I Should Have Just Stayed My Ass Home!

After being cooped up in my hot n humid apartment all day Saturday, I was absolutely ready to party with Lani; wore a dress and everything! She invited me out to a bar in Red Hook where one of her co-workers was celebrating his birthday.

Now readers, by now you must know that any post that begins with, "I went out with Lani..." is gonna end crazy. This one is no different.

From the moment we walked into the bar I said to myself, "She done dragged me to another white-boy dive bar...No good men here!" And I was right. And wrong.

Right because not ten minutes after we get there some old, short Irish dude named Joe offered to buy us a drink. Normally I don't look a gift horse in the mouth but he had this gross, pedophile vibe about him and frankly, I'm just NOT turned on by old white men, so I don't even like to let them think they have half a chance. But I'm broke this week so I thanked him kindly for my drink, made some small talk with his loser buddy and then was saved by one of Lani's co-workers.

And here's where my assessment of the bar situation was wrong.

I actually had a few nice, normal conversations with this dude; we'll call him M. He's not anybody I would have ever picked for myself, because we all know I like my men ethnic with nice tattooed arms...you know, that jail physique. But he was funny and smart, and in Red Hook dive bars, funny and smart trumps nice tattooed arms. It was actually quite refreshing, and I suppose I allowed it to continue because I was curious- white dudes never approach me, something about me intimidating or something, but maybe he felt a bit courageous because I was a friend of Lani's. Oh yeah, and the twins were in full effect...I forgot to mention that part. I gave him my number at the end of the night. We'll see what comes of it.

Now...the rest of the evening...geez, how to even explain...

First, some corny-assd black dude approached me, thinking that I would be able to relate to his little, "white people are crazy" schpiel, but I let him know that I did not. He insulted the music, right when they were playing a song that I liked, and I just wanted to slap the shyt outta him. THEN he thought he could impress me by telling me he spoke fluent Mandarin. AND? How does that help me? Do I look Chinese? Do I? I finally had to ditch him after one dance and gave him the gas face when he asked for my number. He made a last ditch effort to impress me: he's the executive director of some charity and gave me the URL (which I didn't write down). And? How does that help me? Keep it moving, loser!

THEN, one of the buddies that were with Joe the Pedophile (who had since left) came back to the bar, saw that Lani and I were still there, and swooped in on her because she was three sheets to the wind; he invited us back to his place "right around the corner" on DeGraw Street to see the view from his rooftop deck. And of course she thought it was a FANTABULOUS idea. And I'm a good friend, I'll allow everyone ONE Get Out Of Jail Free card...only ONE chance to fuck up and have me pick up the pieces. So this was hers.

I went with her, sending the address via text message to Jack so that he could avenge my death in case I ended up in the canal with my throat slit. And when we got to the roof deck, there was a nice view, indeed, of all the COCAINE on the table.

Now this Jaded NYer has seen it all, and done a lot of crazy shyt, but I do have limits and cocaine is one of them. I've never wanted to leave a place so badly since I applied to Alfred U. in order to escape Brooklyn all those years ago. And with Jack in Indiana, I racked my brain for someone to come bail me out. I thought about calling my cousin, but I didn't want to scare her. Irene said I should have called her, but she has Miss Olivia and the last thing I wanted to do was drag her to a crack house in Red Hook.

So I contacted an old friend who I knew was up and about. He called me right as people started to actually SNORT COCAINE IN FRONT OF ME, almost as if on cue. I seriously felt like a little girl in over my head, and all I could think to say on the phone was "Come get me. I don't want to be here; they're doing coke."

The cavalry arrived no less than 20 minutes later, with friends, to rescue me and Lani, and I've never been so happy to be associated with such "homies" who dropped what they were doing to come and help me. You can't have too many people like that in your life.

Lesson: It's good to befriend a few scary-looking black guys every now and again, the kind who can back up any talk that might be thrown about.

After a life-flashing-before-my-eyes car ride, we arrived at my friend's place, where we slept it off and I was finally able to relax.

With some weed.

And yes, I do see the irony in that, in case you were wondering...

*smooches...really, seriously, honestly getting too old for this shit*
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It's a new dawn

It's a new day

It's a new life

For me

And I'm feeling good