[Meant to post this on Tuesday, but my week has been a mess.]

Monday night. My brother David comes over to cook dinner with me, then gets a call from a mutual friend, Robbie, a big dude from Georgia who recently moved to NYC to further his stand-up career and audition for Broadway musicals.

Robbie swings by my apartment as well, and we toss back a few rum and cokes, then head out on the town. As it’s a Monday, most bars are closed or dead, so we head up Broadway to Ava Lounge, atop the Dream Hotel. The place is packed.

We grab a table, order up a round of drinks, and begin intently discussing which Disney character is the hottest, which degenerates into our singing “Part of Your World” in falsetto. Ranging from one topic to the next, we’re cracking ourselves up, and people surrounding us stop their own conversations to intently listen in.

In any bar, people fall into two groups: the observers and the observed. Some tables are just clearly having more fun than others. Our table, that Monday night, is patently obviously the most fun one in the bar.

The waitress starts spending more time talking with us. Then another waitress, who comes bearing a round of Tequila shots, starts hanging out at our table as well. A middle-aged couple walks by in formal wear. “How was the prom?” my brother asks. They pull up seats.

With sufficient mass, the gravity of our group increases. Next drawn in are three Dutch lingerie salesmen and the cadre of blonde Canadian girls they’d picked up earlier in the night.

An attractive brunette in glasses walks clear across the bar, announces that we’re ‘more real’ than her friends, and plops down at the table as well.

A rock-paper-scissors tournament ensues. Free drink are poured. We learn how to say “may I kiss the baby” and “show me the way to the nearest keg” in Dutch. Phone numbers are exchanged, laps are sat on.

Two in the morning. We close the bar, stagger down to the street, and head our separate ways.

The next morning, my eyelids stick to my eyeballs as I first try to open them. Coffee, black.

Lather, rinse, repeat.