electro-awesome!

free at last! free at last! lord almighty, i'm free at last!!

no more PR for me. EVER. learned a valuable lesson with that job and can cross yet another profession/industry off my list of careers to explore. my last day at work was ridiculously and unexpectedly fun. read papers and giggled with people. spent the day organizing my shared drive so that my replacement won't feel quite so crazy when asked to take over my accounts. one of my favorite coworkers completely embarrassed me, but it was fine because i know it was in jest. hugged it out with my slightly icy, incredibly dry-witted (former) girlboss. gathered a small crew to go get some drinks at closing time. ran into the big boss man at the elevator who casually bid us all a good weekend. it was only after a few beats (and when i pronounced see ya! with a "chump" intonation at the end) that he realized i would not be returning on monday and he felt visibly guilty for not talking to me the whole day. small awkward hug and i was out the door.

stout for a couple o' beers. it was packed to the khaki-covered rafters with post office-hours 9 to 5ers. thanks to our sassy blonde coworker, we procured a booth and a waitress in the back where the crowd was a little less dense. ben met up with us all and yet another world collision occurred. it went smoothly. hoegaarden and a couple steamed potstickers. delicious! more giggling and last minute gossip with coworkers and their significant others.

F train to lower east side. wandering along houston for a bit until we find the street we need. attorney. this is where the funness really began.

watched our sweaty dc pal, ben's psychedelic band madam robot play at sin-e. they wore polyester shirts. they had many vocoders.

sat on a speaker in the back of the club. had yet another beer. blue moon this time.

ben and aaron came in from one of too many smokebreaks and informed us that frodo was outside. tiya got up quickly and ran out the door. due to my consumption of too many beers on a practically empty stomach, it took me a few moments to register exactly what they were saying. my first thought was, "frodo? why's he here? this is nowhere near that giant evil volcano dealie." finally realized that they meant, elijah wood, not the actual hobbit, so i made my way outside into the brisk night air. tiya was coolly scanning the area under the guise of desperately needing to be outside to smoke. after searching in vain for a few moments, we determined that we'd been had, until the crowd off to our left parted and there in the middle was the teeniest elijah wood i'd ever seen! he was so dainty, much more so than i was expecting, but it was undeniably him. we enjoyed being in the general vicinity of relative fame for about a minute and then the iciness of the autumnal evening got the better of us and we headed back inside.

throughout the rest of the evening, we'd occasionally cross paths. standing in a group of cool kids (almost always joined at the hip with a tallish, lithe girl with very dark elfin hair and shiny eyes). being handed glasses of red wine from dancing strangers. giggling in the corner with more friends.

eventually i lost interest in mr. wood because the most wonderfully campy electro band soon took the stage. heloise and the savoir faire has become my new favorite new york band, without question! there were sequins and spandex, knee high boots, tight red jumpsuits and wigs galore. of course i loved the dazzle and after just a few songs, i began dancing wildly - herky jerkily, even - in the style that has won me so many weekend friends in the past. ben even joined in with some robotic ben moves and it felt just like dc for a moment. glory! for the last song, ben and i moved up to the front so we could get a better look at the sassy dansers in the band and much to my surprise, there was elijah in the front row, abusing flash photography and singing all the words.

the evening winded down a bit after heloise. tiya and aaron left. moved back to our speaker where all our belongings waited. finished up my beer and ben and i began to head home. walked haphazardly down LES streets until my attention was commandeered by a half block of the most beautiful flowers i'd seen in a very long time. ben realized that it'd been ages since he bought me flowers, so he disappeared into the shop for a minute while i stayed outside, casually swinging around the lamppost. he emerged with a small bundle of supremely hearty sunflowers. threw my arms round his neck and we swung around in a circle on the corner of houston and suffolk.

walked down essex st to catch the JMZ home when we realized that we desperately needed a shot of something. skipped into the closest bar (whose name i can't recall) and purchased a couple shots o' jack. knocked them back, felt like a man and headed back out to the subway.

fastest train ride home ever because we spent the whole time talking about photography and art and expectations. it was wonderful.