Half your age plus seven

I had a bit of a mid-week treat last night thanks to my friend Lauren. For my birthday (yes, I continue my birthday celebrations a full week after the fact) Lauren bought me a ticket to see Bloc Party at Terminal 5. Bloc Party has a special sentimental significance for us since we first saw them play at McCarren Park Pool in Brooklyn back in 2006ish. It is an evening we both remember fondly since the concert was inside an old public pool, it was hot as balls that night, we danced barefoot on the hot concrete, we ended up at the Beauty Bar later that night where Lauren got a manicure in the dark and I got stuck in closing subway doors. But that's another story for another day. Anyway, we went to the show to relive old times.

We met for dinner and went to this place on the west side near the venue. I had an interesting concoction of beer with dinner. It was called a black velvet and consisted of half Guinness and half cider. It was the first of many, many beverages. It looked not unlike this:



It was delicious.

Before we knew it, we were late for the concert. We waited in line to get in but because I was carrying my overnight bag, I had a few granola bars in there and amazingly enough the security guard wanted to throw them all out because for some really odd reason, unopened, innocuous food was not allowed inside the venue. In a supreme act of annoyance, he would not tolerate me going in with this food. Luckily, Lauren's office was nearby so we went to drop my bag off there for safekeeping. The guard was nice enough to keep an eye on it and we chatted briefly before rushing back to the show. We got in to realize the band had already started and decided to drown our sorrows in vodka and soda. The band sounded great and we commenced reliving the concert of 2006 but this time we kept our shoes on. Also, everyone in the venue was over 6 feet tall so we pretty much resolved to not seeing anything on stage.
The dancing and drinking continued for the length of the show and it was easy to forget it was the middle of the week. After the show ended we wanted to continue that Saturday night feeling and go out in the neighborhood. I had to get my bag so we went back to her office and the first thing the guard said to us was "They serve drinks at Terminal 5?" So, I guess it showed. Ahem.

We spend most of our lives in our workplaces and often we are different people there or we hate it or love it and talk about it to each other. I like seeing the scene of where my friends and family members play out their days and so I enjoyed seeing where Lauren works and meeting a few of her coworkers, even if it was after hours. However, it was time to find another drink. It WAS Wednesday after all.

We ended up at this place on 9th avenue that had karaoke and the people singing sounded like professional recording artists. We got involved in a serious conversation and afterwards decided to move on for some fun at another local place that we've been to before. On the way there we started talking to these two guys who lived in the neighborhood and everything got a little hazy for me at that point and so I don't remember how this came up in the five minutes we walked with them but we talked about how one of the guys was the type to cook dinner and not be able to enjoy it until all the dishes were washed. Yeah, I don't know. We asked if they wanted to join us for a drink at the bar we headed into but they were on their way home from a long happy hour.

So we went in to the bar, got more vodka and you know how the ads for the Friday's restaurants say "in here it's always Friday!"? Well, that's what NYC felt like to me last night. The bar was pretty crowded and it was a lot more than residual happy hour folks. I immediately noticed these three guys who were having a grand old time dancing and being silly and eventually Lauren and I made our way over to them. We noticed they were on the youngish side of their 20s and a conversation about who is age appropriate ensued with the conclusion being reached that the old addage "half your age plus seven" was reasonable, even though it isn't really for either of us. Anyway, these guys were nice and fun, two of them were from Germany were over here for work for three months and one of them was from Alabama. They all spoke fluent German so I decided to impress them with the only German thing I know how to say which is "Ich habe eine katze." They seemed pleased and then told me how to pluralize that. I figure with that extremely useful phrase, I'm ready to take Germany by storm.

Before we knew it, it was 2am and it was time to go home and, perhaps most importantly, to stop drinking. Because it was Wednesday. On our way out and while we said goodbye to our new friends, there was a man there who identified himself as both a comedian and an NYPD officer and he was wearing a lighted graph under his shirt. I don't know why or how better to describe it but when I asked him why he was wearing it, he refused to answer. In fact, this was the exact shirt he was wearing.

Mesmerizing, is it not?

Anyway, I had taken today off from work as did Lauren so it was the perfect time and day to be very hungover. We slept very late which was very easy since Lauren has the coziest apartment with the most comfortable couch in Manhattan. We went to eat some omelettes and then proceeded to lie around watching tv for most of the afternoon. We also spent the afternoon "setting up scenarios" for situations from last night that we didn't really have enough information about. Assumption and making up stories is fun and easy and it is one of our favorite past times. Then I got on a train with a whole horde of exhausted commuters a large majority of whom were drinking tall cans of Budweiser hidden in paper bags. My hangover was still lingering and the smell of it in the confined train car was enough to keep me nauseated until I got home, where I am now currently safely ensconced and ready for tomorrow, a Friday that will feel like a Monday.

I'm getting this entry in under the wire so I apologize for any inconsistency or grammatical mistakes but I'm tired and ready for more sleep.