Pretty much every single day around 7pm you can find me reading in the tub. (The same goes for 2am.) Last night was no exception. I had just arrived home from work and was winding down with a good book, when I got a text (yes, I bring my phone with me in the bath; I have problems) asking if I wanted to grab something to eat.

I figured I could fit a quick dinner with a friend into my busy schedule of reading, bathing, and nap nap napping, so it was off to sushi. As we were leaving, my friend invited me to a party at a bikini bar, but I declined because I didn't feel like getting drunk and obnoxious around a bunch of people I don't know. No, I prefer to inflict that particular brand of pain on close personal friends and other people who can make fun of me for it the next day.

Like magic, just as I was driving home from dinner another friend (see? I totally do have more than one!) messaged me, requesting a partner in crime.

Well.

You know I haven't been going out much lately, and then how I nearly killed myself trying to produce an insane amount of work in a short amount of time which effectively killed my hanging-by-a-thread social life? And how all of this not going out and not being social was becoming less freakish and more the norm for me?

Yeah.

I decided to fuck that noise.

I pulled up at the Pike to meet up with my friend and was greeted by a totally strange and yet completely natural-seeming for Long Beach spectacle: the night's entertainment, fire dancers, rockin' out in the parking lot. They were awesome, and totally emptied out the bar which meant YAY SUPER QUICK DRINKS FOR JOEY! (I did stand outside and watch them for a good 10 minutes, though. I'm an automatic fan of anything that combines bikini tops, a boom box, and lighter fluid.)

From there we went down 4th Street, finally ending up at V. After a totally nice and not at all date rape-y stranger bought my friends and I a round of the strongest kamikazes known to man, I got shot with a water pistol, talked Dodger talk to a like-minded uber fan, was propositioned for cuddles (blech, I know), was invited to a mass water balloon fight, somehow managed to get totally shitfaced off three drinks (and that shot), and very easily coerced someone into driving me home since I was completely and utterly unable to operate anything more sophisticated than a bar game.

It was a good night. And -I'm practically weeping with joy as I type this- since I've gone ahead and declared it summer, I anticipate many many many more of these, like soon.

Cheers.