Clareified

You know, the thing about being friends with immigrants is, you’re never quite sure if they understand what they say.
For instance, Karol might say “hey, I’ll come by your house and we can drive to PN’s birthday party together.”
But, what she means is, “hey, I’ll come by your house and you can drive me home, where you can watch the Yankees game with Peter, while I put on a fashion show of all the clothes in my high school wardrobe that I can still fit into and then, three hours later we will go to PN’s birthday party together.”
And so it was, somewhere in the bottom of the eighth, I am watching Karol spin around the living room floor in thigh high brown suede boots, a two inch cloth skirt, with a split up the middle and a pin in the side, wearing a half button striped shirt.
I quickly begin to think of a tactful way to say “um…so you intend to supplement your income tonight with some streetwalking, eh?” That is what women who wear boots that are longer than their skirts do, right?
I then laugh and laugh as Peter manages a “no…it’s nice…but it …umm…might be too much.”
“Ugh, why am I stuck with you two. Cause really, neither of you are any help,” she says as she stomps back to the bedroom.
And if you thought that would be the end of it – that having been judged and found useless, Peter and I would be spared any further faux runway walking – you’d be wrong.
The next outfit, I think was black letter with hot pink stripes.
Again, Peter gave a “too much” verdict, which I translated into “whore.”
So, of course, that’s the outfit she picked.
And a mere four hours after leaving my house in Brooklyn, there we were at PN’s party.
The crowd was a veritable who’s who of the blogosphere.
I chatted with the newly graduated from law school Doug.
“Are you glad you went?” I asked him.
“Well, now that it’s over I can appreciate it more than when I was actually commuting every day.”
Read: No.
“HA! I told you not to go to law school! I warned you!”
We did our muted cautiously optimistic but fully understanding that anything can happen cheering for our long suffering Mets and then listened to Peter and Ari cross their little fingers that the Yankees could somehow bring the series back to New York.
HAHHAHAHAHAHAHA. Sorry.
“Hey…is that Ivan?” I asked.
“Umm..yeah…I think it is…he’s totally sleeping.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, he is passed out on the couch.”
Crazy Russians.
I saw a semi-familiar figure pass by and I thought it was Ken Wheaton.
“Not unless he’s gotten really ugly,” Ari asessed.
Oops.
Even the elusive Ace of Spades was there.
Since he has moved out West, I practiced some of his local dialect to make him feel less disoriented.
“So, how is Bahston? Do you take the T to Hahvard Square?”
I don’t remember the answers, as I was focusing on my accent.
Of course, the lovely Petite Dov had also made the trip in for PN’s big day.
Unlike some women, who shall remain nameless, Petite was dressed in a beautiful black dress which did not look like something from the Hookers Today catalogue.
The birthday girl herself was enjoying her party and I caught brief glimpses of her dancing it up on the dance floor.
As is traditional with PN and Lisa birthday parties, the bar was showing a pseudo racy video of Carmen Electra’s “strip tease” exercise videos.
She would grind in the metal chair, then swing her legs over it, then…uhh…PG-13 blog.
As is also traditional of the PN and Lisa birthday parties, the birthday girl had cupcakes instead of a birthday cake.
PN impressively blew out all the candles in just three or four or five attempts. Eh, she’s getting old. We can’t all be 27, you know.
I took a cupcake, pulled out the candle and pulled down the foil cup. Mmm…delicious…vanilla cake and creamy frosting…and…hmm…why yes, the unmistakeable taste of wax paper…
Upon fishing the nonedible strip from my mouth, I discovered that there were two layers of cupcake cups around the cupcake. One foil and one clear.
Look, it was dark. And I was hungry. Don’t judge me, you weren’t there.
When Doug decided it was past his bedtime, he got up to leave. I said I would go with him.
We headed for the door.
“Hey, say goodbye to PN,” Ari scolded.
Doug turned back into the party to find her.
She was taking a picture and so he waited, I stood a few feet away.
“Hey, Happy Birthday again. I’m taking off,” he said, giving her a hug.
“WHAT! You’re leaving?? LOOOZZERRR. Come on stay!!”
He laughed.
“No, I can’t.”
“Fine! Loser!”
Uh oh…and Doug’s been here way longer than I have…I think we’re going to go with the patented Dawn Summers slink away.
I backed away from the dance floor and made a dash for the door…come to think of it, I don’t know what ended up happening with Doug.
(Reason #345 why Dawn wouldn’t make a good marine. She will leave a man behind.)
I hit the night air and was free – sort of…
“Dawn!”
Karol, Ari, Ace and some guy were outside smoking.
I covered my face with my braids and walked briskly toward my car.
“DUDE. We can still see you.”
Dangnabit.
I walked back.
“This is Vlad. Vlad, that’s Dawn,” Karol said introducing me to “some guy.”
“Hi.”
“How do you know PN?” he asked.
“We go waaaay back. To 2004.”
“Really? I didn’t know PN lived in the ghetto. I thought she lived on the Upper East Side.” he replied.
“What?” I said assuming the universal “oh no you did not just say what I think you just said” stance.
Karol started to laugh.
“I guess it’s better than living in some yuppie neighborhood,” he continued, “Oh, no offense,” he then said to Karol.
“Oh, none taken,” I answered for her.
Karol laughed harder.
I am going to have to get my homies to bust a cap in this dude’s ass.
“She does not live in the ghetto. In fact, her net worth is higher than all of the rest of us combined,” Karol said.
“Oh…I have 2000 in roubles!” he countered.
Good Lord in heaven.
He eventually left and Ari shook her head.
“You know, that’s not even the dumbest thing he said all night.”
Apparently, “some guy” was on a “caveman diet,” so he only ate raw wooly mammoth meat and dinosaur ribs (As is my understanding of the time via The Flintstones).
Peter came outside to say that he might be able to get a ticket to Game 5 of the Yankees/Tigers series (HAHAHAHAHHAHA –ed)
“Yeah, you might be going with Ari,” Karol said.
“Oh, I don’t mind!” He said in that “you gotta do, what you gotta do” tone.
“Oh yeah!,” I said remembering that young Ari was out of the rat race, “you’re like living the leisurely life these days after leaving your job…what’s that like?”
“It’s awesome! I saw Jackass 2 at like 3 in the afternoon?”
Uhh…awesome?
“When Karol was unemployed she’d brunch at Café des Artistes at 2 in the afternoon and then stroll through Central Park, eating crepes and sitting on rocks and then they would end their session looking at jewelry in Harry Winston!” I said…you know, trying to give her ideas for her idle afternoons which don’t involve watching Steve-O cracking his skull open.
“Are you high? I did no such thing!” Karol protested.
“I’m high on life, baby!”
Or the second hand smoke from the nine cigarettes that they managed to suck down in the fifteen minutes since I’d come outside.
“Ok, I think I’m going to go. Say goodnight to PN for me.”
“What? You didn’t tell her bye? Get back in there.”
“Uh uh.”
I told them what had happened to Doug. “I don’t wanna be called a loser!”
“Nah, it’s an expectations thing. PN knows you are a loser, so she wouldn’t actually call you one to your face,” Karol reasoned.
Hate her.
“You should just tap on the glass door and wave,” Peter suggested.
“YES!”
And so I gently rapped the window, gave a quick swish of the arm and I was off into the night.
You know, to head back to the ghetto where all the black people live.

This entry was posted by Dawn Summers on Tuesday, October 10th, 2006 at 12:25 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.