Pretend with me, for a moment, that you are at a party in New York Saturday night, dancing in the sweltering apartment of an acquaintance thrice-removed, in the company of a lot of other acquaintances and one very old friend. You are dancing. Dance dance dance. The music is silly and fun. You're NOT drunk, but you're in the process of drinking. You have invented a new drink involving Dr. Pepper and orange rum that actually tastes fantastic. Seriously, you like it. It's really good. Others agree. Then, to your delight and astonishment, George Michael's "Freedom '90" comes on the stereo. To your utter horror, you do not remember all the words.
You are unhappy with this. Specifically, the part of you that hung out in someone's (names have been glossed over to protect the innocent and the people you lost track of 10 years ago) bedroom and kissed the Tiger Beat poster of George, complete with earring and beard stubble and bad-boy glare, is gone gone gone. The only lines you really remember are the loud ones... "sometimes the clothes do not make the man".... "all we have to do is take these lies and make them true"... "I don't belong to you, and you don't belong to me". But that's it.
How many times have I wished I could make room in my brain for something else and get rid of the lyrics to, I don't know, the Les Mis soundtrack, or "Puttin' on the Ritz," or anything Michael Bolton ever wrote? I don't wish it anymore. It actually made me a little sad to not know the George Michael words. Everyone else in the room was apparantly suffering the same fate, although I don't know if they really knew them in the first place. Our 12-year-old selves: Not pleased.
Anyway. Lots of other things happened this weekend, including but not limited to: the very nice wedding of two very nice people; the visiting of an old friend in Brooklyn; the verdict that Brooklyn isn't bad, actually; the very first-ever taking of the Long Island Railroad, which is more satisfying when pronounced as its acronym, LIRR; the eating of a world-famous cupcake and the drinking of the best sangria I've EVER had (sorry Cactus Cantina, consider yourself deposed); the whiling away of a gorgeous hot sunny morning in Prospect Park; the meeting of another friend who had her very first story published in the New York times because she's incredible and awesome; the bailing out of a free ride to DC to spend time and $87 on a cool quiet Amtrak train with other nice people; the intense conversing between myself and a kick-ass woman who is a physicist for NASA on said train two days before. That was in no particular order, by the way, and was not particularly effective in giving a complete picture of the weekend. Better and more consise posting soon. Hopefully.
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