Yes, I steal tables.

It's time for another episode of Thursday night debauchery recap.

First off, let me start by saying that yesterday was gorgeous. Pretty much perfect weather, if not a little cool. DRASTICALLY different from last week's episode of Thursday night debauchery. It was so hot last week that I melted as I sat outside. I even put my hair up temporarily because it was stifling.

After getting my nails done with The Mexican and VWR, I went to Honey. B and I were supposed to meet at 7:15 or so. She asked me to get her a shirt on my way because she was wearing her work shirt and forgot a change of shirt, yet again.

I picked up a shirt for her in Union Square and then started walking down to Honey, slowly because she wasn't responding to my messages. I got there just after 7:15 and had a message from B saying she was around the corner.

I chatted with the doorman for a little while - my best buddy - and noticed that there were no seats outside. I scolded Doorman for not reserving us a table, because he knew that we would be coming. It was a joke, but in all honesty, he should've. I will be calling Maitre'D in the future to do just that. I got his number later on in the night. They really do love us there.

The reason I mention the table situation is that there were these two women sitting at one of the tables while I was waiting for B and talking to Doorman. They got up and I was on it. I asked them if they were coming back and the girl mumbled something about "possibly coming back" and when I said "what?" to clarify, she walked away. I took the table.

I sat there for almost 15 minutes before the girl came back and was like "This was our table, we just went to get a hookah." Excuse me for a second here miss. Your whole party got up, and took your drinks with you. You disappeared for 15 minutes, and when I said "what" because I didn't hear you, you chose to ignore me. Basically, I'm going to ignore you now. I sat there, and she eventually skittered away. She tried to tell Maitre'D and he looked outside, saw me, and essentially shut her down. Bye bitch!

B FINALLY showed up at 8pm. I wanted to kill her at that point because I had been waiting so long, and I hadn't had a drink yet because I couldn't get up from the table to go to the bar and the waitress was THE WORST. I had been there over an hour before I had to get the bus boy to get the waitress. I ordered 4 Watermelon Martinis for B and 4 Cosmos for me. The girls next to me laughed and I told them that there was a reason I was ordering in bulk. Happy hour was almost over. They weren't really laughing at me, but they definitely thought I was nuts...until the waitress didn't come back for almost a half hour and they had to go to the bar to pay their bill and get other drinks.

The waitress came back about two minutes after I gave her my order to write down what I wanted. She said "You said 4 strawberry margaritas, right?" Um, no. I don't know who the hell she was listening to when she got THAT order, but definitely not me. I spoke super slowly after that to make sure she got the order right. It took about a half hour to get the drinks, and this was with prompting from the Maitre'D again. We started drinking rapidly.

Our first order

By 8:45 we were each breaking into our second drink. We decided we were going to order another round at the bar. We found the Floor Manager, who I adore, and she was working the bar. I ordered the 8 more drinks with her and asked her if she could just add them to my tab and send them outside. She agreed. I feel bad for her, because she was SWAMPED.

It was packed there that night, so it took another 15+ minutes to get our next round. This worked out because we were almost done with the first round when it finally came.

However, the owner was there that night. He is an ass (we discovered) and they had to close the window wall to the inside because of noise complaints, which was fine. But also, he said we all had to clear out of the outside area. I guess he got fined $10,000 last week or something because of people outside. Probably because of the fight and the police and all that jazz. Doorman convinced him to let us stay another half hour to drink the drinks that had JUST been delivered to us. We were the only ones allowed to stay outside.

B finished her drinks and I got down to my last 1.5 before we were forced inside. That's fine though. It was time to dance anyway. We got the bill and the only thing that was on it were our first 8 drinks, at $5 a pop. God I love Floor Manager.

Oh yeah, at one point I went to go use the facilities and saw my bestie, Senegal (who later "yelled" at me for calling him that because I didn't know his name. He called me Melissa until I learned his name. Ironically, it's the same as mine, except pronounced COMPLETELY differently.) I made him let me use the men's room because I refused to wait. He just shook his head at me as I took the paper towel from him to scrub stuff with before I squatted anyway. I used the men's room twice that night. On my way downstairs to the restroom though, I ran into Floor Manager and asked her if there was anywhere I could put my bag. She took the whole thing and put it in the back room so I didn't have to worry about it. It was THE BEST!

B and I were pretty much wasted. I actually left to go get a slice of Pizza and I came back. I hadn't eaten since lunch. I was going to order food at Honey, but with the snail pace service, I didn't even bother.

When I came back, still trashed, B and I were dancing. Unfortunately, I put my arm down and hit this girl's drink onto the floor. It was half of a patron margarita. It was her birthday (B checked her ID to confirm), so we went to the bar to replace the drink. B got one for the girl and one for herself, and I got a Long Island. I don't think that we paid for those drinks either, unless B did...

B thought that it was silly to give the girl a whole drink because I only knocked over half a cup, maybe. So we drank some before giving it to her.

Our drinks were incredibly strong that night. 

I don't think I drank ANY of the Long Island. I was housed. I ended up going back to see Senegal and in the restroom I poured out the bottle of water I had and poured in the Long Island. Yeah I lost some in transition, but I maintained a good portion of it that is now sitting in my room at home. Senegal and B were having this long involved conversation about pulling strings to get him into school and blah blah blah. We always find the needy ones. It was cute. I promised to look into what I could do. I think he's only on a visa so he needs to find a school to go to or something.

I guess B said she was ready to go, so we got ourselves together and went to the train. We might've stopped for pizza again. Come to think of it, I don't remember getting to the train station or getting on the train. I don't think I had to wait long though and it was only a brown out, because I have bits and pieces of it in my memory.

I did not miss my stop. On my way to my house I ran into OhD, who was also smacked. I told him to just come back to my house and go to sleep. He obliged. It was stupid of him to think he didn't want to do just that.

Of course I texted Steel Pans, but nothing dirty like I usually do. Basically, "Are you coming over?" The answer was "Leave the back door open." So I did.

It was about 1am. I told my mother who was sleep-watching tv, to go to bed, vomited my life up, and went into my room. Got into my PJs and the next thing I remember is waking up next to Steel Pans, naked.

I think I remember the sex. One can't be too sure though. I have one or two flashes of our throes of passion.

I woke up surprisingly un-hungover. My stomach is still not happy, but at least my body didn't feel like I was beaten like a red-headed step child (my aunt actually has one of those...)

Minor sidenote: House Manager told us we had to come another night and not just on Thursdays, he cut her finger and was at the ER that day, but she stopped by at some point during the night. Floor Manager told us we had to come on Wednesday for Bachata lessons because there are never enough women. B agreed. I'm going to be a hot mess. I CANNOT Bachata. I will go though, because I am loyal and they are wonderful.

Thus concluding another episode of the Thursday night debauchery chronicles.

Another sidenote, Delta texted me. He makes no sense. Let's play "decipher this":

I know it's not Tuesday...but Ten!

 So, I guess every Tuesday 10 questions are posted here and so since I'm lazy and don't feel like talking about anything going on in my life, I figured I'd participate...on Thursday

1. When you are on a plane and the kid behind you is kicking your seat, what do you do?
It's been a long time since this has happened to me, although just crying children anywhere on the plane can set me off. I would probably turn around and a few times to look at them and stare down their parent/guardian. If they didn't get the hint from the death stare, I would ask them to politely stop. If that didn't work I would ask more forcefully and direct it at their parent. I would hope it wouldn't get past this point, if it did, I would probably start making rude comments about people who shouldn't have children, or can't control their kids loud enough for the parent behind me to hear.

2. What food that you KNOW is bad for you and you shouldn’t have, but you love/eat it anyway?
Tiramisu. Alcohol - I know this isn't a food (although it might be one of my main foodgroups), but goddamn if it isn't empty calories that I insist on ingesting.

3. What is your favorite book of all time?
Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind. It made me fall in love with fantasy fiction all over again and got me so wrapped in the series that I was actually transported to another world, joyfully.

4. If I came to visit you in your town, where would we eat?
I don't really know who "I" would refer to (probably Kyria, and since I don't know her at all I will just tell you where my preference is...) I live in New York City, and I have a lot of favorites, but if we're talking about the borough I live in. We'd go to my favorite Vietnamese place, or to this Japanese place with the best cheap sushi ever. If we go in Manhattan, if it's a Wednesday we'll go to the Stumble Inn for a stuffed burger and a good time.

5. You have 500 dollars and 40 minutes to spend it at any store you want. Where do you go?
Can it be a website? Because I'd probably use expedia/jetblue or the likes to book a flight somewhere.

6. What blog do you read every day/the most often?
I read everyone on my bloglist every day. I would name names about the ones I never skip over, but that would probably take too long.

7. What’s the longest you’ve ever been stuck at an airport?

The reason I wanted to do this Ten on Tuesday was to tell my story about my February 2010 trip to Jamaica. It took 38 hours to get there I think. See below for the whole story.

8. What’s your daily makeup/face/cleansing routine?

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9. Where is your farthest away friend?
I used to be able to say Perth, Australia. Alas, Chawa and I are hardly in touch anymore, so now it's probably JarJar in Austin, TX.

10. Where is your favorite place to go hiking (or to enjoy nature)?
I don't particularly enjoy nature, so I can't answer this.

If you want to join in, I guess you go here to Kyria's blog

Ok, so my trip to Jamaica in February of 2010 was filled with a million ups and downs, getting there was definitely a down.

Me fake sad in the pool once we got there...

I had been to Jamaica once before I planned to go that February. The last time I went was summer of '09 and I was living in Chicago at the time and I decided two weeks before all of my friends were going that I wanted to go to. And so I booked my tickets and room and had the best trip of my life, pretty much. We went to Montego Bay, specifically, for those of you who were wondering. Some of the people I was going with had been there about a million times before. One is in Mo Bay right now with her boo, another had a baby with her Mo Bay bf last August...so you can see we had a lot of ties to Jamaica. This would be B's first trip there though and I hadn't shut up about it for the previous 6 months.

B was finishing her last semester of college, and was essentially done. I was working part time as a Medical Assistant for a pediatrician. We were going to Jamaica with my Chicago (and a Canadian) friends.

We were scheduled to fly out on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at around 12:30pm. We actually flew out at around 10am on Thursday, February 11th, 2010.

So let's rewind and see what happened there.

On Monday night B's mom tells B and I that if possible we should get a flight out on Tuesday because there's news of a huge snowstorm on its way. This is contemplated. I work late on Tuesdays, and in order to make a LITTLE more money, B and I decide that we're going to hope our original flight works out. Tuesday night rolls around and the forecast doesn't look good. I tell B to come over ASAP so we can try and fly standby for the 7am flight to Kingston with a connection to Mo Bay.

She gets to my house around 11pm, and we get a cab and go to the airport because A. We want to be the first ones on standby and B. We don't want to get stuck in the impending snow storm on our way to the airport.

We arrive at the airport around midnight. We find out that the desk for Air Jamaica doesn't open until 4am. This blows. We hang out upstairs for a while, we lug our bags downstairs into the waiting area, we're still in good spirits. We come back up to the desk right as it opened. One of the ladies gave us a hassle and told us that we needed to talk to another man about going on standby and blah blah blah. We kept our composure and the man did help us, along with another woman. We were issued the new stand by tickets and we gave them our bags.

We went back downstairs, and through security. We were obviously some of the first. We waited at the gate for 3 hours give or take. We notice a woman who is being deported, is cuffed and there are two officers with her. Just as the lady at the desk is about to announce standby availability, they get a call. Mind you, it is now 7:20am and snowing slightly. This is an international flight and they should've already been boarded at this point. Also, people should've been at the airport 2-3 hours before the flight, or at least within 45 minutes of TAKE OFF. But no. The call had the following message: "Hold the plane, a family of 8 scheduled for this flight has just arrived at the front desk and they're on their way.". Everyone who was waiting's heart sank. A family of 8 comes moseying into the terminal, 4 of them small children that probably could've easily shared two seats. There was at least one lap child that had their own seat too.

We were shit outta luck. Everyone starts going up to the desk and the following announcement is made. "There will be no standby seats available, you will be automatically checked in to your original flight and your bags will be transferred to the correct aircraft." This should've sounded curious to me considering the flight took off in the next 20 or so minutes and it never takes a short time to move bags. But oh well, I trust them. Big mistake.

We're all sitting at the gate we were told would be used for the next flight as well. The snow has slowed down. There is hope.

It's about 20 minutes before the plane should be boarding and there don't seem to be too many people at the gate. This seems suspicious, so I walk back toward the security area. Lo and behold, they changed the gate and didn't tell any of the people who were on standby earlier.

We gather our stuff and move to the new gate. Everyone starts exchanging Air Jamaica horror stories. We tell them what we've been through and one woman goes "Are you sure you're checked in to this flight? I would check that out. You never know with Air Jamaica." This is true. You never do know with Air Jamaica, so B and I agree we should confirm we're checked in for the flight. Thing is, the gate desk attendants haven't arrived yet.

B takes our passports and goes out through security to the main desk. About 15 minutes later she returns through, while sending me messages about how I won't believe what just happened. They give her a hard time going through security because she has both of our passports. She's about to flip.

She gets back to me and goes "We weren't checked in for the flight. In fact, when I asked the woman if we were checked in, she LAUGHED in my face and said 'NO, what were you waiting for? You were going to wait for the plane to take off before checking in?" I almost snatched the weave right off her head. I've had enough of this." She was a bit more huffy, but we were both pissed.

At the time when the plane should've been taking off, they say that the crew has just arrived and they have to do their preliminary check of the plane before we can board. The whole crew is a half hour late.

It has started snowing again. Heavily.

Our window of opportunity to leave is quickly shrinking. They eventually begin boarding. There's a family with three kids under 4 that I don't envy. They cancel their hotel because we're boarding the plane and obviously we will make it to Jamaica, obviously. They tell us that we will need to de-ice the plane.

I've been through this before, it's a 20 minute process that sucks. Whatever, we're on the plane and on our way to the Caribbean, right? Wrong.

We de-ice once, but because we have to wait so long before take off and the snow has drastically picked up in speed and quantity, the wheels freeze and we have to be towed back to the gate.

We were on the plane for an hour before being tugged back to the gate.

This is what they tell us when we get back. "Your flight has been scheduled for 7am tomorrow morning. Please come get your boarding passes. There will be no accommodations or food vouchers provided."

The family of 5 who canceled their hotel tries to get it back - sorry all booked up. How shitty is THAT?

That's right folks. We spent another night in the airport. I slept some, B really didn't. We ate shitty fast food and were uncomfortable and angry.

Security opened at 4am. We were the first ones there.

We went to hand them our re-issued boarding passes from the day before. Security tells us that they're invalid because it has yesterday's date. We assure them that while we have been there since yesterday, these are for the rescheduled flight. They have to call the Air Jamaica front desk. This takes 20 minutes because no one is ever working. We finally get through.

Somewhere along the way I lose my boarding pass. I have to spend more time getting another one re-issued, which thankfully, they didn't hassle me about.

We board late, but we take off.

We arrive just after noon I would say. Our bags are not there.

We file a report. We continuously check on it for the rest of the evening.

B is in an awful mood and wants to go home. She almost does. This is her first time meeting all of my Chicago friends and she is not happy. I somehow convince her that we've already lost a day, we need to make the most of the time we have. We get into a fight and I force her to come out to the "club" on the property. She wears Paris' swim dress. I wear Lisa's floor length dress that I pin up to be knee length.

We drink until we're wasted.

I wake up at 9am to call the airport the next day, because that's what they said to do. We had to put $20 on our phone bill for the hotel.

No one really works in Jamaica at 9am at the airport.

Our bags arrive at the hotel at 3pm on Friday afternoon.

We are elated and run and cry to our bags in the lobby. They will never forget us. We went 6 months later and the woman at the desk still remembers our story. My sunscreen had exploded in my bag and leaked out of the ziploc ruining a skirt and a bathing suit, but whatever. We had our stuff.

The rest of the trip was great.

Moral of the story - Air Jamaica sucks and they recently shut down most of their service and got bought out. Probably because of their lack of customer fucking service.

Restaurant week and stifling heat

Written on Tuesday: 

I currently look like a little boy and his grandpa, all at once.

I don't know what made me wear these brown plaid bermuda shorts today (and having been to Bermuda a mere month ago, I can attest first hand that these are, in fact, considered formal wear - I'm not wearing the high socks though, so maybe it doesn't count). I really don't like plaid, but I wanted to be casual - hence looking like a little boy. Also, I'm wearing a 4 sizes too big thick brown cable knit sweater - hence looking like his grandpa. Sometimes I really wonder about myself.

Oh and here's another fun fact about shorts. Since it's summer and hot as balls outside, I wear them. This does not mean that you should stare at the heinous scar on my left knee. Seriously, if you're going to stare that hard, please just ask. Also, making offhanded comments about how bad of a scar it is, isn't really the nicest thing in the world to do. I will tell you what happened if you want. I will even login to my facebook and show you the pictures. Or I will lie to you and tell you that I was bitten by a small shark on a trip to the tropics at the end of last year. And somehow I managed to get away without it biting through my leg, just kind of sinking its teeth in and ripping. I swear you'll love the story, so stop staring and ask. Or, don't stare.

And another thing. I don't like "in between pizza". Either it's gotta be piping hot where my mouth will get burnt, or completely cold. The flavors are different. Don't be in between. Don't be THAT slice, it's just wrong.

Written Wednesday:

After work yesterday the Mexican and I decided to partake in New York City Summer Restaurant Week 2011. We decided on The Water Club. Might've been one of the best decisions we've ever made.

Every year, there's restaurant week and I always miss it. For one reason or another I cannot get someone to go with me and spend $24.07 for lunch or $35 for dinner - prix fixe, at these magnificent restaurants that would normally cost WAY more than what the prix fixe is. This year, I was/am determined to go to as many restaurant week meals as I possibly can.

From 2-5pm yesterday I had Customer Service training. It was pretty stupid, but I also developed a tiny friend crush on the instructor. I wanted him to be my new best friend. In all honesty, I still do. If he were a bit taller, I might have a legit crush on him. He's just an all American boy. Raised in Connecticut, college at Cornell in Ithaca, worked for Nestle in Wisconsin and now works at the same institution as me. Considering I was raised in the Northeast, went to school an hour away from Cornell in Binghamton, and went to Nestle's Chocolate Fest in Wisconsin when I worked there, we have quite a bit in common (we are meant to be besties). However, I don't know how to break the ice with men who are shorter than me. This is a general rule. I'm much better at talking to taller men. Shorter ones, I guess I just feel like I will automatically be talking down to them, so I don't even bother. It's probably a bad thing. Maybe my "vanity" is what keeps me from meeting lots of new people, because I judge. I judge a lot. Sorry, that's the way it works.

Anyway, my vanity is a topic for another day really, but I want to get back to my restaurant week experience.

So at 5pm, the Mexican and I met outside of the building and began our walk towards the bus/restaurant. The Water Club is on the East River between 23rd and 34th street. That's right, 23rd and 34th; big range, eh?

We started to walk down 2nd avenue because we were planning on taking the bus and so we kept walking. It was balls hot out yesterday. Like, uncomfortable, felt like you were melting and couldn't breathe, walking through hot jello type weather. So we're walking along, and there's no bus coming. We must've walked 20 blocks before finally being able to get on the bus. It felt like a lot longer than that. Also, we tried to stop for fro-yo and there was no one at the counter, so after waiting for 5 minutes with no service, we left.

We got off the select bus at 28th street because the place was on 30th. This was a stupid stupid idea, because we walked to the East River, past the Bellevue Psychiatric Hospital, in a really shady neighborhood, just to find out that we had to walk all the way up to 34th street to cross over the FDR to the East River.

The Mexican and I were melting. I'm surprised we weren't just a puddle when we finally got there, but we did arrive.

It was magnificent. High ceilings, even though it was on a boat. One wall was all windows, and we got to look out over the river and watch everyone else. They had fresh home made biscuits and corn bread, two pieces each of which the Mexican and I ingested, rapidly. So fast that after we finished the first piece and the server asked if we would like another, by the time he found the bread man and told him that we wanted another piece, we had already gotten and consumed another from an alternate bread man. It was slightly embarrassing. We were probably the youngest people in there, I mean it was 6pm, but still. There was this young couple there too, but we still don't know why they were at this classy restaurant and what they could've possibly been celebrating. They were ordering off the normal menu where appetizers were at minimum $13, and the salad was a wedge of lettuce with some stuff on it (classy, I guess?).

The server convinced us to order wine, and I magically ordered the best Riesling I have EVER tasted. It was like rainbows and butterflies in delicious alcoholic beverage form.

We couldn't pronounce the name, so I took a picture of it to search for it.

The meal was also just as glorious.

Tuna Tartare (with Roe) in a golden gazpacho with an avocado mousse

Lamb three ways, the rigatoni is stuffed with creamy lamb

Le Piece de Resistance, the Pina Colada Panna Cotta with toasted coconut, mango sauce and assorted fruit.

I was so incredibly full after this meal that it hurt, but it was marvelous.

I went to another restaurant week place today for lunch with my mom and her childhood friend who is visiting from Austria, Le Perigord. The decor was a little old style for me, but the food was quite good. I had a warm fresh pea soup (they both had delicious pate), bay scallops with vegetable risotto (some of the scallops were a touch over cooked, but still delicious), and chocolate mousse with a vanilla creme and berry coulis (heavenly). It was my treat. I actually felt like an adult taking my mom and her friend out to lunch, also it didn't hurt that I took an almost 3 hour lunch. I felt justified because I got to work at 8:15am this morning, which reminds me....

Last night, I fell asleep at 10:30pm. Food coma, plus gym in the morning makes for deep deep sleep, but it was SO hot that I had to turn my AC on at 2am this morning. I really really really hate waking up sticky. It was unfortunate and made it hard to get out of bed at 6am. However, I'm really trying the early rising thing and it's working pretty well. Morning gym Tuesday/Thursday, Chiro Monday/Wednesday/Friday with afternoon gym. It doesn't mean much if I eat the way I do, but shut up.

I will probably put together a more meaningful post tomorrow, because there are some things I've been thinking about lately that I need to get off of my chest, even if I vented to Mo about them earlier.

Wet feet and baby steps

Do you know why Mondays are tolerable? Because I get to read all of the blog updates since Friday from the blogs I follow. Other than that, Monday pretty much lives up to its reputation. No need to explain what this reputation is, you all know. You've all had the Monday morning blues at SOME point in your life.

Sad to report folks that I had a pretty uneventful weekend yet again. I think I'm coming to grips with the fact that I'm over 50% homebody. Sure I enjoy going out with my friends, but once I am in the comfort of my own home, it's truly difficult to pull myself away.

Friday after work it was raining. This made me upset, because I was wearing flip flops. I hate wet flip flops. I don't like the squeaking they make when you walk. I don't like that you have to be extra cautious so you don't lose a shoe by just walking. I especially hate when your feet get wet AND dirty. I was not a happy camper, but I was able to catch the bus, so I didn't have to walk much outside.

Other things I hate about the rain (when I have things to do). Umbrellas. I hate them. I hate carrying umbrellas, I hate bobbing and weaving around everyone else's umbrella. I hate having to maneuver around other people. I hate other people's umbrella's dumping on me. The smell. Now don't get me wrong, I don't mind the smell of the warm pavement after it's just rained, but it's hard to smell warm wet sidewalk when you're overwhelmed by the stench of warm wet garbage, and people...but not in a good way. People smell bad when they're hot and damp. That's just the way it goes. I'm getting a little sick just thinking about it.

However, I did see a dog in the most glorious red raincoat. Normally, I don't care for people dressing up their dogs, but I get a real kick out of seeing animals dressed up in rain gear.

I managed to force myself to go to the gym, even though I was functioning on a cool 3 hours of sleep. Did a lot of cardio, a little big of other stuff before getting bored and deciding it was time to go the fuck to bed.

I went home and although I probably could've made plans, four people I was talking to had the same idea about staying in. It was just a lazy friday. I passed out at 10pm and didn't wake up until 8am the next morning.

Now let me tell you, I was not pleasantly woken up on Saturday. The roofers were there again. Pound pound pounding away at my wall/the roof outside of my room. They decided 8-9am would be the very best time to do the noisiest work. Let me tell you how FUMING I was when I dragged myself down the stairs to the kitchen just after 9am. I basically wanted to rip my father's apologetic head off. I just wondered why/how he could be so stupid/inconsiderate, to allow these men to start at 8am on SATURDAY. After angrily eating my cucumber and dip and yelling at him, he said he would talk to them about starting a bit later in the day.

I was just really upset not necessarily because they woke me up (which they did and had I gone out on Friday I would've been even more livid), but because it was too hot to close the windows, and too loud to watch my overpacked DVR. All I wanted to do was watch tv. Normally I could go into the living room and watch my mother's overpacked DVR, but since she's on summer vacation, she's actually been keeping up with all of the TV she records, just my luck.

The noise died down around 10am and I returned to my room. I started to pull my act together.

I agreed to go to a family function. My second cousin graduated from high school and they were having a party for her. (if you don't understand how first/second/third or removed cousins works, my dad will be more than happy to explain it to you....every time.) Normally I would avoid family functions like the plague, but this section of the family is the good part of my dad's family. Also, my dad kind of guilted me into fulfilling my familial obligations - damn Jewish blood.

I should've eaten something substantial before getting in the car.

I wanted to kill both of my parents within the first hour of the car ride. I was starving and the promise of food was still 3 hours away. I didn't know this at the time. My dad said that it would be an hour before we stopped. I can handle an hour. What I didn't know was that meant an hour until we drop Lisa (my mother's friend visiting from Austria) off at her brother's house "sort of" on the way to my cousin's house. I looked at the GPS and it told me the truth. I had almost 3 more hours to go and my blood sugar was dropping quickly.

Normally I don't have any issues with car sickness. In fact, I can comfortably read in the car for hours...unless my stomach is completely empty. I had to stop reading at one point and put my head between my knees. I was infuriated. Also, I wanted to charge my Kindle, but of course my parents' Prius only has one electrical jack, whereas my Camry has oh...4? MINIMUM. Again, perturbed. I threw the charger and then yanked it away yelling "FORGET IT" at some point, when my parents couldn't figure out how to have their GPS and my Kindle plugged in at the same time while I was sitting in the backseat.

Pretty much I threw a tiny temper tantrum and immediately regretted agreeing to any kind of family outing.

I didn't want to get out of the car when we got to Lisa's brother's, but I was forced. I wasn't the most friendly, but I wasn't a complete asshole either.

20 minutes later we were back on the road for another 2 hour tour.

I read and tried not to imagine how I could decapitate someone with my bare hands if I didn't get something to eat, NOW.

We arrived and there weren't many people there, but there were cocktail shrimp. I said hello to two people before making a beeline for the food. I probably ate 40 cocktail shrimp and some other random stuff, but mostly shrimp. There were so many gnats around that I remembered gnats/fruit flies were my least favorite living creature on the planet. They wanted my shrimp. I was frustrated. And then everything evened out.

I was really disappointed in the Sangria, it was so watered down. The guy they hired to serve or whatever looks like he was a few chromosomes short. Not in a fetal alcohol/downs syndrome way where there are telltale signs that the kid is a mess, but in a "the lights are on but nobody's home" kind of way. I chuckled about this every time I got a bottle of water from him.

My stomach was still uninterested in alcohol from Thursday, so I didn't take much advantage of the free booze. I also had no cell reception so I was forced to be social.

The good part of my dad's family was pleasant and I think overall it was actually quite enjoyable, and the food was great. I would really like some of the strawberry shortcake they had, right about now.

One day I'll tell you all about the bad part of my dad's family. The good part descends from his Aunt. The bad part (excluding him of course) descends from his late mother. Let me tell you the novels that can be written about those gems. You won't believe it until you hear it.

We got home at 11pm-ish and having been woken up at 8am, I took my ass to bed. Steel Pans was supposed to come over around 4:30am-ish, but I guess he got too drunk and for the first time in his life he decided not to drink and drive.

I did see him Sunday night though. At around 11 something I'd say he came over. It was like a sauna in my room because my laptop had been on all day and somehow that manages to heat up MY ENTIRE ROOM.

I was watched the Next Food Network Star and we were pretty much laying in my bed in the buff. I've realized that he's really the perfect BC. I enjoy his company for the brief period before we go at it. He makes me laugh. He's aggressive and when he's tired of actually talking to me he just takes off my clothes. We can comfortably sleep next to each other and think nothing of it in the morning. And, I can't see this going anywhere but where it is right now. I got a little sad this morning when I thought about having to give him up if I ever did get into a real relationship.

After the deed was done - and brilliantly might I add, he decided within 15 minutes it was too hot to sleep in my room and he had to be up early anyway to take his daughter to school in the morning. So he left at 1:30.

I woke up at 2:30 and realized I forgot to call this boy in North Carolina. He was still up, so I called. We talked until 4am. He'll be up in NYC on Wednesday and I think we'll get dinner. I felt like a teenager again, because I am definitely not a phone person anymore, but I actually wanted to talk on the phone all day yesterday. Maybe I've realized that you can't maintain/build friendships/relationship based solely on textual communication.

There are still two more hours in the work day. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do, but if I keep eating I'm going to explode. This working out shit doesn't make any difference considering my intake is still greater than my output these days.

Baby steps.

On a scale of 1 to "I hate my life", currently hovering at the latter.

I am, at this very moment, miserable.

The weather is grim and my body hates me for 20,000 different reasons. The fact that I had a free half hour back massage this morning means nothing to my body because it doesn't make up for how I've betrayed it in the past 15 hours.

It all started some time yesterday...

Nyeg and I planned to go to Honey. Typical Thursday. We didn't go last week, so obviously we were going to make up for it by going yesterday. Obviously.

I'd like you to know, and I'm sure you don't actually want to know this, but I am using 70% of my will power and strength not to vomit up the bagel I just forced myself to eat - so if this entry gets a bit disjointed, the minority 30% won.

Anyway, after avoiding my desk like the plague yesterday, I was able to escape at around 5:15pm. By "avoid my desk like the plague" I mean I literally refused to sit at my desk for 5 out of the 8 hours that are typically in a work day. I took two lunches. Although the first one with the Mexican was only for 45 minutes, the second one with an old friend I haven't seen since college was almost 2 hours. However, my timesheet will not reflect this, because I ran errands for my job after or during those "lunch breaks". I spent a lot of time being jerked around by IT when I was trying to get one of my Fellows' computers fixed, and then felt the same jerking when I tried to get Facilities to fix their AC. I also went to the locksmith three times, to the print shop where I was hit on by a young African American fella - which always happens in the sub-basement (and I have no complaints about that), to duplicating and I got a new ID (for free because they didn't have receipts and I was oozing happiness - people like happiness).

I should probably mention that I managed to drag my ass out of bed at 6:15am to go to the gym before work after contemplating whether or not I was capable of getting myself together my existence. I was pretty high on endorphins when I got to work, and I rode that wave the whole day. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and save for a few awkward nudity encounters, it was well worth it. I will be going to the gym in the mornings now.

After work I met up with this guy I've been chatting with a little bit recently. We walked to the E train together. Pretty good conversation, actually. Unfortunately, he left me in Duane Reade and didn't tell me he had to go. It was kind of rude. I left after trying to locate him for 5 minutes. I had time to kill. I wasn't meeting with Nyeg until 8pm, I was currently slotted to get to Honey by 7pm (and did). I got a cupcake at Crumbs. Probably the best I've had from there (try the Smiley Face sometime if you can). When I got into the train station it was PACKED. The train was even more packed for a little while, but eventually emptied out. We got stuck between 34th and 23rd for 20 minutes because of heavy congestion ahead of us. The train conductor apologized for the delay about 40 times.

I was thankful for the delay because the train was ACed and outside is not - it was hot as fish grease outside.

I got to Honey at 7pm and Door man asked where my fantastic four were and where we were last week, blah blah blah. I like him a lot. He's the one that found my wallet. So I sat outside alone drinking two Cosmos. Unfortunately, I had eaten some of the amazing cupcake when I was stuck on the train and that didn't sit too well with the liquor. So I took it slow. at 7:55pm after waiting almost an hour listening to these three girls next to me talk about  some of the craziest shit I've heard (vagina cancer and a lesbian debauchery), I get a text from Nyeg saying she's not coming. I immediately tell B, and I'm infuriated. I chug my last Cosmo and prepare to leave, but wait! B says she's at 34th Street and is on her way.

Let the drinking recommence.

It didn't stop, and I swear that shot at 1:30am was a bad fucking idea. Especially considering I had had 10 cosmos at that point I think?

We stayed outside the whole night. After the sun went down and I stopped sweating - it was a lot better. We witnessed a car accident and a fight that left a guy laying on the curb bloodied up. There was a drunken Canadian whose birthday it was and she put her number in my phone and invited us to her bday party on Saturday. I gave her the rest of my cupcake. She was schwasted. We complained about the waitress and made friends with two of the service managers and the general manager. We're loyal and they love us - therefore we should expect better service from this Thursday forward.

At around 1:35, right after our last shot - we left.

I almost missed my stop on the train, again. The doors were about to close when they said the next stop, and I JUMPED UP and flung my arms between the closing doors (I had nice scrapes), and managed not to miss my stop. Some guy decided to make a comment about me almost missing my stop - it was friendly though, and I was drunk.

I got home and OhD showed up. It was odd, it's like he has spidey senses for when I'm home and he wants to crash on my couch. So I let him in, he went to his couch and I went to bed.

I woke up at 6:15 this morning and wanted to kill myself something. I was so parched that I chugged some water. 5 minutes later, said water and about a cup's worth of bile exited my body the wrong way, all whilst talking to my dad through the bathroom door.

Dehydration caused my lip to split. I couldn't eat or drink anything for hours.

I went to the chiropractor where I feigned doing my "exercises" (basically these resistance bands that I pull on for a few minutes here and there). I got a massage which was great, and then the fucking neurologist injects me with this shit that I HATE and leaves this nasty blood pocket on my shoulder. I'm in major pain once again on top of my stomach really hating me. Also, I couldn't get their bathroom door open. I swear I almost threw up and shit myself at the same time on the bus on my way to work.

I'm a disaster and all I want is sleep. I actually took a little nap at my desk mid word, up there somewhere. I have a mild case of the spins when I close my eyes though, so I also sat with my head between my knees for a solid 2 minutes as well.

It's taking every bit of my "love" for my job not to lay under my desk in fetal position and cry.

See ya next Thursday, Honey.

I'll take panic attack with a side of heart palpitations please.

Hear ye! Hear ye! Readers of my blog, let me tell you about the debacle that was my morning.

After having a generally relaxing evening (save for an argument with my mother - which is pretty typical when we are in the kitchen together at any time, no matter what we're doing). In fact, you know what, let me paint you a picture of what our argument was like last night. I'm not saying that it was a fight really, but I was definitely irritated with my mom more than baseline. She is a technological retard. This should be enough explanation, but my dad humors her, which makes it worse. I feel bad for the customer service people at T-Mobile. I don't know why she has a smart phone. They're supposed to be used friendly - yet my mother blames her phone for EVERYTHING.

"Oh, I didn't answer your 8 calls and 5 texts because I couldn't hear my phone" - what this really means is "I don't know how to use pockets, or understand what a cell phone is for, so I left it in another room somewhere."

Or via text: "LKnenal Hoalsk" "What?" *ring ring* "My swipe is not working, it keeps typing random words"- what this really means is "I'm an idiot when in comes to technology with clumsy fingers that doesn't know how to work simple applications on my phone."

I swear this woman is all about the blame game. So anyway, I was frustrated with her because while she was wasting Customer Service's time, I was trying to explain to her what they were saying about either saving all of the contacts from her old phone onto her SIM card, or linking her phone to her e-mail so that she can link her new phone and all of the old data would be restored.

Let me tell you, it was like talking to a wall - or someone in a coma. It might be sinking in, but cannot be translated into actual function. Also, throw in the fact that we were in the kitchen. Although we were not discussing food at all or fighting over space, that room is the MOST CONTEMPTUOUS. Seriously, whenever we are in there together a fight will ensue - it makes no sense, but that's our relationship.

Fast forward to this morning. I got up early because I've decided to go to the chiropractor before work so as not to intrude on any afternoon plans. I was at the train station by 7:30am, gym bag and purse in tow. I got on the train. Went to close my purse and immediately freaked out. I didn't have my wallet. I looked around everywhere on the ground, in my purse, everywhere (I thought). I had a mild panic attack. I get off the train at the next stop and run over to the other side to try and get another train back to my stop before another Manhattan bound comes. Sadly, two Manhattan bounds pass while I'm waiting. I get back to my station, I go to look for the wallet that I believe I've dropped on the platform. Not there.

I cancel my chiro appt. I call 311 and they tell me lost and found doesn't open until 8am. I go to talk to the station attendant and see there is no wallet on the desk in front of her. There is a line. I decide to check through my gym bag.

There it is.

I had it the whole time, it was just hidden under my bag of lunch and my clothes.

I try to go back through the turnstyle but my unlimited is not ready to use again yet. I am forced to buy another metrocard to save time. I still managed to get to my chiro appt., only to get to work about 20 minutes late.

Of course I forgot that my new fellows had an orientation at 9am and none of them are there, and the rooms aren't ready. I had to reschedule their meeting.

It's now 10:30am. My heart has stopped racing and my fellows are slightly overwhelmed with meetings.

Oh, and I ruined my white shirt and now have to buy a new shirt after work.

Blood and sparkles

This is what I have on my face. I just ripped a bit of skin from the corner of my thumb nail and for whatever reason I touched my face leaving a nice little blood spot, mixed with the runaway sparkle from my eyeliner. I'm looking classy today, let me tell you.

So I've decided that I might touch on some random topics that have piqued my interest over the past week or so. I mean, I could tell you about the boat ride I went to on Saturday - and maybe I will, but honestly I had the most relaxing/boring weekend of my life and it was entirely what I needed/wanted. Therefore, prepare for some rantings and ravings with some appreciation slipped in.

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This post just got hijacked by my need to FLIP THE FUCK OUT. Seriously, the Graduate Medical Education (GME) office here at my job is really fucking absurd. If they make me pull one of my new fellows off service for the next week, they'd better be ready to cover him their damn selves. We all left early on Friday, but you don't fucking leave when there are still things to be taken care of. If I send you an urgent email at 10:35am concerning actual URGENT topics, then you better damn well respond to my email before you leave for the holiday weekend.

I swear to God, I will not take this bullshit laying down; nor will I put my people on administrative time out because you couldn't get your shit together. Just wait until you come back from lunch Janey, you WILL hear my mouth - and so will the rest of the goddamn office if you don't get this shit taken care of. All for a medication reconciliation course?

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME.

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And now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

I went to Bloomingdales for the first time on Friday. It was an...interesting experience. By interesting I mean "potentially expensive". I didn't buy anything however, but while I was there I noticed something that really creeps me out. Mannequins in sunglasses. That's right, I hate them. One thing that helps to confirm that mannequins are not alive are their lack of eyes. With sunglasses, you're covering up the confirmation, and that shit is scary. Maybe I've been watching to alien or robot TV shows/movies, but seriously - everywhere I turned was another of these things in sunglasses. I might or might not have removed a few of them and placed them on the shelves next to the mannequin with a sigh of relief.

I'm a binge drinker. I prefer to drink a lot, and rapidly, as opposed to sipping. This has resulted in a few too many blackout experiences to be healthy. Also, when I first smell vodka, my stomach churns and my skin crawls. This doesn't stop me from drinking, I'm just saying. This is important though, because hand sanitizer, being mostly ethanol, also has the same effect on my body. I work at a hospital (sort of) and there are hand sanitizer dispensers everywhere. I can't help if I'm so inclined to sanitize every time I pass one, but without fail, upon first squirt - gag. (yes, I know how that sounds) Seriously though, I don't know if I should give up sanitizer, or vodka. Something tells me that sanitizer will soon be out. My stomach can't handle it.

Speaking of drinking. If you're a public vomitter - I have one thing to ask you, please don't vomit on the goddamn stairs. There are SO MANY other places where you can safely deposit the contents of your stomach. If you throw up on the steps, one of two (or both) things will happen. Someone will slip and they will curse your name in every language they know with every curse word they can think of. Karma will get you, I guarantee it. Or two, people will be highly irritated from having to maneuver around your mess, so please be kind and vomit into a garbage bin. In fact, the stench might even help you get that valsalva maneuver started.

These people scare me a little...

Here's another group of people who should avoid public walking areas...people who don't know how to push strollers. If you A., push your child into the crosswalk whilst the light is not in your favor and you are safely standing on the curb, you are a bad parent. If you are a caretaker, grandparent, parent, whoever the fuck you are who is pushing the stroller down the street, this is NOT bumper cars. Do not hit me, other strollers or other individuals with your stroller. Also, please please please do not walk slowly in front of me with your other stroller pushing buddies because it's really hard to get around you AND your little child "vehicle".

Lastly, another source of frustration for me lately has been the fact that my friends cannot decide where and when to go on vacation. I was banking on going to Canada at the end of July, but that's a no-go, so now what? I mean I could still go. Yes, there will be some people there, but dammit a few key people who I tend to require for these types of vacation will not be there.

I would really like to convince Mo to come, but she seems set against it. B can't leave the country and Paris might still be injured. Honestly, if I don't plan a vacation in the next month I'm going to freak out. I know this might make me seem like a spoiled brat considering I just got back from Bermuda a month ago - but I'm getting stir crazy folks. I need to get away from the monotony of my life! An impromptu Chicago trip might be just what I need.

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So here's the recap of my Saturday night.I don't know if I mentioned B and I had a bit of a misunderstanding on Thursday and so I didn't know if we were ok for Saturday, but whatever I messaged her anyway because I needed the details. I also woke up at 8am on Saturday because my dad agreed to let the roofers do construction every day starting at 8am, right outside of my window. Thanks, dad. My mom thinks he's an idiot, I just wanted to cry and sleep. I actually had to text my mom and ask her to come into my room so she could walk pants over to me so I could get out of bed to pee.

I ended up going to her house around 9pm I think? I had to drop money off with Ni for this trip in August...oh wait, I guess I am going on vacation...whatever though. Anyway, so I was driving all over the Bronx because that's pretty much what I do. I got to B's and we started to get ready. I was wearing a tiny white dress that my mom  made me feel bad about wearing. Whatever ma, my cooch was covered (if I didn't bend over) and I was wearing fishnets to contain my cellulite. I'm 24 years old, get over it - I'm allowed to dress like a ho if I want to!

Anyway, so we got ready and started taking shots. Brought our obligatory water bottle of vodka with us. I wish it had been stronger - but I underestimated how much Absolut 100 was left in the trunk of my car. I thought I had two bottles, I didn't. I was sad.

B's cousin came to pick us up and drove us down to the pier where we would get on the boat. Thank god, because if I took too long of a stride my dress was going to ride up, so the less walking, the better. I was also coming in at just over 6 feet tall because I was wearing 4 inch heels? Yikes.

Basically the boat ride was a ton of fun. The vodka didn't last the whole night and I ended up buying two long islands at $14 a pop (RIDICULOUS). Everyone (mostly) looked wonderful. Trust me - there were more ho-ey ladies than just me. At least I looked KIND OF classy. I did harass the DJ, which is what I tend to do when I drink. Hey - people ask me to request songs and I do it. I also straddled a man who was spanking me non-chalantly at one point. I don't remember what made me get up, I probably realized wtf I was doing. I'm happy for him though, because I believe he found a lady to take him home at the end of the night.

We got back to B's and I was sober - and so I drove home to see Steel Pans! Well, actually I just kind of left the door open for him and fell asleep naked. It works best this way. I think our arrangement is fine. He left at some point on Sunday. I actually fell asleep before him which is a first. We were pretend cutesy in the morning. My mom also decided that she wanted to get mad about me having company. She does that sometimes - because I guess she didn't think I was home so she walked up to the shower on the third floor naked and what if Steel Pans had walked out? Whatever ma, I never remember to put the post-it on the mirror - this is what happens when your boomerang child is home. Must get used to it, must.

P.S. My legs have been sore for days thanks to my heels. I have weak thighs :(