SelfAbsorbed.ME : ‘It’s Your Life, We Just Write it Funnier’

This past weekend I went out on Long Island to celebrate a friend’s birthday. We started the evening with some dinner - a fondue appetizer followed by an Asian salad - , a few bites of dessert with coffee, and then off we went to bar No. 1! Looking back, I realize that this was my first mistake. Giant mushroom caps smothered in melted cheese, followed by ice cream and coffee, followed by vodka is never a good idea.

It was at bar No. 1 where I had my first two vodka and Sprite drinks while a friend and I stumbled down college memory lane and reminisced about all the men we slept with. It was also at this bar where I met, “Renzo.” “Renzo” with the perfectly-coiffed hair and a scarf tied loosely, fashionably, around his neck, leading me to believe he might be gay, but who actually turned out to like me. Maybe I have the power to turn gay men straight? I’m not sure. Thanks “Renzo” (I’m not sure why I keep putting his name in quotes except that it seems like the type of name that needs to be in quotes), but I’m spoken for.

Very shortly after my encounter with “Renzo,” we moved to bar No. 2, where we stayed for the remainder of the evening. It was here where I be-friended a woman in her mid-40s going through a mid-life crisis. True story. We met in, naturally, the ladies room. She explained to me and my friend that a man she hadn’t seen in 13 years was here, in this bar, telling her he’s always loved her. I find this hard to believe, but I widen my eyes with the shock of it all and tell her that this is most definitely fate. I later see her on the dance floor with the lead singer of a Poison-wannabe band that performed earlier in the evening. At this point I’m pretty wasted and I walk up to her, put my arms around her and whisper loudly in her ear, “You Go GIRL!!”

After a few more rounds of shaking our asses on the dance floor, we called it a night and headed back to my friend’s house for some much-needed sleep  (designated driver on-board, of course). I slept fitfully for about two hours before I raced to the kitchen sink to expel remnants of my fondue appetizer from earlier in the evening. I crawled back to bed for another four hours of sleep before the rest of the house was awake and I was tossing and turning due to a headache and constant waves of nausea that wouldn’t let me sleep. I threw up again, but was eventually able to hold down an egg-white sandwich. And a few hours later, McDonald’s. And a few hours after that, nachos. And a few hours after that, ice cream. It’s safe to say that I recovered from my hangover well.

I now find myself wondering, how the hell did I do that for four years during college? I must have been an alcoholic. That would explain the slutty and irrational behavior. . . .

Anyway, moral of the story is, I am almost 27 years old. It’s time to face the truth: I can’t drink like I used to. Truth is, I haven’t been able to in a long time. And I guess I’ve always known it, but I didn’t want to admit it aloud. I was ashamed. But now I see that it’s ok to not be able to party like an underage teenager with a fake ID. It’s part of the growing up process. My priorities have changed. Instead of of boys and booze, I’m focused on engagement rings and babies. I’ll even admit that I often prefer a quiet night in with Boyfriend to an evening of late-night bar-hopping. The times, they are a-changin’!