what a crazy night! (and NO alcohol was involved!)

so, my night...wow. what a night. i started off with five different things to do this evening, and wound up doing four--although the things i was supposed to do changed through the night. so, here we go!

1) dinner with justin haines
so, when i moved here initially, i stayed with justin for a few days, so i saw him frequently. other than that, i think ive seen him once--his birthday party. so, he sent me a message this morning saying we should hang out, so we decided to get dinner.
as i was sitting around today, procrastinating against studying, i decided to check out different restaurants that we could go to. since i knew i was going to have to be in chelsea for my second event (wait for it!), i decided to check out cheap restaurants in that neighborhood. i found an interesting club called El Cocotero which looked interesting. venezeulan food. so, we decide to meet up and when i get off the subway justin calls and says he didnt see it and now he is two blocks away. i tell him im looking at the building with the correct address on it, but it was an apartment building, so it couldnt be right. so i walk down the street to meet him, and i was REALLY excited about eating there, so he went ahead and called the restaurant and they said they were at the address i had, so we went back. we went back and walked by the same address again and then realized--dude, its the building RIGHT NEXT DOOR. at this point, we had now both walked past it twice. we're pathetic.
we go in and its this tiny little place, and it appeared to be run by this venezuelan family. i orderd a passion fruit juice--pretty good. the food was AMAZING. soo good, very authentic. and cheap! yeah cheap! we started off with the arepitas con nata, which are basically deep-fried discs of cornmeal. yeah for deep-fried goodness! we also had the tequeñon, basically deep-fried cheese, but different from a regular cheesestick in that it wasnt breaded. but it was pretty good. i also had the pabellón, which was a larger deep-fried cornmeal pocket-like item stuffed with a plantain and spicy black beans! yum! justin had some sort of tamale type item. i was very impressed by the food.
from there, we went down the block to cuba cafe to grab a drink. i dont really drink rum, but they advertise that theyre famous for their mojitos. justin got one and he said it was really good. they had fun cuban music in the background and the food looked pretty good. my friend matt came and met us there.

2) party with matt
matt is a new friend from school. i had seen him before in class, of course, but i only met him last week. at which time he told me that he wanted to bring me to his friend's birthday party this weekend, and, at the time, i was just like "okay, sure, we'll see." but true to his word, he asked me again to go! so, i decided that i should. he did warn me ahead of time that the party would be like 97% gay men, but he assured me that i would have fun. i have to say, the prospect of an evening with a group of gay men was not at all unappealling (oh just wait until my fourth event!). so, we get to his friend's house and it is beautiful. hardwood floors, but black. granite counters, beautiful new dishwasher and gas range. i was very impressed. and i think matt's estimation of 97% gay was wrong. there was only one straight guy there, and i didnt find out that he was straight until much later. ah well. it was a mellow time. we did get there on the earlier side, so it hadnt really picked up, yet. i was there for about a half hour before jj called for me to meet up with him and mitchell.

3) party with jj
jj had invited me to this party he had been invited to. one of his friends was housesitting this three-story penthouse on the lower east side (i think thats the correct neighborhood, but i actually have no idea). the apartment was A-MAZING. it had just been all done up because they had a photographer in earlier that day. you come in on the middle floor, you can go up some stairs to the roof garden complete with hottub, and downstairs bedroom/office and balcony. i wont even begin to try to explain it, but take my word that it was awesome. there were HUGE flatscreen TVs in every room...full bar, etc etc. i got to meet some of jj's other friends, and it was nice and mellow. jj decided around 1 that he was ready to go, and at about that time i got a call from matt to come meet him at a club.

4) mr BLACK
another friend from school, sara, had come to the loft party with jj, mitchell and i, and she knows matt, and i decided that she needed to come with me. so, we hopped in a cab and went over to soho to a club called mr BLACK. we were curious about whether it was a gay club or not, and our suspicions were confirmed when we pulled up to the club and the only people in line were well-built men. no, no, i kid you not about the physical part. i would say that 95% of the guys there were at least in shape. weird.
haha, by the way, be sure to click on that link for the club because i found something about it really interesting. it definitely lists mr black as a gay club, but it has a picture of three girls and it says that it is "lesbian." now, maybe on other nights it could be more of a lesbian crowd, but that time is DEFINITELY NOT saturday nights. and here's why:
as we were walking in, i could see that there were topless male dancers in these little cove areas. i soon realized that not only were they topless, but they were either wearing teensy tiny little underoos or thongs. i almost died. sara and i both really had to pee and so we went in search of the bathroom. we literally walked the perimiter of the club before we found it (this was everyone else's fault. we kept asking where it was and we were given wrong directions). it was a unisex bathroom. however, it was not unisex in the sense that anyone could use the single bathroom, it was unisex in the sense that there were three urinals and a stall all in the same room. when we first opened the door, we saw a LOT of a couple of gentlemen. we quickly closed the door and busted up laughing. but, we braved it and took turns. although i MUST describe one of the gentlemen in there. red boots. red hat. red gloves. and a red jock-strap like thing. and that was it. it was awesome.
from there, we met back up with matt and his friends, and we happened to be standing in front of one of the coves with dancing naked men. i have to say, i was unbelievably impressed by those boys! (literally, boys. they were nineteen. we asked.) one of them was actually kinda cute. he resembled ryan phillippe in a way. the other kid was INSANE! i have never seen anyone, let alone a guy, as bendy as him! he could get one leg straight up in the air. and he didnt have much of a butt, but he could shake what he had better than beyonce!! and those dancing boys LOVED sara and i. every time they caught our eyes, they would give us kissy-face and try and get us over. now, as i mentioned, i wasnt drinking last night, but i still felt the need to add a dollar bill to one of their little underoos, but before i got the courage up, they stopped dancing. i have to admit, i was disappointed i didnt get the chance to tip the boys! so, matt made me pull out a dollar, which he signed, and he told me that i needed to keep it in a safe place until the next time he takes me to a club like that. so, now i have my dollar bill saved for another time.


all in all, it shaped up to be quite a night. i actually started writing this blog when i got home, but then alex called and i wound up talking to him until after 5 am, at which point i thought it was time for bed and i had to put off finishing this. quite a night...