From Three Year Olds to Three Am

Bright and early on Saturday morning my husband T and I hopped a train to New Jersey to celebrate our nephew's third birthday. Luckily, I had the wherewithal to turn down one of my "crazier" friend's offers to hit a guaranteed rager the night before. Even I know it's inappropriate to show up at a family affair soaked in the stench of sweat, booze and hairspray and I didn't want to be introduced to the twenty or so children as Bozo the Hungover Clown. With the panic-attack inducing gifts I had purchased at the children's department in hand, T and I arrived at his brother's home to be greeted by the sound of banging, laughter, tears and "mooooooooommy."

As tiny, adorable little mini people whizzed back and forth past us, up the stairs, down the stairs with parent's chasing them tensely shouting through smiled teeth, "get that out of your mouth!", T and I looked at each other and I said, "Oh shit. Remind me to take my birth control as soon as we get home."

While kiddie parties are often scary (to us non-parents anyway) they do have one amazing upside. Sugar. And lot's of it. Not being one to understand the concept of moderation, I devised a plan. As I stated to T on the train, as thoughts of cookies and cake and chocolate whirled through my head, my plan was to skip all real food and save the calories for dessert. (I decided to do this as a precursor to the experiment I'm planning which is to ditch my normally healthy meals for one day and instead eat the same amount of calories in some sort of completely bad for me food - i.e. an entire box of Enteman's chocolate chips spread out over one day OR three five hundred calorie Oreo McFlurries - breakfast, lunch, dinner).

So while I watched T march back and forth from the lunch table deservedly enjoying an i-don't-have-to-be-on-a-wedding-diet-bliss pizza, sandwiches and whatever else he could get his hands on, I carefully plucked a few snap peas off the veggie tray knowing my moment was coming. Pretty soon, they lined the kiddies up and we sang a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday and my mouth watered as I watched the cake being cut into tiny child-size pieces. As I stood there feeling my bloodsugar dropping, silently thinking to myself, "you better start cutting grown-up sized when it's my turn" I noticed the fruit bowl. In a moment of sanity I decided that I would skip the cake and instead have a feast of fruit and M&M's. Which I did.

Sometime between Happy Birthday and opening presents I ingested so many M&Ms that I felt my body go into some sort of sugar shock. I was literally grinding my teeth and shaking and must've looked like something that came out of the toilet in TrainSpotting. At this rate, I would've been better off showing up as Bozo the Hungover Clown and at least have had a good reason for looking and feeling like Andy Dick's twin sister. Needless to say, I saw my only line of defense to be salt. I mean, they're opposite in taste so they must have the opposite effect right? So after everyone had left and it was just the four of us sitting across a kitchen island seperated by a small sea of Doritos, Tositos, pretzles and dip I did what was necessary and began inhaling piece by piece the salty snacks that in my mind were going to counteract the evil effects of all the delicious sugar I had ingested. Bad idea.

As we rode the train back to the city I downed bottle after bottle of water trying to flush my system out in enough time to be able to suck in my stomach, pull on my favorite jeans and head downtown to Cheap Shots with one of my friends. As I said, I do not understand the concept of moderation so after a nap and quick fix of my make-up, I was sipping a pre-game glass of wine waiting for the call that it was time to go. On my junk food kick and having skipped dinner for two reasons 1) it took about five hours for the feeling of sugar-induced naseau to subside and 2) knowing I'd be drinking enough to warrant a very late night snack, I entered the bar, ordered a Vodka Club and a round of Jolly Rancher shots (did I mention we were pretending we were 20 years old that night) and cheersed my buddies to a long night.

Somewhere between three and four bars later I looked at my Blackberry and saw that my 3 am, self-imposed curfew had arrived. Had I not had a wonderful husband sleeping at home I probably would've said "F-ck it" and used my new Google App to find out which NYC bar stays open the absolute latest, then hauled my group of friends there to keep the party going with the inevidable group of Irish lasses and lads we would find at such a place. Luckily for me, with marriage comes a newly found ability to be rational when you're out without your better half (if T is out with me it usually ends with me holding the camera snapping shots of people's reactions to whatever hilarious, obnoxious and so-unlike-him-snarky remark he just said to a complete stranger). But alas, it was girls' night so at three am, like cinderella, my towncar was about to turn into a subway ride and I grabbed a cab back uptown.

I spent the ten minute ride home deep in thought contemplating what delicous snack I was going to "treat myself" with (as if I hadn't already treated myself like a friggin Oompa Loompa in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory all day). Pizza - No. McDonalds - No. For some reason, again, my 3am rationale kicked in and I decided I was going to have a treat, but not something so bad I couldn't recover from it. I instructed the driver to drop me off in front of the 24 hour Duane Reade and wondered the aisles slowly, contemplating the many options laid out before me. Chocolate and cookies and cake, oh my! Then, like the sun breaking through the clouds, resting gently on a wire rack, was the snack of my dreams. First, I checked the nutritional content (yes, I actually did this). Second, I rationalized that at 140 calories per serving and only 2.5 servings per bag, that 330 calories was reasonable. Third, I took them to the register grabbing a mini Ghiradelli dark chocolate on the way to get some sweet on with my salty.

I walked the block home and on the way ate half of my piece of chocolate and threw the rest out. This is a horrible calorie-saving habit I have and I am fully aware that by even metioning it, half of my readership will step-back and think to themself that I am derranged. The other half will think, "good idea" and enter it into practice immediately, so it's a draw. After over-excitedly greeting our overnight doorman who "it's been way too long!" since I'd seen, I made it upstairs to my apartment, tiptoed into the bedroom, gave T a kiss on the forehead and thought, "see you after the feast."

On the couch I turned on a DVR'd episode of My Name is Earl (which I had to subsequently rewatch the next day for clarity) and downed the bag of SunChips, carefully savoring each bite. I truly believed that the bag would be enough to satisfy my late night craving but when I walked into the kitchen and opened up the fridge to get a glass of water, I saw my favorite of all the food groups staring at me: Butter. Now, if the rest of civilization wouldn't think I was disgusting, I would gladly eat butter and all butter related products with a spoon. No vehicle necessary. However, I'm aware this is socially unacceptable so even at three am, by myself, I took out a piece of bread and piled on enough butter to make it unrecognizable and then went to town. Rinse. Repeat. Only this time with a half of slice of bread (so as not to be "totally disgusting")

I woke up the next morning feeling still full and none to proud of myself. It only got worse when yesterday, as I cleaned out the fridge, I noticed that I had at some point ripped into a leftover piece of chicken as well. I dumped the chicken and headed to the gym where I put in another hour and a half of cardio to try and counteract the effects of my three am feast. Clearly the effects had already taken hold because when I stepped on the scale, the needle was a few notches higher than I generally like it to be.

Perhaps my experiment in junkfood will have to wait or perhaps I already conducted it without even realizing it. Either way, three year olds and three am nights do not a healthy, fit lady make.

Dating

When we woke up this morning, my husband T rolled over, exhaled an ungodly combination of raspberry, mango and tequila into my face and then scratched himself. He got up, sauntered into the bathroom to do what we all do after a long night out on the town. Through the bathroom door, I heard him fart and before the look of disgust could spread across my face, he chuckled at the sound of his own flatulence and somehow I was charmed. I stretched out, smiled and thought, "I love him so much." I burped loudly, rolled over and waited for him to come back to bed so we could tell each other how cute (read: disgusting) we are.

This situation is nothing out of the ordinary. We've been together for five years and there are few boundaries left between us. For better or for worse, we pick our noses in front of each other, we force each other into Dutch Ovens and we've most recently forayed into the mysterious arena of belly-button lint (a fascinating phenomenon.)

However, this morning was different. It was different because instead of waking up, warm and snuggley, in our own bed, in our little apartment where no one can see us, we woke up on an air mattress in the living room of the apartment that our friends D & K share as a couple. They were just a few feet away sleeping with the bedroom door open, in full ear shot of anything and everything we said or did and knowing full well that they would not be spared a smell or sound that emanated from us, we continued on with the same comfort level that we would've if we'd been hungover and disgusting in the privacy of our own home.

We finished the morning with a cup of coffee, a four-person-revolving-door visit to the john, and the unabashed devouring of the first bagel I've had in over a year. As D & K kindly drove us to the nearest New Jersey Transit stop, my husband shamelessly insisted that if we didn't make it the train, they'd be driving us all the way back to Manhattan in much the same way he would half-jokingly coax a ride out of one of our family members. It was at this moment, I pulled out my travel-pack of Pepto Bismol chewables and asked if anyone else in the car was churning the kind of butter in their stomach that I was. Just then, I started thinking about just how long we'd been "dating" this couple and how the relationship had evolved.

We met D & K sometime around 2 and a half years ago through mutual friends and bonded instantly over the fact that we were both "JewTalian". A few weeks later we saw each other again and bonded over the fact that we all like champagne. Lots of it. It wasn't long after that that we ran into each yet again and had the first of what would be many dance-offs at our mutual friend's wedding. Things just clicked and somewhere along the line, one of us suggested that we get together, outside of the mutual friend's celebrations to, ya know, have dinner or something. After four two many cocktails, the next thing we knew we were having our first sleepover when D & K came into the city for our first official "date" as a couple.

The morning after was slightly awkward as is any "morning after" the first time a Saturday night date turns into a Sunday morning, "can I get you breakfast?" Fortunately, when you're a couple dating other couples, the day after the "third date" doesn't require an STD test or Plan B. What it does involve is staying in bed just a little longer than you normally would, not sure when you should go out into the living room where your new friends are sleeping on your air mattress and when you finally do, odds are they've already silently snuck out leaving you an adorable note and letting you know they had a great time. That's how our first morning after with D & K went and shortly thereafter we were making plans to visit them in New Jersey.


Slowly, but surely, you start to bond. Just as two single people bond over their likes, dislikes, random coincidences and shared bad habits; when you're dating another couple you start to bond over the same things. Take D & K for example, as we got to know them we realized we shared some:

Shared Likes: Wine, Drunken Hugs, Guitar Hero
Shared Dislikes: Running out of Wine, Passing out Too Early; Mean People
Random Coincidences: Being "Jewtalian"; Shared Zodiac Signs
Shared Bad Habits: Sneaking Shots, Starting Ridiculous (but-totally-justified-at-the-moment) Arguments with Each Other, Giving Customer Service Representatives an Attitude.

Unlike a date between two single people, a couple date lacks the prospect of sex (unless you're dating at the Burning Man). In fact, a couple date generally lowers the chances of anyone having sex since it usually involves an ungodly and unsexy amount of food. It also usually ends in some rendition of "Oh my gawd! He does too!" and "She gives you shit for that too!" So by the end of the date you feel fat, drunk and too annoyed at your significant other to even think about quietly banging one out while your newly acquired couple-friends sleep no more than 30 feet away.

Dating other couples generally leaves you hungover and having spent too much money without the promise of sex, diamonds or someone to split the rent with. It almost wouldn't seem worth it, but when you wake up one morning with dragon breath, diarrhea, and only a vague recollection of why you told off that cab driver/coat check girl/bartender as a team, it's nice to know you can walk twenty feet, fart in unison and turn to your friends to ask, "what the hell happened last night?!"

The Wedding's Back On

They say it takes one and a half times the length of a relationship to get over it after a breakup. I say the same holds true for recovering from a trip to Vegas.  It's almost unnecessary for me to recap the details of this latest trip to Sin City, also known as my bachelorette party, since it was basically a carbon copy of the trip I took two years ago including:

• One smashed blackberry;
• One called-off relationship;
• One trip to the Las Vegas mall for a new phone;
• and one changed flight.

I got all of this for the bargain price of 3 gained pounds, 1300 spent-who-knows-where dollars, and 2 and 1/2 days post-trip spent in bed reevaluating my life, myself as a person, and sobbing through the decision of whether I can ever face my fiance's family and friends again.  

So, yes, to answer your question, I had a GREAT F-CKING TIME.  

Somehow, between repeatedly exposing my bra, holding on to walls for support as I attempted to dance and paying a $10 ATM Fee at a strip club, I not only had the time of my life, but I learned some important life lessons too.

1. It is stupid to get mad at your fiance because he is having just as much fun as you are so he didn't pick up his phone.
2. It is even stupider to be as mean as you possibly can to him and call of the wedding once you finally get a hold of him.
3. It is most stupid to continue the argument the next morning because, even though you know you're wrong,  you can't admit it.

Perhaps what's really stupid is popping a Zanny on the plane, double-fisting for the entire five hour flight, drinking anything you can get your hands on for the next 12 hours, followed by no sleep and a 6:30am breakfast of Vodka-Cranberry and Petron XO?  Did I mention I had the time of my life?

Now that I'm done sounding like a first-timer sharing at an AA meeting, let me go over the real highlights.  In one single day I got to attend Stripper 101 and Stripper 201.  Stripper 101 takes place at the V Theater in Planet Hollywood.  The pack a rowdy group of birthday girls and bachelorettes into a room filled with poles, chairs and boas.  Throw in some drinks and a ex-"exotic dancer" to teach some moves and you have yourself a good time.  The clothes came off faster than you can say lap-dance and I am left with some awesome pictures and a giant bruise on my leg from swinging around the pole over and over and over again.  

Disappointed that I would have to put clothes on for dinner, I put on the skimpiest thing I own (to quote one of my best friends, "a napkin and heels") and headed to dinner.  We mowed through our meal at Nobu, ancie to get to Stripper 202.  Yes, 8 women, jumped in stretch limo number 156412 of the weekend and instructed the driver to get us over to the Spearmint Rhino, STAT.  

After convincing the doormen that we were lesbians and pinky swearing we would not talk to any men and take away any attention from the actual strippers, we were escorted to a booth in the corner and got our lap dance on.  I find it necessary to explain that my last lap dance experience took place on Staten Island and ended with me clutching a piece of the stripper's weave that had fallen out.  With that said, I am considering this my first "real" stripper experience and here's what I learned:

• Strippers are smooth.  Ridiculously smooth.  Where do I find that lotion?
• Strippers DO let you touch.  A lot.
• Motor boats (especially those involving surgically enhances breasts) are not so much sexy, but a hell of a lot of fun.

Upon waking up on Sunday morning, painfully longing for home and starting to feel REALLY bad about the fight (more accurately described as unwarranted attack) with "T", I managed to get me and my cohorts off of the Red-Eye and onto a 2:35pm flight back to the East Coast.  Now, many days later I have finally managed to get out of bed, face the world, and recap the highlights of my "last weekend of freedom."  

Nudity, Booze and Fighting aside what I took away most from this weekend is that my future sister-in-law is AWESOME.  So awesome that the quality time I got to spend getting to know her and letting her get to know me was worth both:

• the post-fight, heart-breakingly painful because-I-was-mean-to-"T" guilt and 
• the intense fear that my future brother-in-law will either a) hate me forever or b) mention in his best-man speech that, given enough booze, I am a complete psycho.

I've also realized that I have two choices going forward:

1. I can remind myself to pace myself BEFORE I start drinking (not after 12 drinks when pacing myself means going from Vodka Straight to Vodka Soda) or;
2. I can lose 10 more pounds and get some fake boobs and a tan so I can maintain equilibrium on the Hot-Crazy Scale (the hotter a girl is, the crazier she can be).

All in all the weekend was great.  My friends are amazing, my future husband is beyond amazing (despite all the things I said about him at 4:30am Saturday morning) and I am a very lucky girl.  I'm sure I could have learned all of these lessons without the high-price of Vegas by watching an episode of Oprah and reading Eat, Love, Pray, but this was a lot more fun.  

I'd like to say that this was probably my last trip to Vegas, but I'm probably wrong.  I have some goals for the next trip and those include seeing the light of day and seeing the Las Vegas Sign. Moreover, on the first trip, I broke up with "T"; on the second the second trip, I called off my wedding to "T"; I'm guessing a third trip is necessary so I can threaten divorce.   Sounds reasonable, right?