What We Did The Past Two Weekends

Hello again, our fine friends, and welcome to another installment of the ever-popular “What We Did This Weekend” feature of this most awesome of websites.  This week we’re cramming two weekends together, due to an absurd amount of laziness/popularity, and the necessary lengthy recovery time from the first weekend due to the fact that it was not just any weekend….it was Laura’s birthday!

So naturally we began the weekend before last with a properly rockin’ party.  Yes, Brooklyn was once again proven to be the real New York hotspot, when the glitterati rushed over the bridge in droves to ring in Laura’s 24th year.  “Come on down to the graveyard, y’hear, and we’ll party real good,” the invitation called, and let us tell you, it was a smashing success all around, by which we mean, we got plastered.  Yes, many whistles were wet, many streamers were thrown, but the real highlight of the evening came, naturally, when people were properly tight.  At one point, and, let me say, the details are a little hazy, one of our good old friends from Tucson had just left, then came back in, noticing she lacked her cell phone, a most important accessory in these modern times.  As we began to look around for where this precious item might be, she started to say things that suggested her cell phone “might” have gotten into the toilet.  This we all immediately dismissed as being ridiculous, because who could forget something like dropping your phone in the toilet, with the loud, disease-ridden splash that it would surely cause?  Liz began calling the missing telephone in vain, insisting there must be some mistake, but the phoneless partygoer in question insisted that it could be nowhere else.  Before long, several plastic forks and a trash can-bound wooden spoon later, the phone was discovered to actually be lodged somewhere deep in the innards of the toilet, and after some more awkward squirming and hand-dirtying, it was actually recovered.  Much to our lack of surprise, the phone was ruined, but at least our toilet wasn’t.  Our landlord doesn’t need to know about any of this, by the way.   While Laura at least pretended to lend some sort of moral support, Liz, in her drunken stupor, couldn’t help but enjoy the spectacle.  She waited for this moment, and this moment alone, to pull out the long-forgotten party poppers we’d purchased in preparation for this event, and set off a plethora of bursting streamers in our wee bathroom, and cavorted around photographing the madness, much to the chagrin of the phone diggers.  Days later, we were still picking bits of streamer out of random corners of the bathroom, and the remnants of cheap streamer dye will forever be a reminder of this amazing night….that and the photographs, of course.

As if anything could top our Friday night, Saturday proved to be something of a fabulous drunkathon as well.  This was the day Laura was to be featured in an “Alice in Wonderland”-themed Mandate of Heaven fashion show.  For poor Laura, the day required hours of toiling in preparation, i.e. getting drunk with a bunch of models and getting her hair done.  But boy did she look fabulous!  (Laura’s note: Yes I did.)  The show turned out quite well; the models were thin, the booze was free, and Carissa (the designer and our friend) was adorably overjoyed.  The models played characters from “Alice in Wonderland” and “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” dressed appropriately, with Laura playing the Queen of Hearts!  Laura, of course, pulled it off with impeccable charm and bountiful bosoms; upon first impression, Liz declared that she could describe the outfit in one word, “busty.”  We rounded out the evening by stopping by a few of our favorite Billyburg haunts, and grabbing a quick bite at Food Swings, the vegan fast food place that actually makes a decent imitation of Chili Cheese Fries.  As Sunday was a hungover blur as usual, we will skip straight ahead to this past weekend, which was another whirl of excitement.

Friday was a pretty laid back night.  We were thrilled to discover that The Science of Sleep, the new Michel Gondry movie starring that sexy Gael Garcia Bernal, had just arrived in theaters, so after spiking some oversized sodas, we headed straight there.  In the fashionable Upper West Side, where the movie was showing, there are limited options for hideable food.  Luckily, the Food Emporium was still open, and they have those wonderful pre-packaged sandwiches, whose expiration dates would suggest that they are fresher than they taste.  Despite the sub-par grub, we got some kick-ass seats in the front, and we were ready to go.  Please see our review of the film for details, but we can say right now, we loved it, Gael was indeed sexy, and it was an excellent time all around.

As a follow up to this wonderful film, we thought we’d go see the exhibit featuring pieces of the set and related art objects by Writer/Director Michel Gondry himself.  The Deitch Gallery in SoHo is a nice little space, and one of our friends works there, which is cool.  The four tiny rooms were crammed with not only objects from the movie, but, keeping with the theme, objects Gondry had made for past girlfriends.  These “Pathological” little gifts were intimate, adorable, and familiar, in that they remind you of things you probably gave your first high school sweetheart, although some of them verged on creepy, like a necklace made with fingernail clippings (the ‘nailklace’).  Awesomely enough, Liz turned a corner and ran smack into Gondry himself.  She quickly informed Laura, who awkwardly complimented his movie, much to his delight, while Liz hung around the counter flipping through random ‘zines’ and trying to look cool.  What an awesome guy that Michel is.  Modest, adorable, and an all around bang-up guy.  And also, he’s French.

After leaving the gallery, we begun the second leg of a walking tour of New York that we’ve been trying to complete.  This part of the tour took place in Chinatown, and let me tell you, it was sure informative and enlightening.  We strolled around that bustling, filthy neighborhood, absorbing all the history and trying to ignore the suggestions as to all the knock-off products we should purchase.  We enjoyed a delicious dumpling meal at the Excellent Dumpling House, which is cheap and awesome, before touring such sights as the “Bloody Angle,” a crooked street infamous from gangster times for its violent goings-on, and a whole load of banks.  Seriously, they have a lot of banks down there.  What’s up with that?

After so much culture and healthy outdoor activity, we decided to down some pitchers at our beloved Nancy Whiskey Pub (see review).  We had other plans, but as always seems to happen when you start drinking pitchers at four p.m., our plans were soon tossed aside in favor of eating White Castle on the couch at home.

Couch-sitting was a recurring theme this weekend, as on Sunday we settled in for a Dustin Hoffman movie marathon.  With our ever-evolving Netflix queue having randomly spewed out Midnight Cowboy and The Graduate simultaneously, we had no other choice but to sit back and take in the glory that is Dustin Hoffman’s chameleon-like method acting all at once.  Finally Liz knows what she’s referencing when she screeches out “I’m walkin’ here!” in a surly tone at cab drivers.

Until next week, we wish you a pleasant work week and a pleasanter drunk weekend.