A quarter life crisis and a gallon of Grand Marnier

There's something about this poor-college-kid life turned post-graduation-semi-employed-poor life I lead in New York that was pointed out to me today. The scene was Joe's Shanghai this brisk afternoon. Skamps and I detoured from our usual spot, Shanghai Deluxe Cafe, in search of a new venue (That'll teach me). The service was overbearing and downright uncomfortable... sort of like China. For those of you who know, you know exactly what I mean. Hovering waiters, bill snatchers abounding, loud Cantonese women... you get the picture.
Anyway, we were talking about "doing fun stuff" in the city. For anyone that doesn't live in Manhattan, and for a girl who grew up just outside the city limits, NYC is the mind's eye of fun, of excitement, of thrills. So how is it that we've become laden with mundane brainstorms and a lacking bounty of ideas? I was stumped and just blurted out, "It's because people our age don't have money to do fun things." How depressing was that?! I couldn't get past it. The conversation moved on, but my mind was in a whirl. Was I having fun (I know, it sounds childish, but really now. Am I enjoying my life? And if I'm not, am I doing something to try to change that?)? Was I leading a life at all besides the post-graduation-semi-employed status I'd married myself to when I quit my self-deprecating job in real estate? (QUARTER LIFE CRISIS!)

My mind wandered back to last week when I had a wonderful dinner at Blue Water Grill with G-Ho and Kika. BWG was holding a restaurant week event and I couldn't turn down such an invitation for such lovely company and food. Plus, I knew of BWG from some sultry SatC episode from way back when, so when I heard the venue, I immediately accepted and penciled plans into my Blackberry (Check out that SatC link. It's a Yelp list of NYC establishments found in the show/movies!). The restaurant was beautiful with an old age charm and even a fish monger station right in the middle of the restaurant floor! I felt charmed, romanced, tickled even by the service and the atmosphere. This was New York. This is what outsiders think of when they wish all their dreams would come true... if only they could be right here.

[For those of you interested, I ordered the Naked and Baked Cowboy Oysters, Sicilian Style Baked Gooseberry Cod, and the Lemon Meringue Tart to finish it all off]

After dinner, I found myself at Bar 6 for a few drinks with Skamps et al (really great Mushroom risotto!) and then back again to Union Square. I was starting to think I had accepted too many plans and was spreading myself too thin when a hilarious incident occurred that made me happy I stuck it out with Miss Tara Kumar.
We'd just walked into the cozy diner-like bar at Coffee Shop and plopped down on a couple of empty stools when a belligerent twenty-something man swaggers over demanding to buy us drinks. Using my shoulder as support and waiving a credit card in the air as an attempt at a social crutch, he summons the bartender to service us. In timely grace, our charming barkeep tells the drunk he can no longer be served ("Dude, my manager says you're cut off ::throat slice::). "Fine, I'm paying for these ladies' drinks. Get them what they want and charge me!" .... "okay."
Long story short, the guy can barely sign the receipt and asks me for help. We keep asking him what he's doing, where his friends are, clues on what has led to his evening's demise, etc but to no avail. No answers. Just "I have a terrible life" after Miss Tara asks, "What do you do?" So then he leaves and the manager comes over to apologize for the disturbance, but we're entertained with our free drinks and wave it off. Offhandedly, she mentions he's there all the time, gets intensely drunk and then flaunts his millionaire status as a 25 year old punk. Oh and he's retired.
WHAT?! I peak at his credit card receipt he's left half-scrawled over and Miss Tara is off to Google. This is what we found:



If this guy has a terrible life, then I don't even want to put adjectives to mine... But then I realize that these are the idiosyncratic moments of the New York life that make mine great. The run-ins, the soup dumplings, the ridiculous Living Social bowling parties, restaurant week dinners where SJP ate at; even the smelly homeless men who make me nervous on subways. It's all about perspective and regaining some composure.  My NYC Bucket List will follow shortly... Quarter Life Crisis averted... for now.