I want to be a part of it....

I'm drunk.

Day 2. (I know, I can't believe that was ALL for Day 1. Insane.)

I woke up later than expected, and Tiffany and I headed to Gracie Mews, a diner a few blocks away from her house, to meet her friend Teddy for brunch. After a great meal with the worst service ever, we all walked towards the Metropolitan Museum of Art, stopping at Alice's Tea Shop for a scone for later. After paying $1 to enter the magnificent museum, we headed to the Impressionist area where I swooned over paintings by my favorite artist, Claude Monet. My nerd side delighted in the works of Vincent Van Gogh (Doctor Who, anyone?) And Tiff and I stared at a Jackson Pollack for about an hour before deciding to go back to her house for some down time before Karaoke shenanigans and Upright Citizens Brigade that evening.

Karaoke was fun, if tinged with sadness at the passing of Whitney Houston, which was sent to every single persons smart phone at the start of the evening...except mine. My phone in NYC was technically useless. Tiffany had booked a private karaoke room in a little Korean bar, where the song selection was fantastic and the service shit-tastic. Her friends and Randi all showed up for the evening. We kicked things off with a little "Wanna Dance with Somebody"(which is an eerily accurate song for how I was feeling that night.) Typical karaoke shenanigans followed. We left the bar with 15 minutes to spare before the show at Upright started, and I was supposed to meet my cousin, Joseph, and his boyfriend, Ryan, before the show. We grabbed cabs for our group of 8, and barreled through the streets to make it on time for the hour long improv show.

Seated all the way in the back row, I could not even see the stage, with the giants in front of me blocking my view. But the show that UCB put on was hilarious even without the site gags. Using a Day in the Life type format, they took the tale of a Palestinian living with an Israeli on an exchange program and turned it into an hour long story that made me fall in love with their theater. Almost every team member had a strength to contribute to the show, and laughing along with my friends (and family) made it a memorable part of the weekend. It made me want to be part of a giant improv team again.

Afterwards, we realized that NONE of us had eaten anything and it was now almost midnight. Joe and Ryan took us to a small restaurant a couple of blocks away, and we took over the whole joint, eating burritos and guac while talking about our lives and catching up. Not satisfied with ending the evening there, Joseph told us that we should go get ice cream at the Big Gay Ice Cream, a food truck turned storefront. A giant closed sign greeted us, so we headed to Ace Bar, a loud, full to teeming bar with skeeball in the back room. Heading to the bar with Joseph, he convinced me to get a Manhattan. Armed with this potent concoction, I was feeling fine. 5 games of skeeball later, it was time to call it a night. Tiff and I grabbed a Gypsy cab, and hauled our butts back to her apartment. She leaned over and whispered to me, "He said it's $25 but we're only gonna give him $20. He knows it's not that expensive to get to where we're going." Confused, I handed her a $20 bill, and we hopped out of the car as fast as we could, power walking away from the black vehicle. Slightly tipsy, I was giggling as we went to cross the road and the cabbie yelled out, "You owe me $5, baby!" as he sped past us.

Ah. New York.

Well, hello, Mrs. Fancy Pants.

My mom and I decided to go to a book signing by an author friend of hers on a rainy Tuesday night, at an art gallery on Palm Beach. Worth Avenue to be exact. She dressed in a fabulous frock with pashmina and hip silver jewelry, while I tossed on my lacy mini dress, denim jacket (from Goodwill), pink chunky jewelry, brown purse ($3 at a garage sale) and cowboy boots. We are who we are, and nothing, not even a Palm Beach address, was going to stop us from representing our true selves.

We hop into my dad's Audi TT (cause we wanted to look good driving up) and get to the art gallery. It's filled to brimming with posh, snooty Palm Beachers who are oozing disdain and pretension all over the Andy Warhol screen prints hanging on the walls. It's a very Botoxed event, and Mom and I bee-line for her friends from her writers group, in the hope that there would be safety in numbers. One of the ladies is wearing jeans, and thanks me for showing up in denim. As we stand there, my mom mentions that I am involved with the theater. The author, thinking he was doing me a favor, very sweetly grabbed me and told me he knew someone else who was in the theater at the party. He made his way through the masses to a tall, gaunt woman in a red, floral pantsuit with close cropped silver hair and glasses. He said, "You're both in theater. Talk." And then he walked away. I awkwardly offer my hand to the woman, introducing myself. Instead of a name, she utters, "I'm actually not in theater. My husband owns an Off Broadway theater in NYC. I'm in dressage. But what have you done?"

Here is one of many reasons why I feel I will never be famous. I cannot bullshit with strangers for the life of me. I answer that I just got done with a three week run of a musical at a theater in Ft. Pierce. She looks at me, questioningly, as if in her realm of existence there is only New York and Palm Beach. I say, "It's just a small place, really. I used to work for the Atlantic Theater in Jupiter...(she squints at me)... I'm an improviser, singer....blah, blah, blah." Realizing, I am losing my subject (who had spinach in her teeth, I'd like to note) I change gears, and ask her about dressage. "So, you must really like horses, then." She lightened up at this point, as narcissism is always fun, and I get into full Buffy mode. "Well, I am going to the polo match next Sunday, darling, and it shall be a smashing good time. We're bringing a hamper." The woman actually claps her hands like a school girl, gushing about how glorious it will be, and that it's so lovely to be served champagne and ice cream. I quip, "How could you go wrong with that combination?" and she falls silent again.

Both of us stood there, longing for an escape route, when the other author sidled up next to us, obviously a friend of tall and gangly. T and G asks, "Have you met our author?" and pawned me off on the other woman. I awkwardly look down at the stack of books on the table, and said, "Oh, you wrote this....impressive cover." I feigned interest in the jacket as author lady swept the horse lady away. I knew I had been brushed off. And I had never been happier.

I moved back to join my mom and her gang, and we headed for the Pellegrino. Sipping on bubbly water, we started to actually look at the artwork. The gallery owner, noting our interest, swooped in to tell us the tale of the print we were looking at, which was signed by the artists father and would have to be questioned if signed by the author himself. Mom and I looked at each other over our plastic flutes, and started laughing. We plunked our glasses down on the refreshment table, waved goodbye to her friend, and hopped in Dad's car, peeling out of there. We laughed the whole way home about our brush with society, and ended up curling up in our PJ's, making a quick dinner, and watching "Despicable Me." Ah...that's the life!