I love global warming. I love global warming so much I want to take it behind the middle school and get it pregnant.* Flip flops and skirts in October? This is so great…for now. I’ll just tell my children not to have kids.

And thanks to the unseasonably warm weather this weekend, we partied like it was June 1999.

Friday
Did you ever have those friends in college that you never thought you’d see again? Just for some reason or another you never expected to keep in touch? Well, that’s how it is with my friend Dave. Except we’re still friends. And he lives ten blocks away from me.

It was his birthday on Friday so a group of us gathered at La Palapa, a Mexican restaurant on St. Marks. Of course, I was the first to arrive and waited at the bar for thirty minutes. My friend Dave is notoriously late. I am surprised he even showed up for dinner on the day of his actual birthday. When everyone finally arrived we feasted on steak quesadillas, chalupas, and tamarind margaritas (my favorite).

Dave’s friend Anthony taught me the proper way to break a bottle and use it as a weapon. Because you never know when you will be in a bar fight. Apparently, you’re not supposed to hit the bottle straight on because then the glass will just shatter in your face. You’re supposed to strike it at an angle. Anthony is an expert in the art of bottle breaking. He practices with snapple bottles.

Then we went to this bar next door Cheap Shots. A place that is frequented by NYU students and men in wheelchairs. You can drink all night for free if it’s your birthday. I did not stay very long. My distended belly was full of cheese and tequila (not the smartest combination) and the fragrance of jaeger was making me ill. Dave’s sister offered me a TUMS. You know you’re getting old when your friends offer you TUMS instead of drugs.

Saturday
I woke up bright and early and walked to the Hudson River Parkway. If you keep walking on 10th street until the west side highway, you’ll end up right in the park. My favorite thing is to walk around the west village when the rest of the city is in slumber. When the morning dew still lingers and you can almost taste the air.

I grabbed brunch at AOC on Bleecker street. I sat alone at a corner table, ready to embark on coffee and the New Yorker. I ended up befriending an elderly gentleman who was also sitting alone at the table next to me. His name is Arthur. I’ll have to write another blog post about our conversation. It was a really inspiring lunch hour and confirmed that I’m ready to go into writing. What’s that saying? Leap–and the net shall appear. Sometimes the net is another person who convinces you to follow your passion.

Later that evening I met up with my friend Liz and some peeps at Gnocco, an Italian restaurant in the East Village. This is probably one of my favorite Italian restaurants in the city. They have this AMAZING appetizer called, appropriately, “gnocco”. Fried dough that is light as air, accompanied by a an array of sliced meat. Fried dough and meat just go together. Like pancakes and bacon. Steak and frites. Vodka and Redbull.

Afterwards, we headed to Baraza on Avenue C and sipped mojitos while dancing to samba music. Baraza is the kind of place where sitting down is just not kosher. Everyone dances. Old men will approach you and just wisk you away on the dance floor.

Around 2 A.M. I decided to call it a night and go home. My friends were headed to another bar but I was hearing the siren call of my bed. Nothing good happens after 2 A.M. If you can’t seal the deal by then, it’s time to go home.

I still managed to make a food stop before going home. I went to Zaragoza’s, this hole in the wall Mexican grocery on Avenue A, and had the spicy chicken taco. Look, if I’m going to bed alone I might as well have a happy belly.

Sunday
I went for a run on the East River. On the way there, I got sexually harassed by an eight year old. I’m serious, this kid barely came up to my knee. And I’m practically a midget so you know this kid had to be young. He kept saying “I love you, can I go home with you?” Whaaaa?! He would not leave me alone. I considered kicking him away. So I ran. And then he yells, “You gotta big ass!”

I had three thoughts:
1. Maybe I should stop eating tacos at 2 A.M.
2. They need to stop feeding chicken to kids because I think all the injected hormones are turning them into young R.Kellys.
3. This kid is too young to be using words like ass. He is at the age when he should be saying “badunkadunk”.

Oh and in random celebrity sighting news, I saw Michael Cera of Superbad fame walking down second avenue. Swoon. He is so cute in that nerdy but I’m a movie star and making more money than you kinda way.

*reference to 30 Rock aka best show ever