Friday Night Out

My friend Anna is in town visiting some friends, and I tried to meet them at Thor in the Lower East Side, but the place was a freaking zoo and I never caught up with them. It didn't help that I left my crib after midnight because I was watching college basketball, and waiting for the 4 took at least 20 minutes, then the J another half hour or more.

So at 1:30 a.m., I walked in on the lounge-ish side, and the place was pretty cool if you're 25 and want to drink vodka and red bulls for six hours while listening to some bassed-out club bullshit. It's amazing how I've gone from a sports-obsessed near-alcoholic in my 20s to a mid-30s artsy type in search of one, maybe two flavorful drinks on one weekend night. I guess it's not amazing, just part of getting old.

Anyway, I ordered the city's best $12 Ketel One and tonic and found the other side of the facility, a VIP room in which this private party Anna and her crew were hosting. I remember the place well from the first day the Baton and I met Madeleine, and our fun group last June hit Thor and saw a crowd similar to the one I saw tonight. And as the muscle-bound security guy punched in the keypad code next to the door, I asked if I needed to give him my name or some money, and he said, much to my surprise, "Naw -- you look like this is your kind of party."

When a young tough guy says something like that to me, I figure I'm getting ready to step into a gay bar, but the room was crawling with beautiful Asian girls. I certainly don't look Asian, nor do I look like a beautiful girl, but I do enjoy being surrounded by them.

So before I had the chance to look like the old guy at the club, I gulped down my expensive beverage, hoping it would have an instant, Viagra-like effect on my courage. It did. Within minutes, I was carelessly talking to a small group of excellent people. Two great looking Asian girls, their unattractive Asian girlfriend and a couple of Asian dudes. They all loved my glasses but wondered why I didn't check my coat. I then looked around and realized I was the only person with a winter coat on. The other 20-something pretties looked much more comfortable than I felt, but I still entertained them by guessing all five of their nations of origin correctly.

Anna is Korean, the Baton was Filipino -- and I presume she still is -- and Madeleine is Japanese. I've also traveled a few times on my sister's dime to see her in Singapore and Hong Kong, so I guess I've had more exposure to Asian culture than most of my midwestern friends. This all means nothing. I just guessed, and these people loved it. "Sure, a Ketel One and vodka. That's quite nice of you." It pays to have a little bullshit up your sleeve.

As enjoyable as it was to make new friends, probably the highlight of my night was meeting this nice, older gentleman on the train home. He was calmly reading the back of a tall, flat package, and my curiosity caused me to try to steal a few glances at what it was exactly. After a few tries, I realized it was a pack of photo paper. We started talking photography, and while I couldn't place his accent, I did decipher that he shoots with a Canon D20, and he likes to shoot his female friends tending bar, waiting tables, doing whatever. I told him I also like to shoot my female friends, but usually other activities are involved.

Nonetheless, the express train was not running, so we were relegated to this conversation on the local 6 for 15 or 20 minutes. As I got up to leave when I reached my stop, we shook hands, and I was suddenly overcome with a feeling of peace and calm, as his strong, old, black and worn hand had a warming effect on me. It made me think of the hand of the mother of an ex-girlfriend in that it was soothing and relaxing, especially for a perpetually nervous and anxious person like myself, always thinking about debt and other shortcomings. But those fears seemed to disappear with the simple grip of the old man on the 6.