rediscovering daydrinking

Until I talked to Adam at Sauced on Friday night I didn't realize that the word to describe how I've been feeling for the past several weeks was "exhausted." Barring trips home or to Chicago, this is the least I've cooked for any multi-week stretch of time since graduating from college. Everyday I come home and assess the bananas that I keep telling myself I'll compost and the weeks-old sourdough loaf, hidden from view, underneath. I think about how I've been meaning to make a gyno appointment for a couple weeks now. I get ready for bed then watch Survivor because I'm suddenly no longer tired and also don't fall asleep easily anyway. I no longer have problems talking to my manager after I've decided I'm not a fan of his facial hair. On Sunday Kat and I met up with Gabby, some of her RISD friends, and Dkwon for bottomless brunch at El Born. I think the closest thing I've done to bottomless brunch since college has been the many birthday brunches held at Lil Frankie's over the past couple years, but this, being in Greenpoint at a much smaller restaurant with fewer blonde girls, felt much more respectable. As we wound down in preparation for our exit plan Gabby and her RISD friends each donned a pair of hip sunglasses, looking like the ultra-cool Asian art school types Catherine and I ogled with dread when in line at Mood Ring last summer. ("We need to incorporate someone into our friend group who has a shaved head.") I smack my Chase Freedom dramatically atop the growing pile of Amex gold cards. Kat and I strategize about whether we should wait in the bathroom line or pee at the RISD housewarming and float out into the street, where we Uber XL to East Williamsburg and enter a 1 bedroom apartment that is somehow filled with light in every room. Gabby and I talk about growing up in Pleasanton, which I hadn't thought about in awhile, and it made me romanticize the suburbia, the boredom, the hills of perpetually dry grass, and the teen angst all over again. I guess you could stare at the light-polluted night sky while in a taxi/Uber on the BQE but it doesn't hit the same as when you're 17 and can't conceptualize any future for yourself enough to get anxious about it, with your head against the window of some random person's car. How romantic it felt to get home at 5am before your mom wakes up and the sun already rising, listening to Old 55 by the Eagles and wanting to sink into nothingness in the wheatfield across the street from your house. I remember reading an old Rookie essay last summer with Catherine when we were getting deep into an Ezra Koenig internet hole where Tavi talked about walking home across the Brooklyn Bridge as the sun rose after staying out all night on Halloween. Even as we wanted that feeling we never were able to do it, the weariness that hit at 4am so overwhelming that we would sit on the sidewalk in Bushwick and stare at the billboards above Elsewhere advertising the affordability of Iowa City and think, Honestly, they have a point. As we wait for the Uber to Awoke after the RISD housewarming, we play dare or dare because Ryan says he can do 15 push-ups on the ground right now. He does them, in quick succession and with great form. Elaine doesn't accept my dare to stand on the trash bins outside the RISD guy's apartment and chant "Stop Asian Hate." We laugh at how probably if we had spontaneously started chanting that at El Born all the white people would have cheered or clapped. At Awoke we debate whether a sweater that Elaine likes is too cottage-core, then go the Korean accessories place a couple storefronts down where Cora and I had once met the owners and their toddler. We go to Good Bar and I ask Lucas whether he had been insulting me Friday night when we showed up at Sauced and he said, "Wow, it's the UChicago contingent." After the round of whisky shots for all our friends who were at the bar, we occupy the tables alongside where Adam and Chris are spinning and discuss the merits of crushing and how crushing is more fun when you have no intention of pursuing anything. When I checked my phone to figure out when to leave for dinner I was sad that it was already time to go, and I did some more of the Sunday crossword on the G to Carroll Gardens. When I got home at 10 the hangover was starting to set in. I watched the Euphoria finale, then three more episodes of Survivor, trying to ignore the clock inching closer to 1am.