Oh my starry eyed surprise, sundown to sunrise

Waking up at 10am, I hear Brian tell me, “Oh, I forgot to give you a pillow.” That hardly stirred me as I took the pillow and fell back into a good sleep. When I finally awoke from my alcohol-induced slumber at noon, I got up and tapped on Brian’s door to see if he was up, which he was. We reminisced about the things we could recall, filling each other in on events we had forgotten, even though they had only occurred in the previous 12 hours. Also, at some point in the middle of the night, although I have no idea when, I got up, went to my bag and without throwing everything out of it, pulled my pajamas out and changed into them. My jeans and sneakers were lying on the couch and apparently, I had the presence of mind to not sleep in them the whole night. The things we do when we’re drunk!

We had originally planned to do so many things on Friday. He was going to show me where his office is; ground zero; take the ferry out to see the Statue of Liberty, maybe see Central Park, since it was such a nice day out, 75 degrees the first week of March. However, our late start to the day pretty much cancelled all of that out. Or, was it the fact that we had the hangover blahs? We didn’t have the “sick” type of hangovers, where we’re throwing up all day, with headaches and what not. We just didn’t feel “right”. Eventually, we pulled ourselves together, showered and went for some food at the Neptune Diner.

Once we finished breakfast/lunch around 3 pm, we headed back over to his apartment to drop a couple things off and then head into the city. Our plan now was to go get the key to E’s apartment to grab some blankets for Dave’s arrival later that night. We got a little sidetracked however, when we sat down on the couch and started watching the ACC tournament.

While we watched the games, we had a great conversation about God/religion/atheism/the existence of prophets and many of the things that I’ve been dealing with either here or over here. This is a typical conversation when Brian and I get together, although there is usually more alcohol involved at the time. Needless to say, at 515, we needed to get going!

We walked to the subway and called Dave to tell him to get on his horse and get down here already! We took the train in and walked to meet E at her office building, which is right up the street from Radio City Music Hall. After she met us outside, we took the subway back to her apartment, picked up the blankets, convinced her to meet us for dinner and headed off to get Dave from Grand Central Station.

We arrived minutes before Dave did and were waiting for him when he exited the train. He was a little groggy from working all day and then taking a nap on the ride in, but we knew that would soon change!

We headed back to Brian’s apartment to drop off everything, Dave’s bags and the blankets and headed right back out to meet E and J.K. for dinner.

Dinner was really good, but uneventful, except for when Dave told the waitress that the last slice of Pizza was going to be her tip!

After dinner, E was departing us so that we could have a guys night out. Nap was supposed to meet us at some point, so we were awaiting his call, but in the meantime, we went to 2nd Avenue and walked a ways to find a bar. The first place we went was cool, but emptied out quickly after we arrived. We left there and headed to a bar where we hoped a friend was working, The Joshua Tree.

After carefully navigating the crowd of obnoxiously drunk guys and decent-looking, but drunk girls, we found our buddy and hung out there. Brian and I headed to the bar for beers and attempted the journey back through the crowd without spilling any on either us or someone else. No sooner than 5 steps away from bar did someone bump Brian and he spilled a fair amount down the shoulder and arm of this girl who must have either been really hot (temperature wise) or just so damned drunk that she didn’t notice! I know she had a lot on her because when I tried to slide by, my arm rubbed against where he spilled the beer and she was soaked. She didn’t even flinch and I wasn’t about to say anything, so I kept on walking. We arrived back with Dave, but J.K. had headed home because he had a long ride back and we had early plans for Saturday morning of which he was an integral, sober part (more on that later).

We tried coaxing Dave into talking to some girls, hoping he would at least get a couple numbers, but he wouldn’t. There was this one pretty hot girl in a black dress and I told him I would buy his drinks the rest of the night if he would just go talk to her, but he was having none of it. Eventually, our friend got the cute waitress (a different cute waitress than the previous night) to come over and introduced her to Dave. They didn’t say much, but it was a start at least.

After finishing our beers, we were soaked with sweat and some beer that splashed on us as well, and wanted to head out, so we started heading towards the door, when Dave decides he wants to start talking to the waitress! Brian was already halfway across the bar and I was standing there like an idiot waiting for Dave, so I started heading for the door as well. Brian and I waited for a few minutes and eventually Dave saunters out, sans phone number though.

I had mentioned to Brian earlier in the day that I’d never been to Times Square, so what better time to go there than on a Friday night at 100 am? So we started walking in that direction when Nap finally calls! He had fallen asleep and wasn’t going to come out, since it was so late. We gave him plenty of shit for that, but we were pleased with how the night was headed so far, so there was no need to add mayhem to it. Little did we know…

We arrived at Times Square around 130 am, snapped some pictures (pay no attention to the time on the pics since my camera was still in Central time) and decided we were hungry. Lets find some food! We tried locating a Gray’s Papaya, but we didn’t know where one was close by, so we thought we’d head back towards Brian’s apartment and get something closer to there.

While on the subway, we decided that Dave needed to experience Café Bar, so we exited and walked over there around 215 am. Once we arrived, we decided to call Nap. Remember, he only lives a few blocks away, he needed to get up and come visit because we found our favorite waitress working, or at least our favorite from last night, Tanya. She remembered us and even asked where our friend was. She wanted him, it was obvious. I was able to coax Nap into coming with the fabulous line of, “How often am I in NYC? Get your ass over here!” Or something very close to that. About 10 minutes later, Dave and Brian both got text messages that he was on his way! Dave, Brian and I grabbed the cards and poker chips and proceeded to start playing some Texas Hold ‘Em, albeit not very well! Nap arrived, much to Tanya’s delight and the night has now begun.

We dealt him in, drank some beers, had lively conversation, of course, Nap flirted with Tanya and we actually kept it pretty tame – drink-wise, compared to the night before, although you might not know it by this picture! We all agreed that we really liked this bar and that we were much more comfortable here than at Joshua Tree, plus have I mentioned the great music they play? That is, until Dave requested Enigma – just kidding Dave!

At 415 am, you’re thinking this night has got to be over right? Not so fast!

Since we were still hungry, we wanted to find an all night diner to get some food. Following Nap’s poor advice, we wandered from street to street looking, but none of the diner’s he was thinking of were still open, so we headed back towards Neptune Diner, for Brian and I, the second time in 15 hours!

During the walk over there, we passed a house that had this on their porch. Who keeps these things on their porch? We had to sneak into the gated area to get that picture, but it was so worth it!

We finally arrived at Neptune Diner and Brian and Nap got the best seats in house as we were right by the door and they got to watch all the cute, drunk, skimpy-dressed girls come in and leave. (E – Brian was only looking for Dave, not for himself, don’t be mad at him! They don’t hold a candle to you anyway ;)) Dave got a good rear-view, but not much else.

We ate heartily, especially for 515 am, except for Nap, since he spent most of the night asleep. We paid up and headed out, with the dawn beginning to break. We arrived back at Brian’s apartment in a few minutes and said our goodbyes to Nap because he wouldn’t be joining us for Day 3’s festivities. Dave wanted to see the roof, so I took him up there and as I reached for my pocket to take a picture, I realized I left my camera in the Diner – OH NO!

Dave and I got the key to the apartment from Brian and raced back over there. They had my camera stored for me. I thanked them and we returned to the apartment building. Upon trying to enter, Dave was having some problems figuring out which key to use. After trying them all and having one almost get stuck on him, I took a turn. After a couple minutes of me toiling with the lock, Dave looked at the door and realized we were at the wrong entrance! We seem to have a lot of that problem, but this time we were pretty sober! After getting inside the first door, I started trying the keys on the inside door and although one of them fit, it wouldn’t turn. After a minute of fooling with it, I remembered that this door wasn’t locked – D’OH!

Dave and I headed back up to the roof to take some pictures, because it was now 545 am and since we were up…

Finally at a few minutes after 6 am, we all settled in for a few hours of sleep to prepare for Day 3.

Day 2 – the fun has just begun!

NYC
Friends