Last night I went to a party.
I mean, of course I did. I go to a lot of parties. But most of them are thrown by friends of mine, and are pretty low-key: bonfires in backyard and barbeques and the like.
But this time, I went a party through a website. It was a cocktail party, and we were instructed to dress to the nines and come on down to a fabulously expensive downtown apartment. I knew no one, but— you can’t be afraid of new people, right?
As soon as I got there, I got a tour. It was three bedrooms, two baths, a balcony overlooking the loop, a massive kitchen brimming with liquor. Oh, and a BDSM room. “You can touch the toys,” he told me and the other woman getting the tour. “But you can’t play with them. That’s another mailing list!” Then he showed us his cage, which was across from the massive bed. It looked to be a small closet with a new and cage-like door, which was quite clever.
I started drinking immediately. For one thing, I’m not impervious to nerves. For another, the party was only supposed to go to eleven, so I needed to get buzzed but still be sober when it was time to go. Oh, and of course I was the sixth one there, so it was super awkward at the beginning when we were all sort of staring at each other.
Which isn’t the fault of the host, who was doing his best to get people talking. Liquor+time+more people was the magic formula, and soon everyone was loose and chatty.
Around 10:30, a guy in a too-big sport coat showed up. “You can’t be older than 22,” I told him, and I was right. We still bonded, though, because both of us were recently single. I mentioned to him that after the party I was planning on hitting some bars, and it turned out he lived right where I was planning on drinking. “Maybe you can give me a ride,” he suggested.
11:00 came and went without sign of the host tiring, so a bunch of us ended up laying on huge, fancy couch in the library, chatting. College Kid put his arm around me, and you know, look. I’m not defending myself here, but I let him, and I found it generally distracting, and right now most everything I go do is an attempt to distract myself from feeling terrible and from doing something stupid like texting my ex. So I laid next to him and an incredibly tall man on the couch and talked to a chatty redheaded woman and let CK rub his fingers over my arm and contemplated maybe asking him to sleep with me when I drove him home. I’m not proud of this, but I’m not going to dissemble here either.
Around 2am, we all got kicked out, and I walked the kid to my car.
Well, I TRIED to. But it wasn’t there. I walked a few extra blocks, in case I’d forgotten where exactly I’d parked, but my car was gone.
I called 311, the non-emergency line for Chicago. They put me through to the local impound lot, which didn’t have it. I called 311 again, and asked to fill out a police report. The guy on the line yelled at me because I didn’t know what the exact address was that my car had been taken from. I called 911, who told me I couldn’t fill out a report without going into the station. I called 311 again, who told me I couldn’t leave because the squad car had to meet me there to fill out the report. I called 911, who said 311 was staffed by morons. They started to take my report, but told me to call back when their system wasn’t so slow.
At that point, I saw a squad car, and approached the officer and asked if she’d been sent to me to fill out this report. No, she explained, she was there for a movie shoot. My car probably got towed, she said, and no one at 911 or 311 actually cared if I got my car back. Also, by now it was about 4am, and no one I was going to see on the street at 4am had my best interest at heart. I should go to a hotel, she said, and CK told me I could crash at his place.
So I did, because what else was there to do? It was past 4, and I was keyed up, and my car was missing, the same car I just bought because I totalled my old car on my birthday and then I got dumped and now my car had been stolen and could this summer actually get any shittier? I’m fairly certain it couldn’t.
I ended up spending the night in his apartment, a studio he’s sharing for the summer with a girl who he apparently slept with before she moved in. She thought it meant something, he thought it did not, and now she wants his emotional support and hugs and he gives them to her and good lord, 22 year olds can be dumb. I got to sleep next to him, a complete stranger I’d only known for 6 hours, while wearing his shirt and shorts.
We didn’t have sex.
He more or less kicked me out at 10am, because he had to go to his friend’s apartment to do his laundry because it was $.75 cheaper a load, which may be the real age difference between us. However, first, he bought me a donut from Dunkin Donuts. Because to a 22 year old, I’m fairly certain this means something.
A friend of mine had seen my panicked status on facebook and asked me if I needed him to do anything, so I made him pick me up. I thought we’d go to the police station to fill out a report, but first I called the impound lot, who almost immediately told me that actually, they did have my car, and could I please pick it up before they had to really impound it?
That’s right, they’d moved my car for the movie shoot, so when Jupiter Rising (starring Human Thumb Head Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis) comes out if everyone could please boycott the stupid thing that would be super helpful thank you.
My friend H (who once proposed to
throwingpens, who is half his age) took me to the impound lot, after driving around downtown for over half an hour. You see, the GPS, and the both of us, didn’t account for the fact that there’s Upper Wacker Drive, Lower Wacker Drive, and, as it would turn out, Lower Lower Wacker Drive, deep in the bowels of the city, where they hide impounded cars from nice suburban girls.
I have my car now, which is good, and I didn’t sleep with a college student, which is probably also good, and I’m giving up on socializing, which will probably last until tomorrow.
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Date: 2013-08-12 12:50 am (UTC)I will totally boycott "Jupiter Rising" for you. <333
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Date: 2013-08-12 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 02:04 am (UTC)I hope it gets better for you soon.
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Date: 2013-08-12 02:10 am (UTC)Of course, you know Hollywood. Oy. Talent is not necessarily indicative of success.
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Date: 2013-08-12 02:15 am (UTC)Want me to go kick your ex in the kneecaps? <3
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Date: 2013-08-12 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 02:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 01:03 am (UTC)I didn't realize movie shoots can just tow cars that are in their way, with no notice. What a hassle. I will happily boycott that movie I've never heard of on your behalf.
I hope you start feeling more like yourself soon. I guess it takes a while, but it sucks.
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Date: 2013-08-12 02:08 am (UTC)I would also like to point out I've met other people from the internet who have cages. For instance,
Just... of course I ended up at a party with a cage. I mean, come on.
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Date: 2013-08-12 01:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 01:57 am (UTC)I am pretty glamorous, even more so in a cocktail dress, although less so the next morning in the same cocktail dress, looking like I'm on a walk of shame.
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Date: 2013-08-12 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 01:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 01:47 am (UTC)"However, first, he bought me a donut from Dunkin Donuts. Because to a 22 year old, I’m fairly certain this means something."
It does. As a 22 year old, I can honestly say, nobody has ever bought me donuts without having some feelings for me. I say this, having bought and eaten a half dozen donuts from Dunkin Donuts myself this morning, and nobody has had more feelings for me than me.
Also, 22 year olds are FUCKING STUPID.
PS: Aside from the BDSM room, what did you think of the apartment? Should I see if a hockey player lives in the same building? Do you think a hockey player lives in that building? You know I have goals and one of them is to have a nice apartment/marry a hockey player before my lease is up here, in my shoebox.
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Date: 2013-08-12 02:14 am (UTC)The apartment was phenomenal. I know there are better ones in the city, because Oprah used to live here, but it was the nicest one I've ever been in. But I think you'll have to search elsewhere for hockey players. Though if I ran into one, to be fair, I wouldn't have known who he was unless he grabbed my face and told me or something.
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Date: 2013-08-12 02:38 am (UTC)"I started early in the day. And then I kept eating."
I'll work on it. But you've got to help if you find one. I was telling
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Date: 2013-08-12 02:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 03:06 am (UTC)That's fine: I dare you to track down a 20 year old hockey player. GO.
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Date: 2013-08-13 12:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-13 12:15 am (UTC)are we sure it isn't just laziness?
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Date: 2013-08-12 02:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 02:22 am (UTC)I'm told this doesn't happen to other people, and I aspire to be one of those people (sometimes).
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Date: 2013-08-12 02:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 02:45 am (UTC)Which might be the difference between us, I realize now.
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Date: 2013-08-12 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 02:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 03:06 am (UTC)(Because I'm stupidly mature and boring for a 22 year old, probably?)
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Date: 2013-08-12 03:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-14 01:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 03:08 am (UTC)Also, I love you and I'm very sorry you had to deal with all of this, even if it does make for a great story (BDSM room?!).
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Date: 2013-08-12 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 04:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 06:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 08:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-13 09:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-13 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-13 12:44 am (UTC)At one point, he said he was straight. Then he said, wait, actually, he was technically pansexual, because he believed you fell in love with the person, not the genitals. Though he'd of course never been into a guy. And it was all I could do not to tell him that while pansexuality was a thing, he was not a pansexual. I just wanted to pinch his cheeks and tell him he was a political lesbian.
He also offer to let me keep the clothes he'd lent me, as though wandering the streets in cargo shorts while carrying a cocktail dress would somehow be less weird than just wearing the cocktail dress. No, no, no.
There was something else I was going to tell you about. Damnit.
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Date: 2013-08-13 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 06:20 am (UTC)Also, I'm super sorry you had a shitty night but... you also have the best stories pretty much always so, silver lining??
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Date: 2013-08-13 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 08:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 03:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-13 12:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-14 01:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-12 10:35 pm (UTC)Had to look up the Channing Tatum movie and it's called Jupiter Ascending and here is the plot:
In a universe where humans are near the bottom of the evolutionary ladder, a young destitute human woman is targeted for assassination by the Queen of the Universe because her very existence threatens to end the Queen's reign.
So, yeah, I'll be boycotting that for you. No question.
I can't vouch for my mom (who is in her 60s) because she thinks he's dreamy. (She has not seen Magic Mike. This fondness is based on The Vow.)
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Date: 2013-08-13 12:52 am (UTC)Oh yeah and nudity.
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Date: 2013-08-13 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-08-14 01:40 pm (UTC)I'm desperately curious, though - what was the meetup described as? Did anyone hook up? Was the cage used?
Just so you know, what happens to these things as you get older (at least for me) is that they morph from being fully remembered evenings to scenes to just vignettes.
Which is why I can still remember, entirely out of context, wading across the floor of some guy's studio apartment, through about an 8" depth of crumpled up paper.