I woke up this morning, thinking, "was it all a dream?" And then I rub carefully dab my spiderlashed eyes to look at my room, absolutely littered with sequins and beaded mini dresses and fur. My suitcase has dramatically exploded with shoes, and seemingly barfed out my leopard trench in a sad little pile. I look at my hands and notice a broken thumbnail. Bits and shards of playback and flashes of memory shoot through my brain like electroshocktherapy.
The scene is Butter, Alex Guarnaschelli's restaurant by day and a posh nyc hotspot by night. It is a brisk night. We are sleepwalking for just minutes before, we had been kittynapping.
Cue me: "NALEE! MY NAIL'S BROKEN IN HALF! MAKE IT STRAIGHT! EAT IT! EEEEEAT IT!"
Cue nalee: "OK!" *chomping on my nail.* what a good friend.
Cue my sister as i am rigorously typing this on my macbook (she is eating two or three puddings in one sitting like a cow): "What is oxycontin actually prescribed for? and What are xanys good for besides increasing the effect of alcohol? i only know these drugs in terms of how to abuse them..."
Brilliant.
Back to the story.
I feel like a cocktail: 1/4th exhausted, 1/2 sad to have left behind the bright lights of the city, and 1/4th relieved at the cease and desist with the blackouts. I forgot how much I love New York: the smells, the people, the crazy cab drivers, the endless array of quirky bars and lounges, and late night pigging out. As the plane hit the runway, I felt a surge of excitement zipping through me from head to toe. I've come to the conclusion that New York is a place where a part of me will always be. Somewhere between the bars, I've left behind a little sequined snippet of the fabric of ME!, and I'll always be haunting an innocent inhabitant's soul. If they're lucky.
Back to my haphazard recap.
So it started like this--Nars and I missed our flight on Thursday. Basically, my sister had been helping me pack with post its and polaroids and the whole shebang...and we lost track of time. Sidenote: we always pack with post its. it's the only way. saves time and effort during the trip. but even for me, I think i went a little bit overboard this time. I mean, who needs 6 pairs of heels for a weekend? Yeah, so we missed our flight. We were facing the horrifying possibility of not making it to NY that night. The delta rep we spoke to seemed extremely pessimistic. ALL flights to JFK and LGA were booked and there was no room on the next two flights out. I was beginning to think that the gods didn't want me in the city. We decided to check the kiosk anyway to see if anything had opened up..*drumroll please* 22B and 23B are open! I guess it was meant to be after all! The fates smile on me.
Thursday Night: We arrived and cabbed it to a Alex's place. Dressed up. Decided to head out to Meatpacking. Went to Sea and the patron kept flowing all night long. I saw friends I hadn't seen in 3+ years. We split up and scurried to Ktown's Circle with Seung & Donald. KunJip is a staple in my Ny adventures. During our 4 day stint in NY we HAD to travel upstate to CT to see B and my nephew Dylan. We got back around 330 and decided to catch the 535am Train to CT. "Should we sleep?" Sure why not. Epic fail. Did not make it to Connecticut.
Chapter One. "Atl is coming...hide the gfs." -vicky
Friday, since we failed at waking up and making it to Grand Central at dawn, I took Nars to Dylan's Candy Bar. This is the happiest place on earth. If i were ever in the depths of despair, I'd run away to Dylans and live in the basement next to the fudge stand. Serendipity's hot chocolate shakes are also a staple. Nars is the funniest travel companion. She orders something, decides that the table next to us has ordered a bigger, badder dessert and is convinced SHE MUST HAVE IT! If i don't stop her and intervene, she will undoubtedly have a table full of desserts she will half nibble. We went back to Soho and had ten fashion orgasms apiece at Topshop. I have never seen so many beautiful dresses. If I were ever to have my own store, it would look exactly like Topshop: loud, in-your-face, and gaudy. I walked in and walked out completely changed from head to toe. That night, I wore my beautiful pink vintage beaded flapper dress to a house party that was SUPPOSED to be a pre-gaming session but that ended up being a 7-hr debauchery binge.
Chapter Two. "You Need Limes or Lines?"
Our 7-hr debauchery binge led to us not going to bed. At all. This might sound absurd, but we were really antsy and HAD to go to Connecticut. At 5am, we cabbed it to Grand Central and were New Haven bound. I am normally a stickler for dressing up, especially for important visits (and i really, really wanted to look pretty seeing my nephew for the first time). But i was totally incapable. Nalee wore doctor scrubs and sweatshirt and i wore basketball shorts and flipflops that were 3 times too big. Blair would be so disappointed. Sandals aren't shoes!
Saturday Morning: Homeless chic in CT at 7am, B and Dylan. After seeing how hard it is to be a mom and how much love, patience, and knowledge goes into motherhood, i don't think i could be a mom right now. Everybody wants a mini me. And seeing how beautiful Dylan is in person, the idea of raising a child that's exactly like you and a part of you like that...it's a beautiful thought for me to entertain, but it ends there. A thoughtlet. I'm too selfish right now to have a child. And after seeing B and Dylpickle, it appalls me even more to see young moms who i know damn well should not be moms, be moms.
Saturday Night: The Wedding, the ridiculous girl who made the "gochu" comment. She killed me. So. ridiculous. i think she basically ruined the reception. After the wedding, Nalee and I zipped to the Lower East Side to meet up James and his friends at Los Feliz (a vampire lair that specializes in tequila). We sipped a scrumptious hibiscus drink - presumably their version of True Blood? Afterwards we went to Happy Ending (ex whore house in Chinatown). I'm so proud that my friend James has not been polluted by success and his inner sweet-tempered nature impaired by the MMA lifestyle. Sadly, i did not get to say goodbye to him because i had a full-blown panic attack inside Happy Ending and had to rush out. So sorry, James! :( Where is Elliot and his xanax stash when i need it??? I should have taken some of my sister's. Damn Challs and his contagious panic attacks! I wasn't feeling too well so we went back to Alex's place to recharge and lo and behold he's hosting a house party. We walked in wonderfully smashed and said our hellos and kissed ppl on the cheeks and decided that after a night of no sleep and a morning of riding trains and babysitting and an evening of barhopping, we needed a kittynap. So here we are, a party going on outside and Nars and i shut up in the bedroom in our black minidresses curled up in fetal mazzaballs as we kittynap! WAKE ME UP IN 30!
Chapter Three. Butter, Donald's chocolate cookie, Iron Chef New York, Hungover in Soho, and Kiki de Montparnasse.Why is it that there are some guys who turn a sickly purplish shade, look like their faces are going to tuhj [explode], and start mouthbreathing when they drink? Maybe they should just...
not drink. Anyways, after our kittynap, we left Alex's houseparty for Butter. Nalee and i felt like zombies because our bodies were still in sleep-mode. But as soon as the music started bumpin and the patron started pouring we were at our A game again. So much so that we blacked out in about an hour. But i don't feel so bad because apparently everybody blacked out and nobody remembers going home.
I only have shards of memories from when we got back to the house. For those of you who black out from drinking, you will understand this strange occurrence. Blackouts are something akin to glimmers of experience that you know happened but can't really say you experienced because it's like an out of body experience. Then there are the parts that are absolutely nonexistent. Those parts scare me because i have to get someone to fill in the blank. I remember being a judge for Iron Chef New York: Battle Egg as Nalee and Chung cooked their hearts out. Before that, i think i remember a game of cards? i dunno. After Iron Chef, i took an oxycontin and tried to go to sleep. However, i slept in patches. i thought oxycontin was supposed to be oxyawesome. Nein. =(
On Sunday morning, i was beyond hungover. I was drunkover. We stumbled around Soho and got pho. I guess pho is the universal drunkover food. Afterwards, since i owed Donald something sweet, we went to Eileen's and got cheesecake. It's too thick and creamy. Speaking of creamy, we went to Kiki. It's like a hard-edged Victoria's Secret with crystal dildos galore. Lovedit. We went back home, packed, watched a bit of Battle Royale (only the sickest Japanese movie ever, but what Japfilm isn't) hopped in a car and off to JFK we went. i loves JFK!
And here i am. Atlanta, home sweet home. the party and patron is slowly seeping out of my pores. i still have unpacking to do. I spent the entire day vegetating with my sister, grocery shopping, watching tv, and giving her the detailed play by play. She is the only one who knows all my secrets. And of course, you, my dear reader, know a lot more about me than the average person i come across in everyday life.
With all the chaos surrounding the past couple weeks, i've failed to stop, pause, and take a breather. My sister's baby Mimi, a blond pomeranian who she raised since she was a baby and is now 6 yrs old, got attacked by a bull mix. (It's always a bull mix, isn't it?) Mimi almost died. She had emergency surgery at the top animal hospital in the Southeast and was placed in an ICU oxygen tank for 3 days in critical care. My sister was inconsolable and hysterical for days. She has experienced a lot of unspeakably crazy things in her life, but this was by a landslide the worst. I can talk about this ordeal now because mimi is on the road to recovery and because i think it's important for me to share with people who have lost a loved pet or even a family member, because Mimi is really a family member. Nearly losing Mimi really made us reassess our lives and what's important. Life is precious and God gives and he can just as easily take away. We have never prayed so hard in our lives. My mom who had been gone for a month flew in from Korea to tend to Mimi. We cried and prayed and prayed some more. It seemed so senseless to my sister and me, but my mom reminded us that not even a sparrow falls from the sky without God knowing it. And he demonstrated his mercy to our family in this. And here we are, nursing Mimi back to health and chewing food in our mouths and spitting it out so she will eat. It will be awhile before she's back to normal. She can't bark or walk or eat on her own. She wets herself and she has nightmares and wakes up whining and squealing. But we are so full of thanks and wonder at how good God is. Funny that that's what it takes for us to be thankful again. 
Fall seemed to come overnight and all the leaves are orange, red and yellow now. Atlanta weather is so fickle. So freakin fickle. Maybe that's why all the women are fickle. One day it's a warm 72 and the next day it's 45 and raining. I look at the trees changing colors and it's like a reminder of how transformation is a part of our existence. As I get older, I can't help but feel the responsibilities piling up, the stress that every day brings to the table. And I find myself formulating an escape. My very own Wonderland. I want to jump and fall into the dark abyss and get lost in a world that is incomparable to my own...where things are unorthodox and may seem crazy to the untrained-Wonderlandoutlandish eye. 
