Forever Young

Reading through my recent blogs I have noticed a pattern. It seems that I have gotten a bit caught up in a melancholy tone. I suppose my humorous outlook needs a rest once and a while, I often let all the melancholy out here. I must remember that depression is not art or visaversa! This blog is about my life, and I refuse to believe that it has been as dark as I have made it sound. There has been a bit of a tempest in my mind lately, but I am a true believer in the idea that it is you and not your circumstances that shape your outlook.

There have not been any EWI events since the wild, wild Holiday Mixer a few weeks ago. There was a beer and cheese event that was snowed-out and a Scotch tasting that I missed due to "work exhaustion", but there is a fabulous Filipino Fusion restaurant tasting scheduled for Tuesday. I need to cook an Afghani dish tomorrow so I can stay on-track with my eat/cook around the world project! Mmmm! Just thinking about my beloved group makes me smile. Well, about the to Holiday Mixer, it seems that in all the excitement I neglected to mention it.

Our darling Bro-friends Mike and Pooneet suggested that we have a party to help foster relationships between the original and new members. They also offered to host. I made a beautiful stuffed fig dish.

Wandering around the Chelsea Market gathering the perfect ingredients: a pungent blue cheese from Lucy's Whey, fresh figs from the fruit market and paper-thin sliced bacon from the meat market. At the market I met a fellow foodie working behind the register. I invited her to join the group and left the market filled with a sense of beautiful certainly in the direction of my life. I love food and people, and the people who love food are a special breed of people; my people.

I headed over to the party and started cooking. I halved the figs, pressed the cheese into the halves and wrapped them in little bacon bundles. The boys popped them in the broiler for me. They had made a chick-pea bruchetta and lamb meatballs. Deepa brought fresh-baked ginger cookies and everyone brought wine!

The party was set to start at 4pm. I had agreed to go to my friend Mark's party later that night, so D. opted-out of the EWI fete and told me we would meet-up at Mark's.

People trickled in at their own pace, but it really didn't matter, I have a great time with them whether there are five of us or fifty. Ironically, there was not all that many new members there to meet original members! As I said before, not that fact (or any other) would stop us from having a grand time. Judging from our long history of partying into the night, I should have known that this would not be a quick party, regardless of what time it started!

We drank, and talked and laughed and then conversation turned to Bourbon. Yes, Bourbon. Pooneet happens to be quite the connoisseur, and I happen to be of the opinion that if you don't like something that just means you haven't tried enough of it. That lead us to a Bourbon tasting. I was feeling no pain before the tasting, after the tasting everything got a bit surreal!

Somehow Rock Band was turned-on and the most incredibly bad singing and playing commenced. After exhausting the original Rock Band line-up, the Beatles's Rock Band was queued-up and the resulting butchery of such classics as "Lucy in the Sky" are thankfully nothing but a blur to me.

It was around this time that we noticed the time. It was nearly 11:00pm. Yes, we had been drinking for close to 7 hours. Naturally, it was time to move the party to Mark's! I texted D. and we were off to find a cab. Our original party had dwindled to a group of four.

We arrived to Solas in the East village and stumbled out of the cab and over to the club. The bouncer hassled the guys (I still don't know why), but submitted to letting us in. Once inside I began looking for Markie. The crowd did not seem very Gay, and considering his sexual preferences, I was confused. We struggled through the crowd and I tried to call him. We decided to leave, but on the way out I ran right into Mr. Mark himself. He was as drunk as I was and we hung onto each other outside the club, slurring compliments to each other. He asked us to stay, but at this point the bouncer was evil-eyeing us again and so we begged-out.

DeShon finally texted me back to let me know he was going out with one of his boys instead, I texted him that the club sucked and would be home soon.

Rather than rolling on home, the crew suggested that we check-out a bar on the corner. Why not? We sauntered into Hi Fi and promptly ordered drinks. Let's see, after an evening of red wine, white wine and Bourbon a Dirty Martini only makes sense, right? Ah, the drunken mind! I enjoyed Erin's comment about the evening; poetically she told us that our evening was merely an "adventure for our livers"!

Adventure it was. After we secured our cocktails we moseyed on over to the pool tables. Now, I am a firm believer in the fact that alcohol impairs your abilities, with one striking exception: Pool. I suck at pool, I mean really, really suck! When I drink though, I get good. We played in teams and I was actually on the winning team the first round! Even in the subsequent losing rounds, I held my own. In fact, I kicked some ass! It shocked me every time the ball miraculously found its way into the pocket. As you can imagine, I was very vocal in my satisfaction with myself. Ah, booze!

Amidst the revelry, I neglected to check either my phone (in the coat room) or the time. As the evening came to an end and I was shuffled by my dear members into a cab, I glanced at the clock to see a luminescent 4:00am flashing back at me. I came into the apartment gleefully intoxicated and jolly from my evening of excitement. DeShon was not amused. He bitched at me and then sent me to bed. Thankfully I was smart enough (read: drunk enough) to just do what he told me and go to sleep.

It took D. a few days to get over it, but he came around. See, I don't generally stay out all night. Hell, I rarely stay up past 1:00am! It felt good though. Not something I would make a habit of doing, but hell, it made me feel young. It reminded me of a time in my life when life was too exciting for sleep, when I was afraid of missing out on one second of it. I let myself get carried away in the moment; in the sheer pleasure of friends and drinks and laughter. I am a young woman, but I have to remind myself of that fact. I grew up too fast and now that the brakes seem to have failed, I am desperately trying to slow down time. I want to act my age, even if just for one crazy night of marathon drinking and blurred East Village bars.