This weekend the girls and I got together for girls night. Girls night, I’m learning, is becoming harder and harder to come by. The girls are booked, busy, and accruing the air miles. Thankfully, all of our schedules aligned last Friday and we went to a reggaeton party in the meatpacking district.
First of all, I like to look slutty for the girls. Girls night is where my metamorphosis begins. I shed my body from my daily wear of leggings and stained t-shirts. It’s been weeks since I’ve put on a dress and heels. I have a fresh nail set after begging my nail tech to squeeze me in earlier. She doesn’t know that tonight, when night begins to show face, it’s just me and the girls and the dance floor. No kids, no man. My one and only push up bra? Only sees the light of the day for girls' night. My deep v-neck bodycon dress? Exclusively for the girls. My overlined lips and volumized hair with the Oribe texturizing spray I use sparingly since it’s $50? Yep, on reserve for the girls. Not two but THREE spritzes of my favorite scent? You know what time it is.
To compare, when it comes to date nights I am in a completely different frame of mind. Said differently, I’m not slutty on date nights. Most times, date nights are planned on a whim, completely spontaneous once we realize we have an open window to escape for a bite of food and a glass of wine. Date nights are a “catch up,” a way to reconnect after a busy few weeks. We find out where our hearts are, work on dismantling our fears and worries and stresses. Date nights are for breaking through the tedium of marriage by working ourselves deeper into it. Love is not enough. Some of life's sweetest pleasures come when you tap into someones unconscious. Sometimes date nights are needed to survive. It’s a way for us to say “hey, we got this shit in the bag babe!” Girls night is not this. Girls night is a release. These girls can assemble and/or disassemble me with just one look. We are not trying to break into each other's subconscious, we are just trying to see how low these 35 year old knees will take us.
Anyways, it is my general belief that husbands don't belong at reggaeton parties (no shade to husbands). At a reggaeton party I need to shake my ass while I watch the girls shake theirs. We need ample space for said dancing and we need to take advantage of the Ladies drink free before 11 promo at the bar. We need to sing to Bad Bunny and Karol G and Don Omar in an embarrassingly obnoxious manner. We only feel safe when surrounded by the other girlies having their girls' night. To be clear, I can only bend my knees and gyrate in this environment. Have you ever seen a man dance to reggaeton? Or do you usually see them posted up against the wall giving us nothing? Exactly. Men need to stay home more often. There are some basketball games happening right now that they can watch on the flat screen. There is door dash and Uber eats. Ban men from reggaeton parties. Especially the creepy ones that wear sunglasses. Trust me, we are not here to attract the male gaze. Petition for girls only reggaeton parties.
The thing about girls is we need to use the bathroom pretty frequently and for various reason. Not only do we have very small bladders but we also need to borrow each others lip gloss and take mirror selfies. In line for the bathroom is where we have potential to make new best friends and find camaraderie. This bathroom line was especially crowded and almost wrapped around the entire bar. As I was waiting in line amongst my group of ladies, a girl accidentally brushed her hand against my butt. She immediately came into my rearview and apologized with widened eyes.
“Sorry mama! That was an accident but WOW that ass is juicy.” She went on to say, her eyes deadlocked with mine.
“Oh it’s okay! Thank you for saying that!” I say, very chipperly.
“Like, I did not realize how juicy that ass was going to be, so in a way I’m glad I touched it,” she continues.
This is my attempt to document the biggest compliment I’ve yet to receive in my lifetime.
In true bathroom line fashion, she and I broke into small conversation about our outfits and where we’re from. We ended our acquaintance with a hug and went on waiting in the line. Once in the bathroom, it was finally time to reapply our lipgloss and take mirror selfies. Has life ever been this good? The margarita must be kicking in. I reapply my favorite nude lip gloss and go on to boast to the girls that this is undoubtedly the best gloss there ever was. Never has there ever been a gloss like this. It’s shiny and not sticky and does not form a line on the inside of your lip. It blends well with any kind of nude liner. Like, an infinite amount of lip combos could be used with this gloss you guys! I’m telling you, this one just hits different. Are you guys even listening?? I say all this out loud but to no one in particular, mostly to myself, the margarita having a stronger effect on me than I thought. Listen, I can be a very good best friend - maternal even! As long as you listen to my rants on what I’m loving these days. Here I am in the bathroom with a strong buzz boasting about how I have cracked the code to lip combos because of the gloss I put on my lips.
Now, out of the bathroom we proceed back to our corner in hopes it is still open for us to keep dancing. My only objection is that the open bar is over and as a woman I’m not used to paying for drinks for myself and my husband is at home asleep. Thankfully, I am very cheap and my tolerance for alcohol is embarrassingly low so I can still rally off of the two margaritas I had just a few minutes ago. The girls and I have resumed our spot on the dance floor. I start to wonder if these knees can pull through and help me dance ‘til dawn. I never want to come down from this! I think to myself. At this moment I’m carefree and infallible. At this moment I strongly believe that tomorrow there will be no hangover; that I will wake up energized, alert, even a fresh smile in tow. At this moment I conclude I’ll be completely equipped to take on the next day with two kids and a husband.
In the NYC days of my twenties, the streets felt wide and more compelling. I was much braver then. Now they feel too congested and dark and risky. My whole world back then was just me and my best friends. I never doubted that I’d be young forever. Now, my whole world is something completely different, something that feels more weight-y. I have more objections now and more anxieties. What am I yearning for? It’s hard to depart from these moments yet I know it’s inevitable that our goodbyes would come sooner than I wanted. Goodbyes, lately, causes me a strange mix of pride and panic.
Sometimes it’s good to live as a recluse as you age out of being on the streets every weekend. But sometimes it's good to take off the mom-label as a means to feel something other than murky mom stuff. Sometimes getting a free drink and having a woman complement your juicy ass is paramount. Sometimes it’s good to take up space. Sometimes it's good to put on a raccoon mask and jive with the other girl raccoons as we nibble on sweet peppers and the spiked kool-aid leaking from the side of the house and talk smack about the people in our lives who're sleeping in their cozy little beds. We’re immortal, we’re hot. We don’t cling to ideals other than trying to be as hot as possible. Sometimes it’s good to enter foreign ground as a sluttier version of yourself with a raccoon mask invading bars in the meatpacking district to pretend I belong and can still “hang.”
On my way home the vibe is somber. Thanks to my age my hangover will now permeate for days. Once in my bathroom, I rub a makeup wipe across my face a few times, brush my teeth and throw on my nightgown from the night before. I sleep sitting up thanks to the acid reflux from the liquor. In the morning the coffee pot giggles as I pour myself a second cup as a plea to help me wake up and clock into mom-mode. In the blink of an eye, the dishes pile up and no matter how much I wash, the pile does not get smaller. I have banned sharpies and markers and crayons from this house yet there's new scribbles on the walls. My eldest screams a lion roar at 6am as he has now lived as a lion for the past few weeks and as a result, forfeited all of his language entirely. So he roars for ice cream at 7am in the morning. And me, a tender and hungover person, just gives in. Does he not understand that mom was out till 2am last night shaking her ass with the girls? Where is the compassion? When is he going to learn to cook for himself and wash these dishes? Obviously I produced children for an extra set of hands around the house so you can imagine my disappointment that he is still only three years old.
Naturally, I soon call my mother to ask for some pity.
“Mom, I’m running on two hours of sleep and a bad hangover and (son’s name) won’t stop roaring like a lion.”
“Did you go out last night?”
“Yes, I went out with girls to a reggaeton party.”
“That sounds fun, what did you wear?”
“I wore the tight blue tie dye dress that always gets me a lot of likes on Instagram.” I say this as I peel a banana, in hopes it will help me with my nausea.
“Nice.”
“Mom, the DJ was the type to SING to the lyrics of the song, as if we need more misogyny in our lives. Why would we want to dance to a top-tier song only for it to be poisoned by a middle aged man's voice?”
“That’s terrible you had to endure that.”
“Mom, how do I get him to stop roaring? It’s only 8am.”
“The thing about three-year-olds is that you can’t get them to stop doing whatever it is they're doing. It’s called annihilating love.”
“Annihilating is a good word to use today.”
“I’m sure.”
“Mom, I think I'm in my Keke Palmer era. A girl complimented me in line for the bathroom and told me my ass is juicy. Can you even believe?”
Mom stays quiet because she officially has no idea what I’m rambling on about and can't come up with a response.
“This just in Mom, moms are juicy and hot and delicious.” I say. I’ve been persuaded.
Bottoms up!!
Thank you for reading bobbie! Please share this with someone this may resonate with 🙂
I was honored to be one of those included in girls night and can concur that the bathroom line is one of life's most underrated pleasures.
Also - LOL: "Does he not understand that mom was out till 2am last night shaking her ass with the girls? Where is the compassion? When is he going to learn to cook for himself and wash these dishes?"
i loved every bit of this