Cheap Wine and Vampires

I couldn't get out of bed yesterday. I didn't get out of bed. I was hung over. Drinking cheap wine on a Sunday. JNET and I started at Bar Tabac on Smith Street. But it wasn't its same sexy self. In the summer, the Brazilian boys played on Sunday evening, and the place was rocking. When we walked in it was as bright as a Starbucks, never a good sign. We stayed for two glasses of wine and left in search of darker and more dangerous lands. But the best we could do was a sports bar, at least the place was packed. And it had free popcorn, but enough of that. We decided to hop in a cab and head out to Sapphires on Eldridge. Quiet there, too, but at least I could take to the dance floor without feeling stupid. This is a place that shouldn't still be open, yet it is. It's tiny, it's not fancy, it's not trendy, it's nothing but a dance floor and a bar and I love it. I've been going there for fifteen years. How and why is this place still open? It boggles my mind. I'm so grateful. I don't think I had anything to drink but I can't remember. I couldn't have had more than three (four?) glasses of wine. At one point, I took off my shirt, and danced in my underwear. Now that's a New York bar.

Then we meandered over to Karma, but of course, the bitch wouldn't let me in without ID. I like that place and I hate it, too. WTF? A doorman? At Karma? A hole in the wall bar with nothing to recommend it except you can smoke ( and by that I mean you can smoke). I'd had it at that point anyway even though it was only ten o'clock. I walked back to Sapphires b/c I didn't have my scarf and they didn't have it either. I put JNET in a cab, walked a bit on Houston and then home. Woke up at three a.m. sick as a dog. I drank tons of water, took three aspirin and entertained my self with Twilight by Stephanie Meyers until the sun came up. Thank god I had that book, captivating enough to take my mind off my body, there's no way I could've navigated the Jose Saramago novel I'd been reading.

Twilight has a great narrative engine, the premise is laughable, a bronze haired boy, a good vampire, who doesn't burn up in the sun but becomes invisible? But the characters are likable, and she does a good job of evoking the soggy moss green majesty of the Pacific northwest, the green light of the sun in such a place, and I always love a good vampire story. I was kind of a vampire myself. Stuck between night and day, dizzy, sick to my stomach, with only the little white goddess for comfort and company. I thought dear god will I still be awake and still be miserable when the sun comes up on Monday? No, but close. I fell asleep around 5:45, then again at 11:30, then again at 2:00, woke up at 4:00 p.m. to prepare three final exams, wash my hair, and back to bed for good at 8:00.

I woke this morning to the sound of rain, and thought, you've got to be kidding me, right? Last Thursday it was the same deal. The alarm goes off, it's still dark. I expect that. In September at 6:00 a.m. the sun was up. In December it is not. But dark and raining? At least I had the forethought and the wisdom to have a cold Red Bull in the fridge. Otherwise I might not have made it. Kidding.