it. Is this gourmet? No. But I really have no issues with having a 5-year old flavor cake. It’s MY birthday and I want ice cream!

8. Beer – I’m not supplying a lot. If you wanna sip on Buds all night that’s your prerogative.

9. Snacks? I always feel grossed out by chips and pretzels and cheese doodles at parties. A lot of germs live in those bowels with an abnormal amount of fingertips passing through. Plus that kind of snack set up always reminds me of really awkward high school dances. So the snacks aren’t happening. Bartok and I have decided to go with something more gourmet like grapes. This whole party is about us pretending to be responsible adults. Hopefully we won’t get too drunk and start doing cartwheels like we did the last time we were left unsupervised at a Manhattan apartment with open space.

Anyone else have any other suggestions? Like a net to catch people when they get too rowdy or a shovel to knock people out? You should all feel free to let me know.