After staying strict and clean for the weeks leading up to the combative festivities, I headed out on Saturday night with some friends, stayed out very late in myriad LES bars and lounges.

wasted.

I had a great time.

I lost track of drinks and somehow didn’t pay for anything, they just kept appearing as we made our way around that infamous party neighborhood. I was with some friends from high school, and some of their friends, all of whom seem to live right there in the middle of that scene,  seeming to know everyone. People standing in lines, on curbs, getting into cabs, coming out of cabs, the “hey’s” were automatic and reflexive. Because of that, we skipped lines, we shook hands with purveyors, we had tables and offers of this or that everywhere we went. We ended up in the VIP lounge of a fairly new clubby place on the top floor of a 5 story building with a glass ceiling in the Lower East Side. It was hilarious. The girls in there were exactly as you’d imagine, and the guys who go there for them exactly the same– perfect matches in their absurdities and shoes. And despite that, and perhaps even because of that, I had a blast there.  I returned home around 5a wearing a pink bandana I took off of some dumb clubber girl who was there making sure the world of shallow men knew about her “perfect tits” and stairclimber ass for that bit of affirmation that she held some value in the world. After I stole her bandana, she and her friends stayed around and mingled with the group I was with, sitting with us and flirting and smoking electronic cigarettes. I was pretty ruthless at times, giving them a hard time about everything as I got increasingly brazen from being increasingly wasted. After smoking and joking for a while, one of clubber girl’s Asian Clubber Friends (ACFs– you know the type if you go out ever, blue eyeshadow anyone?) wrote Chinese characters on my arm and thought it would be funny to write some fucked up shit. When I read them back to her in Mandarin, the look of shock on her face was feux exaggerated. Her drunken pink face momentarily lost its slutty color. I took the marker and wrote “ACF” on her arm and didn’t tell her what it meant.

I ended up with some numbers written on my left arm and I don’t remember who was who. Today the writing is faded, like the ghost advertisements on the sides of old NYC buildings, proving the existence of a time now lost like a drunken night. My sheets paid a bit of a price, too. I did rinse off in the shower before crashing, but the water reactivated pigment which made transference easy. I hope it comes out because it’s now a very streaky mess.

I feel good after a nice recovery day in the sun yesterday.

The week will be fast and then next Sunday I have a friend coming to NYC for the first time, so I get to be host and guide for a solid 10 days. That should be interesting and I’ll post all the stories and pictures here.

My living room changes are almost done now, pictures of those tomorrow.

OK that’s all for now, I’m suddenly one step behind today after being one step ahead… all weekend long.

Yes, the movie is still coming.