Thursday, September 17, 2009

"Do you want to get another drink or do you want to go home?"

It's funny to think that there was a time not too long ago in my life where I danced on bars, got hangovers with an alarming frequency, and went out four nights a week. I spent a good portion of my 20s sleep deprived and dehydrated, like it was a right of passage, but with age 30 came this strange thing called maturity and responsibility. And while the party is far from over in my life, it's now taken on overtones of a quiet dinner followed by a glass of port. Ms. K, who ironically is only 24 years old, has also mellowed from her free wheeling gal about town days too. My oh my.

We're okay with this, really we are, but now and again we are reminded that our tastes and habits have shifted in the couple of years since meeting. Take Saturday night when I thought it might be nice to meet Ms. K for a drink at 11:30 pm after she got off from work. A nice idea, yes, but it became clear that both of us were out of practice.

We tiredly drank a couple of rounds at Superfine and as the time grew long after midnight, we negotiated the remainder of our evening.

"Do you want to get another drink or do you want to go home?"

I yawned. "I can go both ways. Do you want to go home?"

Ms. K yawned. "Only if you want to go home."

God, we were like two old ladies, but two old ladies determined to recapture some of our past glory while simultaneously longing for our bed.

"One more drink!"

I yawned again.

By the time we finished our third round, we decided to leave and find an open restaurant even though it was nearing 2 am. Crazy. We should have just gone home, but instead we stubbornly took a car to Park Slope to see if Blue Ribbon still was open. It was, and in the car over I found a pack of Camel Lights on the back seat.

For a second I was excited by my good fortune. Camel Lights! That was my brand when I used to smoke! They're normally $9 a pack! I will smoke a free cigarette and recall the bygone days of my youth because I am wild and crazy! But then the moment passed and as I clutched the nearly full pack, I realized that some things were best left in the past.

Our hearts were no longer in our late night adventure, even though we had gone all the way from Dumbo to Park Slope at 2 am. It was time to go home to walk to dog and crawl into bed, accepting defeat and knowing better than to stay out into the wee hours again.

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

"We're going to crack open the big egg!"

I know, I know. I am a bad blog neglector. See, Ms. K and I got back from vacation and life sorta slipped back into this sleepy late August vibe complete with picnics in Prospect Park, bottles of white wine, and trips to the Cortelyou farmer's market. Naturally Labor Day weekend was a staycation since our travel budget was blown in Sweden . . . and then some. Basically a whole lot of nothing has been happening.

It's been a year since Ms. K and I moved in together and very nearly broke up in the process. Time flies! Despite our grand home improvement plans, our initiate stalled sometime in November. Dusty pictures remain unhung, trim is still not put back up, painter's tape is still up in the bedroom, and a To Do list is still on the fridge like a tally of our failures. I think the problem is two fold. On one hand, losing the car in the accident last January cut back on our mobility and the ease in which we could visit Lowes or IKEA. On the other, I think we lost steam in the end because we want to live somewhere else. To put work into a place that we would like to be out of in 6 months seems silly at this point. Never mind the fact that half our books still are in need of bookshelves.

When Ms. K and I got back from abroad, it became ever more obvious that we hate our apartment and our neighborhood. We even started poking around Craigslist to see what apartments were going for. But money is still a big factor and while it is not as expensive to get a back yard space in Park Slope these days, I'm sure we're both reluctant to double our (currently cheap) rent.

So we have dreams and we're working on them, but it doesn't make for very exciting blogging. Ms. K wants to get her masters in Computer Science, we're both working on freelance projects, yadda yadda yadda. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, check out this video that blew my mind: