Everything tastes better at 3AM

I was having dinner with my friend the other day asking him about his volunteer program because I need something to have to wake up for on weekends and get me to come home before 3AM all the time when he asked, What the hell are you doing out until 3AM?? I had to think about it and after a while, I really couldn't say. Dude I don't know, I'm just out. Like, dinner starts at 8, takes a long time because asshole NYC restaurants have no respec' for anyone's time, pay the check by 10, on to the first party and then you gotta be somewhere else at around midnight right? And then after that...for three hours...well I don't know. Anyway he wasn't being judgy he was just wondering. And I wondered too. He came to the conclusion that it probably wouldn't be so weird if he actually drank and I said oh yeah, that's what I'm doing. Also, talking.

Anyway, so we were done with dinner and onto our little jazz show at Birdland. I was looking forward to it - hadn't done something this musically cultural in a while. But then as it turns out, Birdland is the type of place where everyone's sitting at a table with a little candle and you're really not supposed to chat, so while Julie Monthien was crooning away my friend and I got bored and we left. Then he's all I'm tired going home, can I put you in a cab? I say I'm going to take the subway since it's midnight - wait - ONLY midnight!? WTF! So as he gets into his cab and I head to the subway I text whoever I can think of that might be doing something cool and finally find a crowd that's hanging out at The Archive because no one is gonna cut my Saturday night partying short, especially when I don't have anything ass early to get up for the next day like a brunch at 1. No one!

It's almost 1AM when I get there and it's a crappy smelly pub in the middle of B&T douchewad zone that's not exactly "ducking awesome" with a lot of "hit guys" as text advertised by my very drunk friends, but the comfort lies in the fact that my very drunk friends are all there. And so we continue to talk. And drink. And stare at the bartender's mighty large boobs.

Last call is at 2AM and since we're a block away from K-town, I beg, beg my friends to go to Korean Fried Chicken. I think the worst torture one can perform on me other than that fingernail pulling thing or the thing where someone strings you up on a tree upside down with a beehive taped to your neck while someone else drizzles honey all over your face in the middle of bear country is to slowly walk me by 32nd & 5th and then suckerpunch me, shove a black bag over my head and stick me in a cab going to 96th street and bway without allowing me at least 20 minutes to spend in korean fried chicken heaven in the best restaurant this lovely planet can offer, Bonchon. (I will always call it by it's original name because the new one is awful. Just awful.)

My friends relent (it's really easy convincing drunk people to do your bidding) and so we split one large wings platter, mixed and I down an OB and man. I am happy. I am on cloud nuevo. By the time we're done and we're paying the check I look at my watch (haha syke! I don't wear a watch fools!) and it is very neatly 3AM. Time to go home.

That, my dear friends, is what I am doing out until 3AM.