...In which our heroine recounts an evening.

Okay, so the exile from streams of consciousness wasn't very long, but I like them so deal. This is from last night though, so it isn't totally off the cuff.

It's Emily's friend Matt's 21st birthday. We're watching Near Dark and she tells me we're going. To a high rise on Lakeshore. A very posh high rise. The lobby seems positively hot after the chilly wind that appeared suddenly and has persisted through the week. I've gawked at this building before, and it's definitely the nicest building I've been in through the city. The lobby looks like Don Draper should be smoking in it. Instead of going up, Matt meets us with a bottle of beer with an elephant on in and we go to the basement. Emily is met by two photo majors she hates, discusses lenses and things I do not comprehend. This must be how she feels when I start talking about discontinuity editing. A tall man with long dreads that looks like he could be in TV on the Radio passes me a pink and blue bowl and I don't say no. Back on that chain gang. Somehow, standing in the circle of smokers, it doesn't seem so cold anymore.

We go upstairs and I realize again, how little of a hipster I am. They're like action figures - ginger hipster, ironic headband hipster, bro hipster, asian hipster, and lots of photo hipsters. Vlad, one of Emily's most hated, keeps taking my picture, the flash making spots in my eyes. Every time I go to these things with her, I meet people I've met before, but they're too drunk to ever remember. Someone gives me a PBR - elixir of life to hipsters - and I don't say no again. A Classics major from Northwestern with no social skills starts talking to us, and I feel bad for his inability to talk to girls. We go into the kitchen and I smoke guava shisha, which is fruit, out of a hookah. I get incredibly lightheaded from the thick smoke, which has left my chest aching today. We stand in the foyer, which is hot from the plastic chandelier, and Emily simultaneously fends off advances from three different boys while I watch. I feel like I'm dead weight at these things sometimes. One of them is a creepy DJ we met at the Glow in the Dark party who always hits on her. She starts speaking hebrew and talking about Israel with a boy whose class is next to mine. He is drinking whiskey and root beer. I decline another PBR. I meet a film major, then another, then another, but our conversation ends once we ask "what's your concentration?"We go back to the kitchen and try to get the hookah going again. "Electric Feel"is playing, and we talk zombies. Emily is drunk and keeps hitting the kitchen light switch. It's one AM, I want to leave because I hate taking the train this late. Matt hugs me twice and thanks me profusely for coming. The night is reaching it's peak and the shit shows are beginning. It's so cold when we leave. For being Lakeshore Avenue, there's trash everywhere. We discuss the party - I tell Emily to pursue the boy she was speaking Hebrew too. The train seems a million miles away. We dodge lots of broken glass on the sidewalk. A homeless man asks Emily for a dollar, and when she says no, he kicks her in the shin. I'm glad she's drunk, because it keeps her giggly about the thing. Bad vibes, so I decide to just stay at her apartment. We drink hot chocolate, extra marshmallows, and watch public access cooking shows. The woman is deep frying panna cotta - I like her. Emily is getting goofy, so we talk soul-mates. She is friends with mine - a drummer from Cincinnati who she went to Jew school with and is the most attractive thing I've ever seen, although I've only met him once. She's texting hers, as she often does drunk. I go to sleep under a Carebear fleece where I'll remain for the next ten hours. Sleeping in jeans on a strange couch reminds me of high school parties, and my to' up-ness in the morning makes me nostalgic.

Updated to add photo realism, from excessive camera flash's Facebook:

Bryan Ferry is just the coolest. This is one of my favorite Roxy Music songs.