End of an era
I just woke up and realized how few days I have left before I go home. And just how much work I have to do before then. And for about a minute I was convinced that I wouldn't even be able to get in to the city one last time. And that's when I panicked, got up, and took out my history book...
I think I'm overreacting, but it was such a scary panic and for one second I almost wished I was going home a day later so I could get in one last day of shopping and a tour of Central Park. (Almost.)
Last night was my last night out in the lovely Bronx around my campus. (My campus is not a part of the Bronx, no matter how much it is inside of and surrounded by it.) It started too late in the night, after margaritas and greasy Mexican in the room (Cinco de Mayo, baby.) We wanted to go to the bar we've been going to for a month or so, but we were told we couldn't get in, for absolutely no reason. So we were standing on the corner in front of it, in all the prostitute-innuendo of the phrase, waiting for our other friends to catch up to us so we could decide what to do instead. When they finally showed up, a beggar started hitting on us, with his little shopping cart of garbage-bin-fetched cans, so the doorman relented and let us in so we could get away from him. (My friend thinks it was because she showed up and knows the doorman better than us. I let her continue to think that.) It was fun in there because we just hung out with our friends who'd been there since earlier in the night (when it's impossible to get turned away.) Even making our friend drunk-mad at us all because we threw a sliver of a lime in his general direction was amusing to me, I was in that kind of mood. But after an hour it was getting packed (apparently the doorman started letting everyone else in too) and everyone was sweaty and hot and getting moody. So a few of us decided that was enough of that.
We went to down the street to other bar, which I hadn't been to since the way beginning of the year when we were hanging out with an entirely different crowd. I had thought that the reason I stopped going to that bar was because there's a cover charge, but then we got there and I remembered the real reason... The doorman was accompanied by one of the drunk patrons, who took my ID and read my name aloud, muttering "Make sure to Facebook that later." I just took the ID back and ignored him. The first thing my friends wanted to do was survey the bar, looking for the boy that my roommate loves from afar. (In the hopes of eliminating the afar part.) As we walked around the dance floor, I remembered why I didn't go there. Grinding drunk people is fine, I suppose, but the audience leaned up against the walls was disturbing. Watching someone grab himself as he watched a group of girls drunkenly dancing made me cringe and want to peace out. And then, as we walked towards the bar and away from the dancers, I realized someone was following us, watching me. When we stopped, he stopped too, and stood a few feet from us watching us. After a minute of his creepy smile out of the corner of my eye, I turned and glared and said, "Stop it... no seriously, just stop." My friends were confused, but then they saw him standing all creepily, not saying anything, just staring and smirking. I wanted to leave even more then, but my friend still had hopes of seeing her love come in the doors. After awhile we ended up back on the dance floor, which is stupid because I don't dance, and any inebriated thoughts I'd had of dancing were creeped out of me by the strange man (who had by then recruited his friend to stare creepily at us as well.) While we were standing slightly off to the side, he came to stand behind me. My friend turned to him then and demanded, "What are you doing? You're like sniffing her hair." And he just smirked back creepily. He is one of those people who should just be eradicated, and I meant that in the most death penalty way possible. So we moved to the other side of the bar again, and this time he thankfully gave up to be creepy elsewhere, but on the way someone asked me to dance and I was probably unnecesarily rude to him becuase I was so creeped out by the whole scene. When people tried to talk to us on the other side of the bar it seemed pedophilic, and I really really wanted to leave. And finally we did. And the reason I don't go there is because at the other bars if you get hit on, it is by people your age, but at that bar often the crowd is full of locals who are too old to be in college, but like the girls who aren't. I only hope I don't forget that by next year.
Walking home we got whistled at four times and asked "How you ladies doing?" twice. And in a book I once read, this girl walks up and down a street to see how many times cars will honk at her in a mini-skirt and she has to do it a lot a lot of times to get a noteworthy amount ... but if she'd done it at the right time in the right neighborhood it could have taken her ten minutes. Tops. And oh how I won't miss that aspect of the Bronx this summer in suburbia.
I think I'm overreacting, but it was such a scary panic and for one second I almost wished I was going home a day later so I could get in one last day of shopping and a tour of Central Park. (Almost.)
Last night was my last night out in the lovely Bronx around my campus. (My campus is not a part of the Bronx, no matter how much it is inside of and surrounded by it.) It started too late in the night, after margaritas and greasy Mexican in the room (Cinco de Mayo, baby.) We wanted to go to the bar we've been going to for a month or so, but we were told we couldn't get in, for absolutely no reason. So we were standing on the corner in front of it, in all the prostitute-innuendo of the phrase, waiting for our other friends to catch up to us so we could decide what to do instead. When they finally showed up, a beggar started hitting on us, with his little shopping cart of garbage-bin-fetched cans, so the doorman relented and let us in so we could get away from him. (My friend thinks it was because she showed up and knows the doorman better than us. I let her continue to think that.) It was fun in there because we just hung out with our friends who'd been there since earlier in the night (when it's impossible to get turned away.) Even making our friend drunk-mad at us all because we threw a sliver of a lime in his general direction was amusing to me, I was in that kind of mood. But after an hour it was getting packed (apparently the doorman started letting everyone else in too) and everyone was sweaty and hot and getting moody. So a few of us decided that was enough of that.
We went to down the street to other bar, which I hadn't been to since the way beginning of the year when we were hanging out with an entirely different crowd. I had thought that the reason I stopped going to that bar was because there's a cover charge, but then we got there and I remembered the real reason... The doorman was accompanied by one of the drunk patrons, who took my ID and read my name aloud, muttering "Make sure to Facebook that later." I just took the ID back and ignored him. The first thing my friends wanted to do was survey the bar, looking for the boy that my roommate loves from afar. (In the hopes of eliminating the afar part.) As we walked around the dance floor, I remembered why I didn't go there. Grinding drunk people is fine, I suppose, but the audience leaned up against the walls was disturbing. Watching someone grab himself as he watched a group of girls drunkenly dancing made me cringe and want to peace out. And then, as we walked towards the bar and away from the dancers, I realized someone was following us, watching me. When we stopped, he stopped too, and stood a few feet from us watching us. After a minute of his creepy smile out of the corner of my eye, I turned and glared and said, "Stop it... no seriously, just stop." My friends were confused, but then they saw him standing all creepily, not saying anything, just staring and smirking. I wanted to leave even more then, but my friend still had hopes of seeing her love come in the doors. After awhile we ended up back on the dance floor, which is stupid because I don't dance, and any inebriated thoughts I'd had of dancing were creeped out of me by the strange man (who had by then recruited his friend to stare creepily at us as well.) While we were standing slightly off to the side, he came to stand behind me. My friend turned to him then and demanded, "What are you doing? You're like sniffing her hair." And he just smirked back creepily. He is one of those people who should just be eradicated, and I meant that in the most death penalty way possible. So we moved to the other side of the bar again, and this time he thankfully gave up to be creepy elsewhere, but on the way someone asked me to dance and I was probably unnecesarily rude to him becuase I was so creeped out by the whole scene. When people tried to talk to us on the other side of the bar it seemed pedophilic, and I really really wanted to leave. And finally we did. And the reason I don't go there is because at the other bars if you get hit on, it is by people your age, but at that bar often the crowd is full of locals who are too old to be in college, but like the girls who aren't. I only hope I don't forget that by next year.
Walking home we got whistled at four times and asked "How you ladies doing?" twice. And in a book I once read, this girl walks up and down a street to see how many times cars will honk at her in a mini-skirt and she has to do it a lot a lot of times to get a noteworthy amount ... but if she'd done it at the right time in the right neighborhood it could have taken her ten minutes. Tops. And oh how I won't miss that aspect of the Bronx this summer in suburbia.