On Thursday night I had one of those bounce through the East Village like a banshee nights, the kind that used to be so popular about a year ago in my life, but have since been relegated to later rather than sooner status. There's nothing to be done about it; I'm getting old, and I can't rock like I used to and I'm totally ok with that, as long as you are, too.

I met up with Gus from Randomly Ever After at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge, one of my most favorite bars in New York. There's nothing in the entire bar that is even vaguely reminiscent of a holiday, and I'm fairly certain all of the cocktails are served in dirty glasses, but damn if it isn't the best place to lounge. The elderly alcoholic bartender was silent and surly for most of the night, engaging with me exactly once, when he blurted out a story about how he wanted to play the trivia video game but two of the customers - two younger women - were sitting right in front of it.

Or something like that. Who knows what the fuck he was talking about. He's an elderly alcoholic man, for Christ's sake.

This was the first time Gus and I had met in person, though we've talked on IM many times before. He's exactly as I thought he would be, and there were no suprises. If you've ever read his writing, you know exactly who he is.

After a few drinks, Gus and I headed down to Soma Gallery, one of the new best kept secrets in the EV. Part head shop, part gallery, Soma was featuring an opening for the work of Free Five, a grafitti artist delving into the fine art world for the first time.

It was a pretty hot scene going on there: hip-hop music blaring, a young, hot, urban crowd (it was someone's target demographic, for sure) having a good time, and even a keg in the corner! I don't think I've been to a gallery opening with a keg since my Seattle days. Free Five (Freddy in real life) had taken over the walls of the entire gallery with grafitti, and then intermingled his canvases with the wall design. It was quite a vision, and I totally recommend checking it out. It was a completely unspoiled moment.

We met up with Dante there, and hung out for about a half hour. Gus went back to work, and Dante and I headed to a bistro for dinner. I was drunk by then, and on the walk over I kept complaining about having to go to the bathroom. Dante gave me shit about it, and I explained, "I was just hanging out with a straight guy who let me be self-indulgent and girlie. You'll have to give me a few minutes to behave myself again."

After that (oh Jesus, does it ever end?), he dropped me off at 7B, where I met up with Liz and Bruno. As it usually does with them, the gossip flowed forth on impact, and I was stunned and shocked by the various tidbits from the journalism world. I much prefer visiting, rather than staying in that world. I do love Liz and Bruno though, and after we got that shit out of that way, it was all back to normal.

Somehow I made it home before 11, but I was still hungover the next day.

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