Pre-B-Day

I am now suffering the consequences of Early Birthday Celebrations Weekend.

Thursday, I went to an art opening in Chelsea with Seena and Bill. An ex-roommate from Columbus, Seunghyun, now works at an art gallery here. They are exhibiting stuff about the collaboration between U.S. composer John Cage and Korean artist Nam June Paik. There was a performance of several Cage pieces, including the notorious 4'33", the "silent" piano piece. I enjoyed the toy piano pieces. My favorites were the ones where she played a bike horn under her armpit, the toy piano with her hands, and a whistle in her mouth. It was excellent. The one with several toy music boxes suspended from the ceiling and played simultaneously was also fabulous. And free wine, what more could you ask?

Friday, Seena and I went to B.E.D., of, yes, Sex and the City fame. If you don't know what that is, B.E.D. is a bar/lounge/restaurant where you sit on beds. However, getting an actual bed requires reservations and maybe even bottle service. Seena and I thus could not get a lovely canopied bed on the roof and had to settle for a regular table and chairs. We were there for a CD release party, for "Radio Latino," the latest from that world music giant, Putumayo. We got free CDs and free entry into the posh bar. Our cocktails were magnificent -- a caipirinha (with real cachaca) and a mojito, both with crushed fresh blueberries -- and later we discovered they also costed a magnificent amount of money. But it was worth it, even though the party was kind of lame.

Saturday, I celebrated my birthday early, because Seena won't be here this coming weekend, when my birthday is. We went out to a bar called Sugar. Two Taiwanese girls from my program came and brought me a gift -- it was incredibly sweet. A couple of Seena's friends came, as well as Bill. That was it, though, and I was kind of disappointed that nobody else showed up. A few people in the program where I work had said excitedly that they were looking forward to it, but none of them ended up going. It was fine, though. I don't really know many people that well anyway, and I have to say that I enjoyed Sugar, which was great because there was no cover charge, and the cocktails were tasty (including a champagne cocktail I had with raspberry puree, yummy).

That was my weekend. Now I'm paying for it because I have to catch up on all the reading and homework I didn't get to. It's a sacrifice that must be made in the name of socializing. However, I'm glad for my finances that it'll start getting cold soon and I won't want to go out at all....