Sunday, June 27, 2010

Not staying in... literally going "out there"

I spent many many many Friday nights, and many many many Saturday nights at home on my couch, with the cats. It's not for lack of invitations out, it's for lack of having any motivation to deal with what going out really means in this city. For starters, one has to drive almost everywhere, and since I tend to be a bit of a control freak I end up driving all my drunk friends around. So, I'm sober and the DD and no one can figure out why that isn't exactly fun for me. But whatever.

I generally believe in good sober fun anyway, a little buzz, a lot buzzed now and then fine, but I always like to know how I, and all of my friends are getting home safe. So generally speaking, in order to avoid getting annoyed with lack of organization and avoid trying to figure out who will stay sober to drive everyone back, and in order to avoid getting things spilled on me etc etc. I tend to stay in on the weekends because while it's not exactly fun and exciting, it's safe and relaxing.

But this weekend, I went out, both Friday and Saturday, I didn't turn down invitations, even though part of me wanted nothing more than to stay at home and do nothing, but since the layoff I've been doing a lot of that anyway, so it was time to get off my ass.

I would love to tell you I got dressed up to the nines and crashed some fabulous party and drank my way my through expensive liquors and danced with handsome men, and came home with a ride from a stranger in a fancy car at dawn and fell into bed and slept the day away to get rid of the hangover. That in the 2 months of this blog I have become the most popular, out there and more confident party goer I have always wanted to be!

Alas, that didn't happen, but that doesn't mean I didn't have a great time! I had a great time! It's funny, on the one hand I'm not surprised at all, I went out with my roommate (who is one of my best friends) my best friend and my best friends mom and bunch of other good friends were joining up with us later for to see one of our favorite bands of all time. But part of the reason I don't go out often is no matter how good something sounds a head of time, something always ends up being waaaay more complicated than it needs to be. Which probably isn't anyone's fault, I think it might just have to do with being 20 somethings in Los Angeles, a city where the metro stops running, cabs are really over priced and hard to come by, unless you want to stay with in your neighborhood, it's just flat out hard to get around.

So Friday night, despite all the awesome things and people that were in front of me, I was apprehensive, but I'm happy to say it was unfounded. We started the night out for dinner at our fave Mexican restaurant, with five dollar margaritas and entree's so large you have to split them, so cheap and amazing. Spent the time catching up with my best friend's mom who is one of my favorite people ever, and just having good conversation. When it came time to head to the show, someone else offered to drive! I didn't have to drive, and while that didn't mean that I was going to drink, it was just nice to not have to drive for once. The Rescues as usual were AMAZING... one of the best bands I've seen live ever, and I've seen them like 5 or 6 or even more times now and they just keep getting better! We even found a corner of the bleacher seats in the loft to sit at (a friend is on crutches...more on that in another post) and we could actually see and hear the band and even the comments we made amongst ourselves. Just an all around great time. We met downstairs after with 3 other friends everyone was glad to see each other and we agreed to finish the night with some good cheap beer and good conversation down the road. Good, clean sober fun. The whole evening reminded me of what it is I do actually go out. So maybe, I'll continue on this going out thing for a bit, I am young after all.

Last night my other best friend (we will refer to her in this blog as hungiemuffin), so last night Hungiemuffin and I decided to try something new. As part of this whole "putting myself out there" situation I pretty much have not decline these offers to do new things, so off we trotted to a jazz club. She has been looking to find places to sing jazz at, and I have been looking to just get out of the normal bar scene. So we got dressed up and headed out...only to find that jazz club had a $5 dollar cover, and electronica bands playing for the evening. Now, a 5 dollar cover would have been fine if there was actual jazz, but alas no. While part of me wanted nothing more at that point to end the adventure there, call it a night and walk a little further down the street to the comfort of Yogurtland, that's not what we did. I turned to my hungiemuffin and said "You said there was a karaoke place at the end of the street?" and off we went. Only to find that no in fact there wasn't a karaoke place at the end of the street. Strike 2. Still mostly undeterred we decided to wander across the street into the little outdoor Little Tokyo mall, and find another karaoke place. Very excited to now have found a new place for the evening we wandered in to a couple singing "Don't Speak" drunkly on stage, we sat, ordered some Udon and waited for more singes. And waited, and waited. No one else got up on stage and while we could have gotten up to sing, we agreed that it would be more fun if we had a bunch of people we know with us. Sort of an epic fail for a wild and crazy evening, but we still had fun, and found a great new hang out, that is cheap, nearish enough by, and that does in fact have karaoke, which I imagine with a large group of friends will be a really really great time!

So maybe I didn't have the most epic weekend ever, but I didn't stay in. And I went some places I hadn't ever been before, and discovered that they were excellent. If I hadn't been putting myself out there I never would have thought of going to Little Tokyo, despite the fact that for months I literally drove past it during carpool and always commented on how fun it looked with no real desire to check it out. Glad I finally did. So maybe this chick will venture out more often, and maybe in the process, I'll become that more fun person I've talked about becoming and maybe even in the process I'll accidently naturally meet someone... who knows, but I think I feel good things coming.

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