New Decade, Same Frog

Greetings and Salutations Campers, and welcome to the New Year!

In true Froggy fashion, I kicked off 2010 by getting naked with a guy I'd just met. It seemed the only logical thing to do, really, being that I'm fairly certain we were the only two straight guests at the party. I do, however, wish that I could remember his name... I think I do, but I'm not certain. Not that it matters if I don't, because he lives on the opposite side of the country and my chances of ever seeing him again are slim to none.

The drama-free nature of the year's first indiscretion fully makes up for the debacle of New Year's Eve several years ago, when all of my friends knew that the guy I was flirting with was crazy, and for some reason opted not to warn me, thus leading to THE most painfully uncomfortable morning-after EVER. They did, however, tease me ruthlessly for some time afterward. Nice of them, really.

My only regret is that I smoked a few cigarettes, which I haven't done in months, and I can feel it this morning. Lungs = not happy.

So, while I don't necessarily believe that what happens on New Year's Eve sets the tone for the whole year, at least I've started off on good footing. What can I say? I do learn from my mistakes... I just choose to repeat the fun ones :)

Happy New Year y'all! What sort of trouble did you get into?

Out With the Old...

You know, contrary to what you might think, a night of excessive alcohol consumption can actually do wonders to clear one's head.

Yes, I did say clear.

Perhaps not at the particular moment in time when one decides it is an excellent idea to smoke yet another cigarette, or patronize a bar which uses actual padlocks to secure the bathrooms from non-paying visitors; but a bit further down the line, when the worst of the hangover has abated and one is left only with a gnawing hunger and the vague sensation that, while the previous evening's activities may not have been exactly wise, they were perhaps not quite as foolish as one was wont to believe when the alarm went off at 8am.

Confused? Let's break it down.

On Thursday night, I? Was Pissed. Off. Mainly at DM for being such a douchebag and disappearing on me in such a cowardly and disrespectful manner. I slogged through the most pathetic lunch shift in the history of lunch shifts (My share of the day's take? $33. How am I going to pay my rent? No fucking clue.), jumping every time my phone vibrated in my pocket, and scurrying off to the bathroom shortly thereafter because this time, surely, it would be a text explaining that his house had burnt down/he'd been arrested on suspicion of terrorism/a dinosaur had eaten his phone, and that's why he had so rudely failed to respond to any of my numerous attempts to make contact over the preceding week.

Of course, it never was, and thus my anger grew... and festered... and otherwise caused the bonfire of unpleasantness smoldering in my brain to grow rapidly to a monstrous inferno.

So I took matters in my own hands--or liver, as it were--and determined that the only means by which said flame could be extinguished was by drowning it... in beer.

Enter a Knight in Shining Armor: a friend who perpetually greets me with "Hey Gorgeous," and insists on paying for my drinks when we go out. He promptly agrees to get me roaring drunk, in an establishment showing the Steelers season opener, no less!, and we were off.

Innumerable beers, a subway ride, and a non-English-speaking bar later, we hauled ourselves up the 5 flights of stairs to my apartment (which miraculously actually seem shorter when one is hammered), and promptly passed out after a few minutes of more-or-less platonic cuddling, and not nearly enough water.

I say more or less because we have slept together in the past, but on this particular occasion did not. It is a testament to our friendship that we can behave in this manner from time to time without any ensuing weirdness. He is, without a doubt, good people.

Through the fog of my hangover the next day, as I brushed away the debris of the Great Fire (not to mention the Great Flood) from my mind, I realized... it was okay. I was over it.

Not one-hundred-percent, of course. Some illusions take longer to dispel than others. But the raging inferno of anger had subsided, leaving only a few embers of wounded pride and "what the fuck?" smoldering away in sheltered corners; and those too will extinguish themselves in due course, if left unfanned.

In short, there is nothing like an evening of debauched camaraderie to put things in perspective, to help you let go of the things you don't have, and to take pleasure in the things that you do.

So long DM. It was, and always will be... your freakin' loss.

Ass.

Gotcha!

I am convinced that Insomnia is the Universe's way of paying me back for some indiscretion that I have yet to commit--and I can only hope that, when I do, it is fucking worth it.

So, rather than letting the Universe sit smugly by while I get increasingly more irritated at my own inability to achieve a REM state, I will instead relate an entertaining conversation that took place earlier today.

I was at the new job, sitting around with a few other waitresses shooting the shit whilst waiting our turn to practice some special method of scooping ice cream. As often happens when a large number of people are all embarking on a new path of employment, we began swapping tales of previous jobs and the shit we'd had to endure while employed thereby.

The subject, predictably enough, turned to lecherous bosses.

"So I was temping at this hedge fund, right around the corner actually..." I began.

"Oh, which one?" Asked one of the other girls. We've all worked pretty much every job known to man.

"Brentwood Advisors, over on 66th." **

"Oh, okay, go on," she said, and I proceeded to share the story of a going away party that took place when I'd only been working there for a few weeks, where I happened to get far drunker than advisable with some of the younger guys from the firm, and how one of them, when he walked me down to get a taxi when I realized I was tanked, proceeded to stick his tongue down my throat. Twice. Meanwhile he had a girlfriend, who called him, like, 5 times a day, which I knew, because it was my job to answer his damned phones.

"What was his name?" The girl asked.

"Errr... Jason.... something. I don't remember his last name." I finished up my tale, describing the incredibly irate drunken email that I sent (to his work email address) when I got home, and the retracting email I sent the following morning saying that, in light of keeping things professional, perhaps it was best that we just forget the whole thing.

As the tale of awkwardness wound down, the girl who'd been asking all the questions smiled and said,

"I am now going to blow your mind with what a small world this is... His name is Jason Smith, and his girlfriend's name is Stacy. I know, because I worked there too."

Well let me tell you, my head damned near exploded as I struggled to control the surge of laughter that overtook me (not to mention the relief because for a moment I thought she was going to turn out to be either the girlfriend, or a close friend thereof).

As I got myself back under control, she proceeded to tell me that, when she'd first started temping there (a few years after me), she'd been shocked to see him because several years before that she'd answered his Causal Encounters ad on Craigslist (once again while he was with the same girlfriend, to whom he is now, incidentally, married)!

I must own that I was relieved to learn that the guy was simply a sleaze, and that I had done nothing to encourage him to molest my tonsils while I was hammered.

There is, however, a moral to be learned, which is this: Be careful what stories you tell in New York City, because no matter how big you think it is, everybody knows everybody.

It's like high school.

With cocaine.

Scary.

________________
** Names and locations have been changed to protect the guilty. And what passes for my reputation.

Bloggers + Alcohol =

The night began simply enough, with a stupidly-crowded (or stupidity crowded, depending on your viewpoint) New York City bar, a hastily consumed beer, the requisite attempt to rally 10+ people to migrate to a new location, and the ever-fabulous (and, it must be said, positively smokin' hot) Deutlich.

Somewhere in the middle there was a shot of Yaegermeister, my complete inability to stop staring at Deutlich's fantastic cleavage, and sneaking into the Men's room when the line for the ladies was WAY too long.

And rounding it all out was public urination, rent-a-cops, walking home barefoot through a park, and Rice-a-Roni at 3:00am.

So here I am, remarkably only mildly hungover and seriously considering going to McDonalds with the $20 I have to my name until I get my wallet back from these two, in whose car I managed to leave it after getting us lost in a park.

I must say, this Frog was in need of some serious debauchery, and last night certainly fit the bill.

Can't wait to do it again!

My Liver is Already Whimpering...

Why, you may ask?

Because tonight I FINALLY get to meet the fabulous Deutlich, along with several other DC bloggers that I must abashedly admit I do not read (and about whom I suddenly feel an insane urge to cram so as not to appear anti-bloggy-social), who have road-tripped up to my lovely city for the sole purpose of getting absolutely shitfaced.

Or so I have been lead to believe.

If I'm still alive tomorrow, I'll tell you all about it.

Snippet

Slater, B, and I are discussing Slater's end-of-semester-party

Slater (to B): Yeah and even after all the bong hits I think we still went to bed before you got home.

B: Yeah, it did take me a long time to get home.

Slater: You totally could have just stayed over.

Me: Yeah, there was an extra couch.

Slater: Or my bed.

pause...

Slater: Oh my god [Blondie], we need to go home NOW!

Alas, poor Yorik...

The Common Fool, or Ridikulus maximus as she is known in scientific circles, is most readily identified by a proclivity for rushing in.

So widely noted is this behaviour that years after Alexander Pope alerted us to its presence in "An Essay on Criticism," it was further immortalized by a tolerably cute but pervasively banal romantic comedy starring Matthew Perry and Salma Hayek.

With all this rushing in and out (because obviously one can't rush in without first being out, and once one is in, one would have to rush out in order to rush in again, thereby qualify the behavior as habitual and worthy of being attached to works of cinematic excellence as delineated above) one can easily conclude that fools, in general, are a rather dizzy lot.

The resultant disorientation goes a long way toward explaining the other, lesser-known behaviors of the Fool.

Such as staying out drinking past 3am--at a party she swore she'd leave by 1am--the night before an 8 hour class that begins at 10am.

Indeed.

I am well aware, of course, that I am 27 28 years old, and really ought to know better... but the fact remains that I was perhaps still a bit drunk when I arrived--remarkably punctually--for class this morning, clutching the 2 bottles of Vitamin water that it nearly took an act of god to procure because apparently nothing is open at 9am on a Sunday, even in New York Freakin' City.

In my defense, the festivities in question were a joint birthday party for myself, A, and our friend K--and therefore I had every excuse to behave in a manner far worse than that in which I actually did. And as I made it through the whole of today's class only slightly the worse for wear (and doing my best impression of Kathleen Turner thanks to the exorbitant number of cigarettes I inhaled amidst the preceding debauchery), really I think I can be excused for this particular transgression.

But the photos of me being spanked by an equally intoxicated and even more snappily dressed A?

Those I blame entirely on the Newcastle.

In Brief

Just a quick update, as I just got home from Slater's place a few minutes ago, and I need to eat, clean myself up, and head out to Party #2.

So, The Girlfriend was actually quite nice. We got on just fine, and at one point I think B got uncomfortable at just how well we were getting on--we had just discovered a random mutual friend in one of those "wow! small world!" moments and were squealing over it as us girls are prone to do--and he got up and left the room.

For the most part, however, things were fine. There were a few moments where she got cutesy with him and I kinda wanted to kick her (though to be fair, it looked kinda like he did too), but in our little post-mortem Slater's take on that was "yeah, but she could tell that he's attracted to you..."

Thanks, not quite what I needed to hear, you know, in the spirit of being "over it." Which clearly I am. Totally.

So that's it really. I had a blast, and took the first bong hit (okay, okay, three bong hits) in a verrrrry long time. Fortunately that was when it was just down to me and Slater in our pajamas somewhere around 3am. God only knows what I babbled on about after that. Slept on his couch until noonish, had coffee, watched a few episodes of Ab Fab, and discussed the predilection for being a "top" or a "bottom" in the gay male sex universe.

All in all, an excellent (and informative) afternoon. At the very least, some interesting new terminology has been added to my vocabulary.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend! Perhaps me and my hangover will drop in tomorrow to update y'all further.

Bad Habits

My brain is just not working today. Probably has something to do with the fairly large quantity of Yeungling I consumed last night.

I met up with a friend of mine--let's call her A--for drinks. She was meeting up with another friend of hers--we'll call him Friend of A--and invited me along. There was a time when I would get excited when A invited me out to meet one of her guy friends, until she tried to hook me up with her ex boyfriend. That was weird. So I thought nothing of it, but lo and behold Friend of A actually turned out to be cute. And not an idiot. Impressive for a single man in NYC (or at least among those I usually encounter).

We hopped around a few bars, including the one staffed by The Bartender, who I dated briefly and who, once we'd slept together, proceeded to systematically bail every time we had plans. A dick move, to be certain, but the up-side is, whenever I'm in his bar and wearing a short skirt, he gives me free beer. Really, I think it's a fair trade.

So between free beer and the fact that Friend of A kept telling me how pretty I was (I'll take "pretty" over "hot" any day), I fell into my usual zone of poor decision making and agreed to go home with him under the stipulation that I would not sleep with him.

I'll let you guess how long my resolve lasted. Really, I'm so predictable.

So, the breakdown. Pros: Thankfully, this was not a repeat of the Irishman incident. Maybe not the best ever, but at least not a new contender for the title of Worst Ever. And this one doesn't seem desperate and is actually fun to talk to. I gave him my number, but lord knows if I'll ever actually have time to go out with him should he call.

Cons: he's young. Then there's the fact that I slept with him the first night we met, and history has shown that this does not bode well for the future. And I did have to murder super-roach in his bathroom around 1am (fucker was tiny and WOULD NOT DIE).

Also, as much as I bitch about being single I've come to realize that I am a total commitment-phobe. Whenever it looks like a guy might actually like me, my brain immediately catalogs a dozen previously unnoticed flaws and convinces me to head for the hills.

And I think that in my drunken state I may have warned him that I'm a total cynic and have tons of issues, so we'll see who runs away screaming first. Anyone care to make a wager?

In the meantime I think I'll test the theory that a shower and a nap can snap me out of my hungover torpor and into a more productive state of mind. Homework calls.

This morning an Irishman woke up alone

I think I might have to fire my friends.

Really, by now they ought to know better than to leave me alone with any marginally attractive man with an accent. Particularly in an establishment that serves alcohol. Which is how I found myself staring at the ceiling somewhere around 4:30am thinking "you're in your mid-30s, you really should be better at this...."

And so, dear readers, when I awoke around 8am, cold, needing the bathroom, and still somewhat drunk, I was faced with two options: get dressed, go to the bathroom, come back and go back to sleep, or get dressed, go to the bathroom, and leave before the Irishman woke up.

I bet you can guess which I chose.

My (dubious) luck ran out, however, when I discovered the bathroom to be occupied. As I had no intention of sticking around to introduce myself to whoever was in there, I crossed my fingers that my hair didn't completely betray the previous evening's activities--decided that, in actual fact, I really didn't care--and quietly made my escape.

I've decided to chuck the phrase "Walk of Shame," as only once that I can recall have I actually experienced anything like shame during one of these desperate bids for freedom. Today, for instance, it was more like annoyance that I had to walk half a mile and catch a subway before I was allowed to go back to sleep.

Slipping and falling in a puddle in the subway station was really the coup de grace for the morning.