When we last left off, me and C had spent my birthday partying (as hipsters, of course) in San Francisco’s Mission Dristrict. The night ended with me kissing a college-aged boy who thought I was 21, and me falling asleep with the room still spinning…
I woke up Friday morning, the day after my birthday, still a little bit tipsy. The initial plan involved me going to work for a bit, and then catching our flight to NYC (Coast #2 in our Coast to Coast party weekend), but being that I was still inebriated, that plan was scrapped pretty quickly. In a semi-drunken stupor, I begin to pack my things, hoping that I got everything. I tried to eat a little bit of something before leaving, but when you have 3 hrs of sleep and large quantities of alcohol still remaining in your system, the last thing you want to do is eat.
Before leaving, I received some encouraging words from the Canadian, “Coast 1 was successful, now you have to do Coast 2. You and C have to push each other. This is not any normal weekend.” I heard the words, but I have to admit, being “back” and being “21” was kind of an effort. And after a night of hard partying, its hard to imagine stepping it up a notch.
To be honest, I had reservations about the weekend. My birthday had gone off way better than I expected, and I was so grateful for that. In my head, kissing a random boy, dancing until we shut down the bar, having all my friends come out and party with me AND dress up as hipsters–that is something that could not be topped.
But, it wouldn’t be C2C05 if we didn’t at least try. What can I say. Coast 2–New York City–was effectively conquered in a major major way. It was, by and far, one of the best weekends of my life.
I have been drunk on a flight numerous times, but being hung over while flying 6 hours to another city is quite the experience. I tried my best to sleep, but towards the end of the flight, when we circled NYC over and over and over in choppy winds, I seriously thought I was going to toss my cookies. We still managed to have fun though (even though the guy in front of C kept drinking rum and making her naseous)–we watched MTV, goofed around, and kept looking at each other while saying, “what the fuck are we doing?” “I don’t know, what are we doing?” “You realize we are going to NYC, right?” “Yeah, this is fucking crazy.”
It felt surreal to be in another city so quickly. We were wide-eyed about the whole thing; the reality of the situation not sinking in at all. Our cab drove us into the city and we felt so displaced–where were we and what the hell were we doing?
At around 10pm or so, when Moonshine and my sis met up w/us at the hotel, I think I finally became sober. Sober, but god were we tired still. I really did not think C or my sis were going to make it. For that matter, I think Moonshine had had a crazy crazy week and was tired as hell too. We discussed dinner and then going out to a chill, loungey sort of place. Poor Moonshine–he had to sit in our tiny room, on top of a safe, playing with hangers, while he watched us get ready and primp for going out.
Traffic sucked and we ended up eating dinner at this place called High Life at about 1:30 am. At that time, I was completely famished and ordered up the biggest thing I could–steak and eggs. When it arrived, however, I took a few bites and thought I was going to puke. I started teetering back and forth in my seat until my sister asked me if I was ok. I swallowed hard. Nothing was going to stop C2C.
Not even the fact that LB2 totally flaked. LB2, for those who don’t remember, is one of Moonshine’s buddies that I met during my last trip in NYC. Our interaction was more of a flirtatious one, and from his side, probably a drunken one, but I really knew nothing about him. I thought it would be fun to meet up with him this time in NYC, but as it turned out, he had his own issues and totally flaked. At first, I was disappointed. Not b/c I had any sort of expectation, but bc I was hoping he could provide some boy toy entertainment. After a while, though, I started to realize that it was probably a better thing. He would have only held us back from other endeavors.
And so, after dinner, we took a cab to Avalon, a place we thought was going to be trendy-loungey, that in fact turned out to be one of the biggest dance clubs in the city. Avalon, or what used to be known as Limelight, is housed in an old church. God, when we drove up and heard the music booming and caught a glimpse of the light show going on inside, I have to admit that I did not think I could do it. We all looked at each other like, “are we really doing this?” I wanted to consider other options, but we were there. It was a club. We were going to make the best of it.
Inside the gate, the bouncer took one look at my ID and thought I was Shannon Doherty. Not quite dude. I guess I can see how my drivers license looks like her, since I sort of look pissed off, but, yeah…not quite. Still, it was funny, and he kept jokingly asking for my autograph and asking, “where’s Kelly?”
Then, another obstacle. Cover for this place was a whopping $30!! We lingered by the entrance wondering what to do…we had come this far…didn’t really have a backup plan…but $30? Each? Lucky for us, Moonshine, a special agent, became BFF with the security peeps and worked out a deal where the girls got in for $20 and he got in for free. And while we’re on the subject of security personnel, I want to reiterate that a guy packing heat is for some reason totally hot. I had told C of this strange phenomena beforehand, but she finally experienced it first hand. And confirmed it for me. Hot. Don’t know why, but hot.
After being escorted in by management, we took a deep breath and looked around. Oh. My. God. Where the fuck were we? The crowd was way younger and way more ghetto than anticipated. Sort of the bridge and tunnel crowd mixed with the occassional jersey girl and gangster. Girls wore short skirts and low cut tank tops. Boys wore baggy jeans and wife beaters. We were totally out of our element, and thus, headed straight to the bar.
A few drinks later and we were dancing on stage in the main part of the church (drinking and dancing in a church=awesome=so C2C), which was pretty amazing. In the fog of lights and rave-like backdrops, you could catch glimpses of flying butresses and stained glass windows. There were 2 levels–an upper mezzanine level, and then a lower level consisting of a stage and then a main dance floor. On the main dance floor, there were two large cubes/podiums where scantily-clad men were dancing. Did I mention it was supposed to be “hunk night” or something? Um, too bad the “hunks” were totally (and literally) gay.
Oh, but that did not stop the men from hitting on us…
Huggy
Tall gawky White guy with Eastern European accent. Wore tight club shirt and long duster jacket. Come to think of it, he was kind of Frankenstein-ish the way he chased us around the club (my sister especially) asking us if we wanted to dance. At one part during the night, his Franken-arms latched onto my sister especially tight, “do you want to dance?” Later in the night, when C and I were taking a break, we saw Huggy’s franken-arm reach out for us. We immediately stopped dancing and retreated to the corner, hoping he wouldn’t see us. No dice. He tried several times to dance with us, but then finally game up. Harmless enough. Not to mention drunk enough.
Lester (the molester)
Oh man, where do I begin w/our buddy Lester. All I know is that one moment we were all happy and dancing, not a care in the world, and the next thing I know, Lester, who is approximately 5’2″ has his octopus arms wrapped around my sister’s waist. For the record, my sister is 5’9″. It wasn’t enough that he came up behind my sister and grinded without her really being aware, but he was caressing and rubbing all around her stomach area. When my sister came to, she quickly squirmed away. But of course, guys like Lester are like cockroaches–the never die. Soon, I felt a hand on MY stomach–rubbing it as I felt a slight gyration behind me. Immediately I stopped dancing and moved to the safe corner. C followed suit. Later – C and I were dancing on our own (sis and Moonshine were off getting drinks) and decided to take a picture of ourselves at the club. I held the camera with one of my hands and reached out as far as I could so that we could get both our faces in. Immediately afterwards, C and I looked at our photo and realized, unbeknownst to us, that LESTER WAS STANDING BEHIND US THE WHOLE TIME. Not only that, but he was smacking his chops/licking his lips in his baggy sweater and skunk-like armani newsboy hat. Realizing this, we analyzed all our photos and noticed he was in at least 2 more of them. Quiver.
Creepy Bald Dude
Again with the long duster jacket. This one was into C though…and like in an almost psycho way. We were getting ready to leave when Creepy Bald Dude approached C and then stared her up, down, and all around…and then followed her up the stares. Every single move was monitored by Creepy Bald Dude. Luckily, Moonshine came to the rescue.
Random Guy
On the way back from the bathroom to the dance floor, I was held up by some guy. I would describe him, but I don’t remember much about him, except that he was wearing a white shirt and probably had a gold chain. (For the record, this hallway was apparently the place to be bc every single time I walked through it, some guy would grab my arm). He said something to me that I don’t remember. I said something back to him that I don’t recall. I think it went soemthing like this:
“hey you want to dance, baby”
“no, not really.”
“you’re looking beautiful tonight.”
“um, thanks”
“come on, dance with me”
“how about a kiss instead”
“ok”
[we break to kiss. By kiss I mean barely a peck. Only lip contact]
Him: is that all I get
Me: you’re lucky you got even that. I gotta go. My friend is waiting for me.
[he continues talking as I walk off.]
Dancing was surprisingly fun. It’s amazing how effective red bull and vodka can be–bc thats all I drank all night long. But it was Moonshine’s performance that night that truly deserved a reward. At one part during the night, I leaned over to him and said, “since your friend flaked, you’re going to have to make up for it.” He nodded in agreement. Whether he was protecting us from boys, or coaching me, or just generally partying, he definitely came to play.
Whenever the music started to slow down (what C and I refer to as “bringing it down, so you can bring it back up”) Moonshine would scream “DO YOU WANT IT DO YOU WANT IT?” We would return the yell with “WE FUCKING WANT IT” And then the music would get louder and faster. Soon, people around us were echoing back, “WE FUCKING WANT IT” so that everyone was waiting, as if the ball was going to drop or something.
C and I also kept saying to each other “We are so back.”
“Who’s back?”
“We back”
“Why we Back?”
“C2C05”
(we also made C 2 C 0 5 with our hands but Im almost embarrassed to admit that).
Throughout the night, we would lean over to Moonshine and ask, “Who’s back?” And he would humor us by saying “YOU’RE BACK!”
The night slipped by quickly. I felt giddy-drunk and happy. I just remember jumping up and down and looking all around me and seeing everyone with huge goofy grins on their faces. And I felt so fucking happy.
We left around 5 or 6 am, and met up with the bouncer who thought I looked like Shannon Doherty. We asked him if there were any cool things to go to the following day. “You guys are about my age right? What, 23 or so?” Me, C, and my sis all looked at each other with these knowing looks. Then Moonshine walked by. “yeah, we’re 23,” I responded. He ended up giving us his number and telling us to call him and he’d hook us up.
Back in our tiny hotel, we all stayed up even later, giggling about the night’s events. C and I were sharing a bed–it wasnt quite a double…but too big to be a twin…so we called it a “Dwouble.” Then I started singing the theme song to that game called Trouble, except I was pronouncing it “Twouble” and then we started talking like Balki from Perfect Strangers, and then before we knew it, it was already 6:30am and the room was still spinning.
And again, my thoughts, as I drifted off to la-la land, were that nothing was going as planned, but it was perfect in that way. Better. Everything was coming together on its own.
to be continued
