It's pretty late to be blogging about what happened last week, but I guess it's better late than never:
Monday: Root canal. I called my dentist to schedule an appointment for the toothache that had been bothering me over the weekend. He listened to my symptoms and sent me directly to another dentist specializing in root canals because 1.) my symptoms sounded like I would need a root canal and 2.) he doesn't open on Mondays. The root canal itself went pretty well. I did not feel any pain during the procedure because the dentist jabbed a needle into my gum and the area inside my chin and pumped in some novocaine. It stinged just a bit. After being spread out on the chair like a one of those hapless frogs that I dissected in junior high biology class for 20 minutes with my mouths forcibly expanded and watching the dentist making all sort of interesting noises with a 2-inch needle (lots of stabbing and grinding) and a drill, the root canal was over. Or I thought. I was told that I would need to come back a week later for part II to put in some new filling into the canal. As the novocaine began to wear off, the pain really kicked in. It was not the exquisitely sharp kind of pain that makes one jump from time to time as the level of discomfort spikes from 0 to 100 instantaneously with no warning. It was more like a dull, constant ache that stubbornly refuses to go away. I felt like an insect had crawled into my brain and had started gnawing at anything and everything inside my head. My coworkers expressed their concerns when they heard me breathing heavily, cursing under my breath and gently (as I tried) stomped on the ground. A couple of Advils and a few hours later, the pain finally subsided somewhat. Not a very pleasant day.
Wednesday: Happy hour/networking event for volunteers in the Big Brother/Big Sister program. Two free drinks and hors douvres, yay! I don't think I will see the other mentors that I met at the event again since they work for other companies, but I sure enjoyed my chocolate martini.
Thursday: Exclusive black tie party for volunteers. Apparently, the organizers only sent out invitations to certain people in the program. I didn't even know about this party until Amy told me about it. Since she was special enough to get invited and had an extra invite, I tagged along. The event was held in Gotham Hall (on 36th & Broadway I think). It looked like a cross between a huge concert hall and the domed part of Capitol Hill. I along with a few hundred other people wandered around chatting, eating hors douvres, and above all getting my drink on. Because of the long lines, I only got 3 drinks throughout the night. The DJ was playing hip hop hits from the "Hot in Herre" era. He didn't even have "Hey Ya," which I actually took the initiative to request. I spent most of the night talking to Amy and her friend Lowrie (?) and just walking around. God, party conversations are so shallow. I don't know if I will ever make any new friends at a party. It's so difficult to even hear what the other person is saying.
The free desserts ruled though :)
Friday: After I played a couple of hours of volleyball, I headed over to a gay club/bar to meet up with some people from work. I went to a gay club because I was curious to see if Asian fetish would actually work in MY favor for once and I have heard that even straight girls like to go to gay clubs because they aren't treated like pieces of meat there. I was hoping to catch them off guard. But seriously, quite a few of the people in the department that I support are gay. There's also a super cute straight girl in that department that I had just met earlier in the day at our potluck lunch. She was soooo cute and gave me a few of the crepes that she had made, too.
Because of a miscommunication problem, I showed up at the second gay club by myself while the group was still at the first. The whole experience was just totally bizarre. I have never felt like such a piece of meat. Even before I stepped into the club, there was a group of gay guys outside on the sidewalk leering at me. It was pretty intimidating to see all these ripped guys staring at me and to imagine that any of them could drag me into the bathroom and give me the ass raping of a life time. At that moment I realized how much it sucks to be a girl. Even though I consider myself very open-minded and have had gay friends/roommates (I love the David-Keith relationship in Six Feet Under for crying out loud!), I still looked like the scared, square straight dude.
One thing that really stuck out in my mind was how true all the gay stereotypes are. Ninety percent of the guys in the club were really good looking, had really nice toned bodies and dressed quite fashionably. I have to admit that I'm pretty relieved that these guys like each other instead of girls, or we clueless straight guys would have NO chance. The bartenders were total studs too, most of them being shirtless and a few only wore tighty whities.
Later when I finally trekked to the first bar, I found the gang. The funny thing was that before the bouncer let me into the bar, he said, "This is a gay bar" as if he could tell that I was some clueless straight not nearly hip enough to be in a cool gay bar such as the one he was guarding. Anyways, I found out from Phil that super cute girl has had a boyfriend for five years now. I don't know if I should trust Phil since he's also really interested in her, but I think he was too drunk to be scheming and lying. At that point, I was like, why the fuck am I here in a gay bar if the only possibility is gone? It just kinda went downhill from there. I left after some awkward dancing and seeing this Asian guy smiling at me. Or was he smiling at super cute girl? Maybe he was just another loser straight Asian dude trying to pick up girls at a gay bar? I wondered if all the guys who seemed to be gravitating toward us were really all straight guys.
The only thing that salvaged the whole night was this hot lesbian couple making out in the back. I need to find me some lesbian bar with half naked lesbian bartenders damn it!
Saturday: I went to a bar not far from my apartment to watch the Big Game (the annual Stanford-Cal football game) with what I assumed would be only a few other Stanford alums since the previous alum events I had attended were horribly misorganized and sparsely attended. Instead, I somehow found myself trying to prevent other people from trampling over me because the damn place was packed with Stanford alums. It was almost mind-boggling how many Stanford alums were there. I saw a few faces that I recognized but didn't bother to talk to them because if I didn't talk to them in class at Stanford I sure was hell not going to try to make contact with them in a jammed bar where I could barely hear myself curse at people who kept on stepping on my toes. I did see Kabir, who I knew from a few CS classes, though, which was quite unexpected because I for some reason didn't imagine that he would move to NYC.
I met Ahmad for dinner afterwards. He had called me at around noon earlier that day telling me that he would meet me at the bar to watch the game at five (even though the game started at 3:30). Of course, Ahmad didn't get to the city from Brooklyn, where he now lives, until almost 7:30, in typical Ahmad fashion. We grabbed burger and fries at this place that was mimicking the whole In'N'Out business model, except I don't think I've ever spent $7 for a meal at In'N'Out before.
After dinner Ahmad came to midtown to check out my apartment. Then I showed him and his friend Jeff "Hero," the Chinese martial arts epic that I got on DVD a few months ago. The movie totally blew them away of course with its unbelievable cinematography and super nifty fighting scenes.
We spent the rest of the night walking around Manhattan and drinking basically. Quite an interesting ending to my interesting week, I have to say.
