the only thing worse
than bad memories
is no memories at all..
[dismemberment plan]
3.28.2006
Azn Bitches!
Tonight, I got the night off from work. I half-heartedly meant to go see an ex perform a show nearby, but could too easily picture myself showing up at his favorite bar, drunk, sad, dressed like a hooker, crying... just making a terrible scene -- so I opted out of it and instead took up my friend Jason's invitation to a party at a luxury car dealership where he works. Open bar, free food, how could you go wrong, really?
It was like the other large corporation parties I've been to in the past -- full of red-nosed 50-60 year old businessmen in suits on the verge of pulling the ol' hand-in-the-pocket-penis-tug move because of all the half-dressed 20-40 year old ladies wearing selections from last season's clearance rack items from Daffy's.
I came about two hours after the party had already started, so there were plenty of women in sequins and cheap shiny get-ups already shit-faced, dancing like desperate tornados... when there wasn't even any music playing.
"HAPPY EASTER!!!" shrieked a 40-something Asian woman, holding two fistfuls of her hair vertically from her scalp like bunny ears. "I'm a fucking Easter bunny!" she screamed.
I also saw a wrinkled, white-haired man dragging a very drunk young woman (with a face still youthful enough to be pockmarked by acne) by the shoulders, sharply scolding her with, "You are NOTHING! Nothing!" She was so drunk that she didn't even seem to hear -- she just kept smiling and allowed herself to get dragged across the showroom.
I got to meet Jason's friends, Sean and Frances, who are engaged. A very nice, happy, normal young couple originally from North Carolina. Sean was wearing what appeared to be a straw fedora, which was a welcome distraction from all the stuffy men in suits, and Frances was in khaki slacks and a cute top, which was an even more welcome distraction from the half-naked, old women all around us.
Honestly, I could practically smell about 5 million years worth of pussy in that place.
We all retreated up to the garage on the third floor, where the repairs are done. On our way up the stairs, we passed the second floor, where all the old cronies were smoking cigars and pot. Once we were there, we found one of Jason's co-workers, whose name escapes me... so I'll call him Chris.
"Chris" had brought with him a petite, pretty Asian girl named Daisy. She didn't maintain eye contact with anyone except Chris. She was also wearing a tiny, tiny dress whose neckline was cut to the belly button and whose hemline was an inch from showing her, er, "fortune cookie."
The four of us approached Chris just as Daisy was going downstairs to grab another drink. "Just DRINKS," shouted Chris. "JUST DRINKS, okay?" Daisy said nothing but smiled slyly, slinking down the stairs in her tiny dress. As the fire exit door closed behind her, Chris turned to us, sweating with embarrassment, and said, "Thank god you guys came when you did. Crazy bitch was trying to fuck me behind this car! She kept saying she was going to go downstairs and ask people for condoms."
While Daisy was gone, the five of us commented on her. Chris mentioned that she told him she wasn't wearing any underwear underneath her dress. Jason said, "Yeah, she told me that, too." Frances and I looked at each other as I mouthed, "YIKES!"
So Daisy returned shortly thereafter, only to proudly announce (while looking at her feet) that some guy agreed to give her condoms, but only if he could use them on her. Again, Frances and I give each other a "Yikes!" Every girl in the world is familiar with this tactic Daisy was so brilliantly utilizing -- bragging about how some other guy wants to bone her -- in an attempt to make herself seem more attractive.
Thankfully, there was a general consensus that everyone was hungry, so we all decided to leave. Chris and Daisy stayed behind for a bit, probably to fool around in the garage, and we all murmured about how gross the whole situation was with those two.
"She's got some real issues, I think." "Yeah, some major Daddy issues, probably."
But Sean and Frances split, leaving Jason and me with... Chris and Daisy. We went to a Thai place where we got pad thai and some chicken thing, to which Daisy commented, "Well, that doesn't look very good." Then, she flashed us her left pancake boob. It was... well, to tell you the truth, it was very frightening.
After seeing her Yeti-tit, I wanted to go home. So I did.
And on the way back, taking the A train, I realized that though Daisy must be a couple of years older than me (she is an accountant), the reason why I felt such a strange and discordant combination of distaste and sympathy towards her was because in her, I saw a version of me. Specifically, a version of me when I was 19 years old, two years ago.
I remember all too well being just like her -- unable to look people in the eye when I talked, dressing like a complete ho-bag, saying and doing inappropriate things, getting too drunk, and pretty much making an ass of myself for attention.
When I was 19, my then-gentleman-caller took me to his bar to meet several of his friends -- at least nearly a dozen of them, all in one night. I was so frightened that my hands were cold and sweaty, and I was shaking a bit. At that point, I'm pretty sure I could have counted the number of bars I'd been to in my life on one hand -- maybe with fingers to spare -- and was still settling into being "New York" and trying to sound like an intelligent human being. Instead, of course, I got sloshed, drunkenly wrote "I peed real good" on the chalkboard hanging on the bathroom wall of the bar, glared at everyone with a drunken squint (I squint when I'm too drunk... does that happen to anyone else or is it just me?), argued with a chick about the drummer of Smashing Pumpkins (said chick later seriously insisted that I was mentally underdeveloped, to my absolute horror), nearly fell off my stool, and practically had to be carried home at around 3 in the morning.
Unsurprisingly, I didn't make a good impression on anyone. None of them liked me. Some of them felt bad for me, but not one of them truly liked me, nor did I feel like anyone really got to know me -- and I knew even then that they never would. One of them even referred to me as "some Japanese slut," which, though it may have been a just judgement given my behavior that night, still makes me cry sometimes when I give it too much thought.
Now that I look back on that night, more than two years ago, I can finally understand what everyone else must have felt like. They must have felt how Jason, Chris, Sean, Frances, and I felt about Daisy. Maybe even worse than that, actually.
And well, I realize that I may not have grown out of some of my bad social habits completely, especially not looking people in the eye when I talk (it's hard! I'm Asian for crying out loud, it's in our blood). But I do feel better with this firm belief that I can now differentiate myself from Daisy. I have things to talk about when I meet people. I actually wear underwear when I go out into public. I don't tell a boy that I want to screw him behind a Lamborghini in front his friends, nor do I flash complete strangers at a Thai restaurant.
Earlier in the evening, I heard Frances telling Sean, "I like Tree (that's me!) a lot better than that other girl Daisy. She's so much nicer."
And as lame as it sounds, hearing that made me feel so good. While reflecting upon everything that happened tonight, I couldn't help but feeling like a puppy whose owner forcefully dipped its nose into its own piss to teach it a lesson. Except the piss wasn't mine, it was Daisy's. And the lesson wasn't to stop peeing in the house, it was to not be a crazy-ass Asian ho no mo'.
And I hope to never be that way ever again.
Now if you'll excuse me, even the idea of metaphorically getting my nose dipped in Daisy's piss puddle is creeping me out. I'm going to go boil my nose and spray some Lysol on it. I surely have learned my lesson, yes indeed. I have learned my lesson.
[Peek-a-Foo]