I Am So Old And Uncool.

A friend I haven't seen in about 4 years invited me to her 30th birthday party in the Williamsburg district of Brooklyn. We lived in Istanbul at the same time and she is a unique soul – knows how to survive at Burning Man and pull off wearing a fanny pack and Princess Leia braids to the mall while looking like the coolest person in town. I decided to be “adventurous” and go to this, even though it didn't start until 10pm – leaving the ball and chain at home, of course. I just wasn't equipped for 285 Kent: a warehouse setting with smoke machines, “experimental music” and a pop up bar in the back staffed with weird looking chicks wearing high-waisted 80s pants and laura ashley sweetheart tank tops, selling off-label well drinks. This was drawn onto the wall:

My arm got stamped with this:



When was the last time someone stamped your hand and it wasn't for food on a stick and clowns? My friend and I ordered a vodka/soda with a splash of cranberry and it was so awful, tasted so much like lighter fluid with a splash of nail polish remover, that I refused to drink it. Who makes Crystal Palace vodka? Kill that guy before he blinds a village in West Virginia. My friend that agreed to go with me kept coaxing me to just suck it up and down it, but something told me not to, probably my stomach that would have revolted immediately. I realized then that I'm old enough and make enough money to dump a $5 bad drink out into a nearby trashcan tub. I headed to the bathroom to recuperate and someone had punched a hole in the door. I opened it and lo and behold, it was a tiny little closet with a toilet tucked into it that had a young lady already sitting on it pooping. I screamed and shut the door. I went back to my friend and the experimental tunes. The place was filling up – it was 11, but still no sign of the birthday girl. The couple next to use were interesting – one guy was really short and wearing a sleeveless strait jacket and his companion looked like Ivan Drago from Rocky IV and he was wearing a dog leash. On the other side, kids were smoking. They were smoking real cigarrettes! I couldn't believe it – secondhand smoke? I didn't even realize that still existed. Is that vintage, like 80s high-waisted pants? There was a mesh net full of balloons tied to the ceiling and I wondered if it would be unloosed and all of the smoke machines and cigarrettes would cause the rubber to melt onto all of us and give us horrible scars or at least cause toxic fumes that would make us all sick. Oh my god I'm so old. My friend made me drink a beer to calm down. People were starting to bump into us and everybody was damp and sweaty. I wanted to squeal and cry my discomfort. What is this horrible place? I don't understand experimental music. I don't understand intentional discomfort. There were ironic mullets and mickey mouse t-shirts. I was rubbed up against by a dirty koala stuffed animal backpack. It reminded me of that story The Velveteen Rabbit where the dirty stuffed animal was a harbinger of disease and it made that little kid sick so it was jammed into an old toy box to die. There were some kids who looked like they were in high school that just popped up out of nowhere and they were rolling a joint with a dollar bill. I haven't seen that dollar bill roll-up since I was in high school. I was pretty sure my friend and I were the only two people there who had filed a tax return this year. Ugh. Birthday girl showed up 2.5 hours late – around 12:30, because she overslept. I'm so old, I can't handle that.

My friend and I snuck out when she went up to check out the stage and wandered around looking for cab. Then, thank god, we found a nice bar with wine bottles in the window, cute curtains and Nirvana blasting. I felt better after having “real” wine and we decided to make a night of it and headed to Viva Toro – which I highly recommend if you're ever in the Williamsburg neighborhood. Great drinks, a mechanical bull and salsa dancing. I could live there. It made me feel significantly less old. I need a mechanical bull at home to practice – I think I could be good at that. Readers- feel free to take up a collection and buy me one. All three of you. . .

I fell asleep on the cab ride back to Manhattan where my friend and I were staying. My friend was hungry and talked the driver into stopping so she could get a shawarma. She didn't wake me up and didn't realize that the driver was going to get out and get a sandwich with her – so they left me in the back of the cab, asleep. She told me later she was worried there was going to be a shift change and someone would drive off with me in the back seat, but the sandwiches just looked so good that she decided to risk it. She didn't even get me a sandwich.