Saturday night’s dinner was some burgers made of antelope, elk, and wild boar. You can see them there in that extremely high quality photo taken with John’s iPhone 2 (don’t get me started).
On Saturday we were invited to our friend Jamie’s house in Jersey City, where he was hosting a party along the theme of “smoked alternative meat burgers.”
Just as an FYI to everyone who wants to spend time with me, if you’re having a party that you want me to come to, this is a theme I will never say no to.
Jamie and John used to be roommates in Greenpoint, during the beginning of John and my great whirlwind romance turned everlasting love. Their landlady was an ancient Polish woman named Stefania, who was always watching from her first floor window, and would apparently discourage tenants from having overnight guests, because more people = more showers = more water that she’d have to pay for.
John’s bedroom was two small rooms, one leading into the other, and Jamie’s bedroom was one confusingly massive room, bigger than my current living room and kitchen combined.
The bathroom didn’t really have a sink, save for this tiny dentist’s sink on the back of the toilet, that only ran automatically for about 20 seconds after flushing.
There was a terrible printed couch with the stuffing coming out of one arm, and an equally terrible futon. They had an Alexa who could only play select free songs, one of which was “Africa” by Toto, so every time I would walk into the apartment I’d make her play it, and John taught me you could get her to turn it up to 11, which I also did every time. Jamie would routinely march in and tell Alexa to lower it to 4. That is why I’m not dating Jamie.
Anyway, the goings-on of mid 20s Laura were much different than those of early 30s Laura, who now participates in much more sophisticated activities like eating gourmet delicacies sourced from exotic places (Boonton, NJ), watching thoughtful artpieces on YouTube, and enjoying Jamie’s performance of several Zelda themes on a soprano sax he bought from Amazon.
Oh right, the burgers! This newsletter isn’t called “Laura’s Goings-On From Her Mid 20s to Her Early 30s,” after all.
Jamie’s lovely roommate Toki was kind enough to cook the burgers for everyone, although at one point I found myself at the smoker flipping them and muttering “like a moth to the flame” because apparently I don’t know how to be normal when there’s cooking at a party and it’s not my responsibility.
Anyway, I think I’ve been stalling all this time with other material because I drank basically two dirty martinis by the time I embraced the burger pile, and to be honest I don’t really remember too much about how they tasted. Except good!
I tried an antelope burger with literally nothing, to assess it in its pure state despite the fact that I was not in my pure state.
A bit later I had a wild boar burger with cheddar cheese, ketchup, and lettuce. Idk, it just felt right.
While John and I were eating we overheard some discussion: “We decided that the elk burger tastes the way an elk looks,” to which another person responded “hairy?”
Other activities that night included beating John at foosball which felt amazing, and admiring these Squishmallows gummies, which were gifted to the party by a friend named Steph 1, who works for Party City corporate.
I also talked to a friend named Matt, who was sort of bartending and taught me about this new-to-me spirit named Kinky. Jamie only consumes drinks that are 97% sugar, so Matt combined the Kinky with Malibu, Bacardi, orange soda, something else, and something else. It actually tasted like the color pink.
John stayed in his pure state the whole time so that he could drive us home, and for dessert I had some nightstand drawer chocolate, because I could not bring myself to actually eat a Squishmallow gummy.
The other day I was in a coffee shop inside a Paper Source, and as I was walking out, proud of myself for not buying anything I didn’t need, I made a 90 degree turn toward the sale section, and bought a bunch of ribbon that I definitely did need. It was 50% off!!
Put a bit of ribbon around anything, and suddenly it’s a gift! I think it’s a good thing to always have on hand (she says, about literally everything she buys).