Sunday, November 16, 2008

The Sunday Blues

After such a great Saturday at the pawn shop grand opening, God let me down in my pursuit for free food. Weekends are tough--there is no candy stash that someone else bought in my apartment, not as many dates as there should be, and no corporate lunch meetings in my kitchen. So I've got to be creative.

I didn't eat for free, but I'm going to be all technical and tell you that I actually DID drink for free today. By technical, it means that it happened after midnight, probably around 1am this morning, so I was thinking of it as more "Saturday night," but hey, I've got a blog to write!

See, last night I went to my dear friend Lori's birthday at a loud bar in Manhattan. I never leave Queens on weekends so this was a big adventure. I dressed up all librarian-like--glasses, cardigan, hair pulled back . . . and a short dress, hehe. You work with you've got people. I took an empty 20 oz Coke Zero bottle and poured cheap red wine into it so I could pre-game on the long subway ride downtown. Oh boy. Just like a freshman in college again. Or an alcoholic. So I get to the bar around 11pm and it feels like a frat party, except with fatter, shorter dudes. But I'm in Manhattan and ready to party! My sister Katie bought me a drink. Sweet! Then I ordered a beer on someone else's tab (they said I could, I'm not that cheap or devious). Then around 12:30 or 1am, the birhtday girl Lori bought me a drink, for which I was grateful but also felt all sorts of wrong, since I should have bought HER a drink! Well, next time.

One of the sort of trippy things about New York is you see famous people sometimes. Kind of like "Stars, they're just like us!" except there is no parazzi following them. Since I moved to New York two and a half years ago, I've seen Vincent D'Onofrio, Chris Robinson of the Black Crowes, Luke Perry, Simon Doonan (I went up to him and told him I loved his book. He was grateful and short!), and Carson Kressley.

So last night at the bar I saw some random good-looking dude. He looked super familiar and then I realized it was Michael Oliver, one of the New York City police officers who shot Sean Bell almost exactly 2 years ago. My friend was shocked I recognized such a random person, but I read the New York Post every day and Peyser was all over that case. Anyway, it was just . . . weird.

I'm not going to be all Cindy Adams on you and say, "Only in New York, kids, only in New York" but . . . .

well, I just need some free food.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you really think that ALL the guys their were short and fat??? I am going to assume you were using some poetic license? :-)

Liz said...

Haha of course! Just that the bar was not a place I'd normally go to, a little frat party-ish, but fun anyway!