YES! Tales of Memorial Day Weekend

Honestly, mom, this is one of those ones where you're ahead of the game if you just stop reading now.

Given the givens of how I'm feeling, I was so glad to have the girlies in town last weekend. It helped take my mind off of things, and they were super understanding of the fact that I went home early most nights, and being around all of their positive energy was incredibly helpful in righting the ship. And here's the best part. Despite the fact that I missed out on a lot of "the fun" because I was, well, sleeping, I was around enough to share the three important stories, including the first one, which is about how we really managed to take Vegas, a place with no class, and sink it down to an entirely new low.

Chapter 1: The F#*k Room
Here are two sets of pictures of a hotel room. You will see that in set one, the room is exploding with clothes and makeup and weekend necessities. In set two, the room is pristine. Take a look.


Now, the logical conclusion to jump to is that these are simply before and after shots. The shots of the pristine room were taken when we arrived, and the shots of that Vegas hoochie battlefield were taken after we moved into the room.

WRONG.

These pictures are, in fact, taken almost simultaneously. They are rooms 951 and 955 in the Imperial Palace (because we roll both imperially and palatially). We rented -- and paid for -- both rooms. So, five girls, two beds, eight towels, two showers and two hairdryers, right?

WRONG.

This is how this worked out. The room you see where the hoochie battle is taking place is the room we ALL stayed in. That's five girls, two beds, one shower, one hairdryer, four towels. The room that is pristine? That's the F*#k Room. The logic being that at least one of us was going to hook up each night, and we'd need a room for that person to use. So why would we spread out and make ourselves comfortable and able to do basic things like use a mirror when we curled our hair when, instead, we could cram into one room at all times and leave the other room for some lucky girl each night?

And I will say, it was worth the money cause three out of five mamas (for the record, not me, not even close, I've never been so disinterested in boys on a night out in my life) got lucky, though not simultaneously in the same room, before you get all that excited.

Xtine even stocked the place with condoms, just in case.



And that twisted sista felt that the appropriate place for those condoms was next to the Holy Bible.



I told you we took Vegas to a new low. There's got to be an award for that.

I feel I best summed up the F#*k Room with this comment, "Ladies, perhaps we should worry about the mindset of a boy who enters the fuck room and doesn't run in fear immediately. His thought process when he sees that room SHOULD be, 'Huh. This girl just brought me back to her room, but there's no baggage, the bathroom hasn't been touched at all and there's a pile of condoms next to the Holy Bible. Shit, man, I'm about to straight wake up in the morning in a bathtub full of ice with one of my kidneys removed.'"

For the record, you can keep reading, but nothing will top what I've just told you. Probably ever. Even by us. We've now set the bar so high/low that we can no longer even live up to our own expectations in Vegas.

Chapter Two: Five Women at $1000 is $200 a Piece
Who did we love the MOST this weekend? It was our cab driver Bru. He was funny, he was engaging, he didn't mind the fact that we wanted to talk to him. And he tried to sell us for $1000 to some guys who'd just won a ton of money on the UFC fight and wanted some pretty ladies to come spend the evening with them at Paris. The guys, I kid you not, saw our cab driving by and flagged the cabbie down so they could come to the window and try to talk us into going to their VIP table at Paris with them. Very flattering, sure. But we were set on Mix and skylines and nobody was really in the mindspace to geisha it up. But Bru? Bru is a business man. He offered to sell us to those guys for $1000. No joke. I almost felt bad when we made Bru drive on. So I tipped him $10 on a $10 cab ride to try to make up the difference.

Chapter Three: That is Gay. And I Know Gay.
Here's a delightful picture of us and some crazy guys we ran into at Mix.



They were fun. I mean, obviously they were fun, look at how they were dressed. And we were talking to them about how they were dressed, and they said:

"Seriously, sometimes in Vegas, getting ready to go out is more fun than actually going out. We have a lot of fun getting ready to go out."

Gay. GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY. And I know Gay. I believe even that the namesake of this journal would confirm for you that never has a gay man said anything as gay as what this straight man in a ruffled shirt said to us. GAY.

And also, before I dispense with the weekend awards, a few notes for ya'll.
1. Tao Beach: So worth it. It makes the Pure cabanas look lame, and those are my favorite place in all of Vegas.

2. Why are people religiously waiting in that line at Pure? It's not worth it, folks. It's not. I promise.

3. I'm not sure I love Vegas nightlife as much if I can't drink, which I can't because of the antidepressant. We need to get off those soon.

4. It's okay to come dance on the catwalk if you're a larger woman, but you really need to not be rude and bump your shit into everybody else up there, almost sending several of us sailing off into the air. Come on, now.

Weekend awards!

Ms. KALM gets the best line dropped on you by a guy award.



While sitting, I kid you not, in the FOOD COURT at Caesar's, a guy cold walks up to KALM WHILE she's sitting with four other women - so the most intimidating rejection scenario possible - and says to her, "I don't know anything about you, but I can tell I want to know a lot more about you." And then (this guy was GREAT) when KALM actually makes a comment about how bold his move was (tm Ford), he says, "Hey, I'm doing the best I can with the circumstances I have." He was awesome. I'm really kind of sad that he's so not her type, because I was cheering for him.

Ms. Xtine gets the MVP award.



It was kind of a weird girls' weekend for us in Vegas. At least two of us were nursing physical illness. At least three of us were undergoing various degrees of heartbreak and relationship pain. Things were "up," but it honestly wasn't our usual explosion of energy. Anyway, at one point during the night, Ang was talking to the most adorable guy from North Carolina EVER and he was WAY into her. But he had a friend, so it was an awkward threesome situation. And Shadalan, KALM, Xtine and I were all just kind of chilling at a VIP table in Mix at the time. And so KALM is all like "Jos, go be her wingwoman. She needs one." And I couldn't rally to do it. And KALM couldn't rally to do it. And Shadalan couldn't rally to do it. And for ten minutes we all try to convince each other to do it. And finally, in the end, Xtine takes one and goes over and entertains the friends for what seemed like a really long time. A long time during which, instead of comfortably chilling at the table and enjoying the view and the VIP lounge, she had to stand in a crowd of people while wearing excruciatingly painful shoes. She's the MVP.

Ms. Shadalan gets the best breasts of the weekend award.



I mean, this isn't even so much a competition anymore if she's around. But what made it so extra special this time was this: We're walking out of the IP and as she passes him some guy says to her "That's a beautiful dress." Of course, he says it while staring directly at her breasts. And as we're walking away from him, I say to Shadalan, "By which he means those are beautiful breasts." And that guy actually went through the trouble to RUN across the ENTIRE IP casino floor to catch Shadalan before we left and say, "I just wanted to make sure you knew, I said 'dress.'" True story.

Ang wins the best outfit two nights in a row award.



And we all TRY, so that's an accomplishment. She looked SMOKIN' both nights. Which is probably why she also won the Stella Got Her Groove Back award. But we won't go into that.

And I'm going to go ahead and give myself two awards as well:
1. The Super Trouper Award: Ya'll, I did NOT feel well. I had bad nausea each night and a lot of fatigue issues, and I STILL rallied until 3am both nights. That is how much I love my girls and our time together.

2. The "I'm gonna rock this stupid hat for real, bitches" award. The look I was going for was, "You know, if you're white enough, you'll think I look all hip hop and stuff."

It was a good weekend. As always, thank you ladies!

 

Pampered Like a Princess, Fucked Like a Whore

Firstly, that sound you hear that is roughly the sound of a vortex sucking the earth through it is my mother's gasp of horror echoing across the continent as she thinks "Why, why, WHY can't my daughter have a sense of discretion?"

But that title? That's the title of my new self-help book for young women (by which I clearly mean 18 or over). It's going to be all about this concept that I was discussing this weekend. I decided that, before she finds true love and settles into a relationship for the rest of her life, every girl should have a relationship like the one in the title. The key, and this is the hard part, is that it has to be a relationship with a man whom she truly likes and respects and has a connection with. It has to be a man she considers her equal. But she's got to know that the relationship has no real future and she should just enjoy the time and space that the two of them can spend together for what it is. And then she needs to get pampered like a princess and fucked like a whore for however long it lasts. You'd be surprised how much that helps you come into your womanhood, or learn what it is to be a woman, or discover what you do and don't need men for, or learn how to be with a man without being needy. Lots of benefits. How brilliant will THAT self-help book be?

Anyway, in other news, I now give you another recipe. This one's for the perfect girls' night out on Saturday. Step-by-step for your convenience.

1. Have a non-rager on Friday night.

2. On Saturday, do all of the things you would normally do on a Saturday between the time you finished your non-rager and the time you were ready to start getting ready to go out again. This includes:
- Sleep until at least noon

- Wake up just long enough to go to Hottie World for club clothes (even though you have a closet FULL of club clothes) and Target for supplies

- Come back home, eat, and then promptly go back to sleep again between 3:00pm and 6:00pm. Rotate that napping action between the pool lounge, the couch and the bed. Don't feel ashamed of your commitment to napping.

3. Once again, begin the night with food that is incredibly bad for you. In this case, I mean enchiladas with a commitment to cheese from Fillipos.

4. Take your time on hair and makeup. Listen to Celine Dion and Fall Out Boy while you do that.

5. Take really dirty photos that result in every pair of panties you own being thrown around your joint. This will make you feel hot before you've even left the house. And you can update your MySpace profile as an added bonus.

6. Make sure you start out at a bar where the bartenders know and adore you. They will mix you free drinks and make you feel special when they try so hard to ignore all the other clients so they can hang out and talk to you. This will make you feel sexy and VIP before you've even entered the club, and we all know that FEELING sexy and VIP is the key step here. If you really want to amuse yourselves, tell said bartender about dirty photo session and watch that go down.

7. DON'T hang out in any club that looks dead. It's your big night out! You don't have time to see if things get live. If the club is dead, move on IMMEDIATELY.

8. Meet the hottest twins ever twinned by God.

(Realize, after you meet them, that you must be in a good place in your life because those guys were blazingly hot, into the two of you and ready to party ... and you all walked away to get your drink and dance on without them. That, my friends, is a new place for me.)

9. Go to Tao. Get your drink on. Get your dance on. Have mixed emotions about women humiliating the entire gender with some of their club antics. Get stuck in between a Persian grind off while your girl looks at you blankly since the two of you haven't done a ton of duo runs and she doesn't know your signal system. Really get your dance on. Get a little lost in it.

10. Meet men who are sporting Willie Nelson bandannas. Get in on that action.


11. End the night at New York, New York in the diner with a blt, a baked potato, six chicken tenders, a huge pile of cheesy potatoes and some over-buttered vegetables between the two of you. Have no shame in that.

Girls - the era is starting to end. We need to rock this shit a few more times before it does.

 

It's Warm & It's Natural

The last time I was out with Hott Scott, I got this gem of wisdom about how my attention span is too short for relationships. And he had a point. And I resented that he had a point.

So we went out Friday night, and I got this sterling rhetoric that we can all now bank on.

"Jocelyn, you're like the David Koresh of emotional indictment. You've got the compound built up, there's ammo in the basement and you're like 'I will BURN THIS SHIT TO THE GROUND IF THIS DOES NOT WORK OUT.' "

I picked up the tab. It was the cheapest two hours of therapy I've had since November.


This is how we roll. It's F.A.S.H.I.O.N.

More pictures of the weekend's activities just added at myspace. Rock out.

 

And Then There Was The Next Weekend

Because, if you were a logical person, you would say, "Wow, Jocelyn, San Francisco sounds like it might have worn your party-soul down even though you claimed it was mostly R&R. I hope you took it easy the next weekend."

But if you said that, then clearly you don't know me at all and if you did know me at all you would know that there is no rest in December. December is the holiday month, and that's the party month. And if you've read the holiday letter, then you would also be saying "But you said that JULY was the party month." And I would say, "Two out of twelve isn't a bad ratio." And you would roll your eyes. And I would take a shot, because it's December. Joking. Sort of.

Anyway, that next weekend Rox came into town with Paul & Cynthia in tow. Unfortunately, I was only able to snake one night out with them since I had other people coming into town, but I went for the jugular that night. Because if you only had one night to throw down with a girl you shared a tiny little college dorm with for two years and managed to only ever get into one fight with ("I'm trying to study FRENCH right now. Can you PLEASE just...arghhhhh"), you'd throw down too.

So we also invited Brent out because I had no idea when I might be able to do a little holiday throw down with him given the givens of my December schedule. And there are pictures at the end of this entry. And I suppose the highlights of the night are better told in bullet points.

- We try unsuccessfully for over an hour to ride the rides on the top of the stratosphere. Since we can't get entertained that way, I amuse us by engaging the elevator operators in conversation about the craziest thing they've ever seen in the Stratosphere elevator. The first guy doesn't want to play along until Mary Jane is invoked. Then he wants to be our best friend. The second one immediately answers "I got flashed" to which we immediately answer "We can do that!" Welcome to Vegas!

- We head down to Freemont Street for the Freemont Street Experience. I've never actually seen somebody take photos of the half-naked go-go dancers being projected onto the ceiling during the Freemont Street Experience before, but Paul does it, and I can mark seeing that off my list of things to see.

- It's rodeo week - did I mention that? So all the bands playing on Freemont Street are country bands. So we country dance. And we, drunkenly, begin a screaming campaign to get some Alan Jackson played. Oh yes, there is nothing more believable than me in my little vintage leather flapper jacket and hat yelling "PLAY SOME ALAN JACKSON" at the top of my lungs.

- We head to the Nugget for some $1 shrimp cocktail, which is as awesome as you might imagine. But we're drunk and can't blame the shrimp for making us sick.

- And then, for me (and Brent) the night ends because we still have to work the next day. But the most awesome thing I've heard in months happens in the cab on the way back to the Stardust.

Un-named Person #1
I just want to be married. I just want to be married before I'm 40. Why can't I be married before I'm 40?

Un-named Person #2 AND Un-named Person #3
Seriously, it's not all it's cracked up to be.

Un-named Person #1
You can both say that because you've already been married. I mean, sure, I've got my problems...but who doesn't??????????????????

Oh yes. We rode that joke for another solid night.

Anybody who has normal, on-going dialogue with me probably knows that that weekend then proceeded to spiral down into the worst kind of soap-opera drama and I'm pretty sure that nobody who was involved in that came out unscathed (check my big word!). I'm going to, against my normal nature, respect the privacy of everybody who was involved in that and not put it out to the universe on a blog (especially since it's already out there in about fifty million emails). But, seriously, I mean, I guess there's nothing else left to say about that.

Enjoy the pictures.


It only went downhill from here - seriously.


Between 1992 and 1996, about 50 photos JUST LIKE THIS were taken, except I'm pretty sure in all of them we were drinking cheap beer instead of high-end cocktails.


I told you it went downhill.


Like, downhill FAST.


What you should note here is how EMPTY that yard of horrible frozen drink is.


Less drunk.


More drunk.


Most drunk.

 

Put Some Alcohol In That Please!

Hawaii: Friday

I'm not sure what the boys are doing, but I'm at the beach by 7:00am. And it's the most perfect, perfect, perfect thing EVER. It's quiet, nobody is there but me, the ocean and some joggers. I have a book, I have quiet thoughts, and I have all of these views:







Around 10:30am, Pookie and shamus joined me at the beach and, eventually, we headed over to breakfast. Breakfast BY THE OCEAN.



Ah, breakfast. Pookie and shamus opt for the breakfast buffet. Yum.



But Halff and I aren't playing around. So not playing around that we get the banana macadamia waffles. We won the breakfast issue.



And this is how breakfast on DAY ONE ends. I order my second bloody mary. When I place the order for the second bloody mary with the waitress, I actually say "Can you ask the bartender to put just a splash of extra vodka in it?" And she does. And it's so much better than before. Yep. Welcome to DAY ONE.



After breakfast, there is down time. We start by visiting the koi. See! A FANTASTIC picture of Halff and the koi:



Then, back to the room. That's right. We came to Hawaii, and Pookie and shamus surfed Myspace from the room. But good times here had by all.








Then, it's off on Friday's road trip to the City of Refuge. Enjoy pictures of Pookie and I in the SUV!





We stop at the grocery store. Pookie makes friends with the clerk. Larry buys some ill-advised canned capucino. I'm not sure what he was thinking, but suffice it to say, it did not sit well.





Enjoy some pictures now of our road trip to the City of Refuge.









And now, my new favorite picture of me and shamus. Now, you will immediately say, "Jocelyn, what the HELL is that outfit? Is that a camo skirt over a bathing suit with a tank top, uggs and a lai in your hair? WHAT THE HELL?" To which, I will simply say, "Fool, it's Hawaii. You should be more concerned with that silly matchy-matchy shirt and hat shamus is wearing." But I know how you are. You're way more focused on my silly outfit.



After getting back from the City of Refuge, there is pool time, and hot tub time, and sunset time and drinks at the bar time! See us at the bar!





Then, the most amazing thing happens for the rest of the night. Pookie, shamus and I head to the Polo Bar and order some more cocktails. Then, we notice that there are board games in the Polo Bar, so we bust out some Trivial Pursuit. It's genius edition! And it's quiet and not so loud (except for us) in there, and we play until midnight, and it's so FREAKIN' FUN! It sounds silly, but there's Trivial Pursuit and we're answering every question we don't know with the answer Giz McFace and laughing and it's all good. Better because I WIN! Even if I won because we couldn't remember the rules.



And then it is shamus' birthday! He's 30! We're so happy. It's such a perfect day!

 

China Entry the Sixteenth: Snake Wine and Toothpicks

We are on the road at 8:00am on the way to our boat ride down the Li River. Obviously, by 8:00am, I really mean 8:15am after our usual series of debacles about jackets and bathrooms and "I'll run and get that before we go." I smile fondly and miss these moments when I'm gone from them.

We're headed to a boat tour down the Li River, which is also the best way to view the strikingly beautiful scenery of the famous hills of Guilin. There are two key things to take away from this boat trip: Firstly it rained the whole time, and secondly Felix and the snake wine.

1. The Rain in Guilin Happens, Well, All Day Long
So, the point of this boat tour is to stand on the open-air deck and take in the fabulous scenery. At the first opportunity, we rush to the deck to do just that. Hey! Here's a shocker! Rain and wet! Rain and wet!

I spend the first fifteen minutes of the tour being cranky about the rain and ducking inside every three minutes. Also, of course, being cranky that we're not seeing the scenery in all of its glory.

But then something happens. The rain stops feeling cold and uncomfortable to me and starts feeling refreshing and clean. And Ho and Lisa and Felix are making me laugh at every little thing. I start to realize that tons of people have seen this scenery during the high season, but how many have seen it look so true to classic Chinese paintings and depictions, with the thick heavy mist around it? I start to be really aware of how beautiful it is and how happy I am to be there in that moment. And I'm glad I didn't waste too much time being annoyed at the rain.







2. Felix and the Snake Wine
Felix is this adorable and charming German whom we've been hanging out with. It soon becomes apparent that Felix and I are the "drinkers" on the boat. When I order my first glass of flower wine, Felix says, "So you like to drink in the morning, do you?" And it's only in that moment that I realize that I've started drinking at 10:00am. I feel like I'm in Pennsylvania hanging out with my family all of a sudden.

Felix and I have a couple of glasses of flower wine. It's a nice way to spend the morning.



And then they bring around the snake wine.

Snake wine is exactly what it sounds like, by which I mean grain alcohol with dead snakes fermenting in it. No kidding. Take a look.



I say to Felix, "Maybe we should just get one and split it. It might be really disgusting."

Felix thinks this through, takes a moment to look at me with that "Nope! I'm an adventurer!" look and says, "Let's get two." And so we get two.

And we are, of course, immediately disgusted by what we are drinking after the first sip. Ho takes this brilliant photo of us as we're taking our first sips. I think the photo accurately captures the fact that, when you drink this, YOU CAN ACTUALLY TASTE THE DEAD SNAKE. It's so foul that I can barely describe it, though I do think that the photo does all the speaking for me.



Ten minutes later, our glasses are still full.

I look at Felix and say, "Maybe we should just shoot it."

Up go the glasses.

We down the snake wine.

And I taste fermenting snake in my mouth for the next two days.

Isn't Felix adorable? That's all I'm saying.

Also On the Boat Trip...
- Throughout the entire boat ride, I was fascinated by watching the locals ride bamboo rafts up to the side of the boat and then jump onto the boat runner to try to sell cheap, knock-off jade Buddha statues through the boat windows. It was actually very creepy. This nation is poor.




- There's a cranky Australian couple who actually stays INSIDE for the entire boat trip and then nixes the idea of spending extra time in the town where the boat docks before we head back to Guilin. They are proof that no matter where you are, unhappy is unhappy.

- There are french fries for lunch. That's what I eat on the Li River in China. French Fries.

- There is this brilliant moment where we're out on deck and I say to Felix, "Ho's camera is way nicer than mine is," and Ho turns around and the look on his face is so smug and happy. Beaming, even. It's adorable. I'll remember that look always.

- Heike was invoked! I believe Heike will be invoked on every future trip we ever take.



Once we dock in town, I try to fenangle extra hang-out time, but there is scenery to see! It's actually impressive how we squeeze in maximum viewage in just an hour and a half. Even more impressive when you know that we burn the first fifteen minutes that we're there booking our plane tickets from Guilin back to Hong Kong. It wasn't so much an option because those tickets really needed to be booked, but it means our speed sightseeing is even more condensed.

Then, we track down a taxi driver and get him to give us a speed tour. We book it out to Moon Hill, where we literally get out of the cab, take about five pictures each and then get back in the cab and rush to some other natural beautiful spot that I think is called something like Big Tree or something like that. There, we get out of the cab, walk around for a closely timed ten minutes, take some pictures and then book it back to the cab to get back to our transport to Guilin.











We arrive back to the rendevous point to head back to Guilin exactly on time. It's not pretty, planned or relaxing, but it is awesome and fun. I'll take it!

That night in Guilin, we have catfish with its head on the plate and chicken with its head AND feet on the plate. Nobody's feeling all that well after dinner, so we decide to stay in that night and play cards.

We've been teaching Lisa how to play Texas Hold'em all trip long. Whenever there is down time, we've had cards out (more or less). This night, because we are in for the evening, we have time for a full-on tournament using toothpicks as betting chips. Ho goes out early when Lisa's busts his low number kicker with a only slightly higher number kicker.

I hold on for a long time. I have her down to her last toothpick at one point when I'm running a Royal, but I start to feel bad and advise her not to go all in. After that, she suddenly starts playing brilliantly and takes every single toothpick away from me. She eventually wins the entire game by once again beating our matching pairs with a low number kicker. Sigh. But she ends the game with the funniest comment: "In real life, I loose huge amounts of cash. In fake life, I win toothpicks."

We turn on the TV before bed and the final "Lord of the Rings" movie is on in English. We fall asleep to it, and I'm already sad as we fall asleep because tomorrow is the last day of the trip.