Party Crasher / Hot Singles NYC / Autumn in Catskills / Social Media

I’m writing on the rooftop of Will’s apartment where the clouds have just parted and the sun streams down onto the city.

Hiding in the shade I’m at the perfect vantage point and can write comfortably.

Just finished a cold brew and worked out on the roof.

Feeling good.

Buckle up this post’s going to be a long one.

Party Crasher

I have a friend who has the uncanny ability to show up at super exclusive events. Cannes film festival. NY Fashion week shows. Dinners with celebrities.

He’s shrouded in mystery. I have no idea how he does it.

But this week I was able to peek behind the curtain a little.

Last Wednesday after a grueling vocal lesson (where I deeply embarrassed myself with terrible singing) I found myself exhausted and lonely with nothing to do.

I hit up my friend on Instagram and he responded with an event he was going to.

Moore hotel. Opening party. Free drinks/food.

Got to the event in my finest clothes (which were kinda shabby because I’m still living out of a suitcase 🥲) and frantically asked him how to get up.

Walk in like you’re a guest. Press penthouse at the elevator and come out to the roof.

I got to the door and walked past the two hostesses with what I hoped was my most nonchalant expression. Walked into the elevator surrounded by a half dozen well dressed, attractive people and went up to the top floor.

From then it was pretty easy. Free food. Free drinks. Attractive, well dressed people mingling and taking photos.

I listened in on the conversation trying to figure out what kind of people came to this event. There were three types:

People related to PR/marketing invited to generate buzz about the opening
People related to the hotel—employees, managers, etc.
People who knew people and tagged along (freeloaders)

I went from group to group until I got tired (every group I joined was sizing me up to see what I did/what connections I had) and left after another drink.

went to a food hall opening after the hotel opening. So many openings in NY you can eat and drink free every day if you know where to go

I saw my friend again a couple days later.

We met up at a wine convention. Apparently there are a bunch of trade shows where you can get a lot of free food/drinks as long as you know about them.

After the wine expo we tried to sneak into a corporate party at a restaurant in Hudson Yards.

We walked past the hostess and went to the terrace where there was a group of well dressed business people mingling over drinks and snacks. A smaller group—maybe 10-15 people. I was easily the most underdressed there (wearing my jeans and polo jacket).

I must have looked pretty awkward and out of place because after ten minutes a woman with a clipboard came up to me.

“Are you in the right place?”

”Yeah this is for {COMPANY_NAME}, right” - My friend had told me the company name before we went in

“Oh yes, that’s right. You are in the right place” - This is where I should have shut up and left but I kept running my mouth instead.

“I’m a little confused though, I thought this was an IT company. It doesn’t seem like there are that many IT people”

“Who are you with?”

“{MY_ACTUAL_COMPANY_NAME}

“I see”

She went off for a while. I grabbed a drink and tried to blend in with all the others.

She came back after ten minutes and asked if she could talk to me in the corner. We then had the most embarrassing conversation I’ve had all year. She called me out as a party crasher. Apparently {COMPANY_NAME} wasn’t an IT company at all and I had misunderstood. When I started blabbering about IT stuff she got suspicious…

All in all she was pretty nice about it and I tried to get away without throwing my friend under the bus. But he eventually got caught and kicked out as well.

After that event my friend kept it going by getting into a fundraiser thrown by one of the NYC comptroller candidates.

“It’ll be way easier to get in”

I expected a much larger crowd. A big party with a DJ at a club or something. We walked into the restaurant to instead find a small, intimate table of ~10 people eating dinner.

I dipped right after that.

It’s hard enough to get one person into something like that. No way two people could make it through.

My friend stayed. Deep courage. He not only joined and finished the dinner but also got a ride home with the comptroller and exchanged numbers as well…

I had a fun night. There’s an art to sneaking into exclusive places. I picked up some pointers:

Dress like you belong. A suit could have helped a lot.
A lot of places will just let you walk in. More than you’d expect.
Don’t run your mouth. Gather as much info about the situation. Don’t offer up more info than necessary.
- What incentive do people have to question you? As long as you don’t give them a reason to be suspicious they won’t be
You have to know what events are going on in the first place. You can’t get into something if you don’t know it’s happening.

Hot Singles NYC

Will and I went to a singles party. The idea of going to one was kinda daunting. But I’m trying to confront those fears so I forced myself to go.

As with most things the fear here turned out to be unwarranted.

They treated us to free shots at the door. It was hard approaching people at first but the alcohol kicked in and things became a lot easier.

I talked to a few girls but didn’t feel much interest in either direction. I caught glimpse of a cutie walking by but by the time I mustered the courage to go talk to her she had disappeared.

That’s the main idea I got out of this.

Stop listening to doubts or fears or apathy or laziness and just do it

How many cuties have I let disappear from my life?

Overall it was fun. Will and I collectively made a number of new friends but I’m not sure we’ll see any of them again.

Autumn in Catskills

Will, Kelvin and I went to the Catskills! We rented out what turned out to be a huge Airbnb in Kerhonkson.

Traveled in style in a Tesla which turned out to be a pain in the ass. The model 3 we had was not geared for long road trips so we had to stop by a supercharger every day.

Junk food.

Jamming out on the Airbnb’s piano with the ukelele and guitar we brought.

Fall foliage.

Building a fire for an hour with annoying, damp logs.

Getting annoyed at Will for chucking in wood pellets one by one and gloating about how effective they were.

Watching Hometown Cha Cha Cha.

Getting stuck in traffic and turning on Tesla’s autopilot.

Freaking out when the autopilot made a huge sudden turn to the left into oncoming cars.

Waiting for an hour to get served at The Last Bite and ending up with mediocre food anyways.

Driving past what seemed like huge, creepy, empty houses at night in the middle of nowhere.

Doing photo shoots on boulders and streams for our dating profiles.

Hearing twigs snap in the middle of the night outside wondering what was out there.

Stopping by Rockland Cider Works for cider on the way back

Honestly was not the smoothest trip (I got annoyed at several points… I’m trying to let things go more) but I am so so happy that we ended up going.

Social Media

After a decade-plus hiatus on Instagram I’ve started posting again.

I hung out with some friends a few months ago and they mentioned not knowing what I’d been up to during most of the pandemic.

I’m going to post/use social media more because

I want my friends to know what I’m up to
I don’t want to be forgotten
I want to hit up my friends more often

I love writing to the blog and it’s great to go in depth on topics but I want to fire on all cylinders.

So far it’s working. I’ve reconnected with a few friends I haven’t talked to since I started posting to my story again.

Music Update

These three hour songwriting classes are killing me. Takes up my entire Tuesday. I’m not sure how I’ll do 7-10 pm EST when I’m on European time next week.

This past week our assignment was to write a song inspired by a movie. I wrote mine after one of my favorites. You can guess the movie.

Besides that I’m still doing Love Never Felt So Good for my vocal lessons. Should wrap up next week and move on to a new song. The high notes have been killing me but I’ve wrangled them in recently. It’s so weird that I was able to sing it much better when I drunk sang at karaoke a few weeks ago but now it sounds like shit…

Lastly, I’m prepping for my set at Couchella! It’ll be my first time performing an entire set in front of a live crowd so I’m super excited for that.

The movie was ratatouille btw.

I’m wrapping up my time in NY. One more week in Woodside/Sunnyside, Queens and I’m outta here.

I’ll be traveling for the next few weeks visiting Portugal and England (meeting Sherry there!).

I think I saw a lot of people that I wanted to see and did a lot of things I wanted to do but left a few things unfinished in New York.

I wish I could have

gotten closer with my volleyball group
performed more music
made closer friends out of the people I know/met here
dated more

It’s been difficult establishing a routine without a permanent place but that’s the tradeoff I made.

I’ll focus on all that when I’m back!