You know the usual, bottles popping, dancing the new year away, and fireworks exploding in mid air creating a mesmerizing lights-illusion spectacle, that's considered the "known" New Years' eve celebration, but my night had a few bumps and grinds on the way. I started getting ready around 8:00 p.m. After I showered, I selected this Calvin Klein black shirt with this silk black Van Heusen tie, and this dark grey vest that I modestly fashioned. I then paired it with some dark washed Levi's denims with black Aldos. (This is one of those time where I wished I had a working camera so you see how cute I looked, but there would be more hot moments, so don't panic) As most of the time, I was looking put together, so I guess you can say (In James Brown voice) I was feeling good. A few minutes later I get a call from my boyfriend telling me that he's not going to make it due to the fact that he was extremely exhausted from work. After repeatedly begging him to come and explaining him the importance of this night and how much it would've have meant for us to spend this night together, he refused and stayed home. I completely understood his position, because I've been in those situations before, you know those days where you desperately want to go out and you don't feel like getting off your bed because your feet are aching. We talked for a few more minutes but after we hanged up, I felt somewhat discourage and the willingness to go out and celebrate slightly decreased. But then I thought, there is no point of me sitting here doing nothing, so I changed my mind and went accordingly with my initial plan.
I headed out, hopped on the train and the usual fashion victim galore. I don't know about you, but I heard that Washington D.C. was on the ladder to become one of these fashion exploitation capitals but from what I saw I thought it was heading towards fashion doldrums. Not too long after I sat on one of the rear cars of the train, a bevy of pesky college kids got in, and sat not too far from where I was sitting. My first thought was, "Lord have mercy", Don't these people know it's New Year's eve and where would they be heading in those getups?, To some hideous style conventions or some red-neck savage parties? Quite frankly, I was just appalled at the lack of effort from a few members of the crowd. One of the girl had this nice chocolate brown plaid wool trench with metallic detailing, and this other girl, standing close by had this wide-legged dark-washed denims with this chic white overcoat, although her bag looked sort of road-kill, she looked the part. In the other hand, some "dudes" were sporting worn-out baggy jeans, loose-fitting white see-tru shirts, oversize jackets and running sneakers. I just wanted to called the fashion police. However, I sympathize with them, some of them don't know any better, or just don't have the right style guidance, or perhaps they feel that they are important enough so they don't care on how they look. Not saying that I always appear impeccable, I do have my occasional style missteps, but I can dish them out, simply because I recognize my errors, vs. somebody who can't put an outfit together even if their lives depended on it. And not be able to spot the violation.
Now that I think about it makes sense. A while back I was reading this fashion blog that stated that men in D.C. lack of sense of style, and it's true to some extent. Although we see the epitome of style sitting on the white house, (some) men tend to overlook on how they dress. The nation's capital has been looked as this conservative, up-tight, metropolitan society that wear only ill-fitting suits to the office and chinos on the weekends, and that's not that case. There are a selected few who enjoy the art of dressing and make an effort to look their best at all times. I personally know a few of those people, who never look a hair out of place and always seems to be wearing the appropriate ensemble. Those are the people that I admire and try to associate myself with, not demeaning those who don't indulge themselves in the fabulous qualities of fashion, but at least they make the effort.
Moving on, I reached Dupont Circle station and I stepped out the train, flabbergasted with the dearth of style. I headed towards the escalator, which is one of the longest one I ever seen, just to give you an idea, it would take you about 3 minutes to get to street-level without skipping a step. Once on top, I reached into my pocket for my phone to let my friend know that I was here. He told me he was on his way so I was pleased, since it was balls-freezing cold outside. On the meanwhile, this African American guy attempted to start a small talk with me, asking for directions and my residence location, but I knew damn well where he was trying to direct this conversation, then his friend walked towards where we were standing and seemingly graceful said hi. Thereafter as they started walking away the first guy shouted he liked my shoes, I lied to him responding they were Dolce, he then mumbled something to his friend and shouted, Dolce?! and affirmed smiling, shouting Gabbana!!!. I had the premonition that they were both gay and I was probably right.
My friend came by and scooped me up, we headed towards Apex Night Club, which is conveniently just a few blocks away. We parked and trotted to the entrance, I handed my passport to the bouncer, who looked more like a gay version of Kenan and Kel. He examined my passport as if he was trying to spot out errors on my English essay. He proceeded to handed it back and told me it was expired, "like 5 years ago!". I knew damn well that it has been expired but I thought the birth date is the only piece of info that mattered. So anyways, I ran back to the car grabbed my i.d. and went back inside. This time the bouncer even took longer to check my i.d. perhaps he thought it was fake or something but he just handed it back to me, made a "y" on my hands with a black marker and signaled me to walk in. I payed my cover fee, in exchange I got this red little red ticket, where I was suppose to hand it to this lady who was just sitting feet away from the ticket counter. I handed her my ticket and got stamped on my hand. I walked on behind my friend and I felt the beat immediately and started shaking my booty, it just came natural.
I been to a couple nightclubs before, but never to a gay nightclub, so this was my very first time. Once we walk up the steps to the dance floors, I was a bit taken aback, I never seen such grinding that involved two people of the same gender. The place was almost packed and it was dark and different color lazer lights were shooting randomly from the ceiling. The fashion, as you would expect was a bit "out there"; some people were dressed up, dressed down, shirtless, and a few thought it was still Halloween. The venue consisted of a wide dancefloor, mirrored walls, a sitting/lounger area, about 5 or 6 full-equipped bars, and the rear area was used as the latin mini-salsa-club called "Caliente". My friend and I started working the room, we started dancing on the outside and started working our way in. We would grind with each other for a few seconds while we were sipping suds in between. He warned me that if I got caught drinking, they would have to kick me out, (since I'm underage), but luckily, they didn't.
A while later, I spotted two of my other friends who were suppose to come with us, but they felt they needed their alone time, so they showed up a bit later. We proceeded to head over the mirrored-wall area, and that's where I got in touch with the inner me. As I'm looking straight at my reflection, I see myself ferociously dancing and having a sense of reconnection. I felt like I've just found the new me, the one who's been oppressed with society's ideal of what I should be, instead of letting my inner-self voice it's genuine feelings, I found myself. I thought, this is it.
Throughout the night, I noticed a few guys checking me out and trying to set up a small talk, but they miserably failed. I thought a bunch of them were very shallow, and lack confidence, or perhaps self-esteem. I attempted to never make a move on anybody since I already had a special someone who I must remain faithful to, so it never happened. I kept dancing and sharing texts with my allies. It was just such a good atmosphere, something that I barely perceived at any other nightclubs that I been to. At around +3:30 a.m. we started to head out, once my body made contact with the world outside, my immediate reaction was to run for cover, we got on the car and started heading home, I was exhausted but I still had enough energy within me to party for at least two or three more hours. We got home, I grabbed something to eat, and went online to check somethings out. I started watching one of my favorite shows, Chanel 2007 FW, by the middle of the show, I felt my eyes were dwindling, I fought to stay awake, but I lost. I placed the laptop down and went to bed...I mean sofa.
This is the first time that I haven't celebrated New Year's eve with my family. I was raised in a traditional family with a modern aesthetic, my parents were never super strict nor they were loosey-loosey. I was given the freedom needed in order me for me spread my own wings and take flight for myself. In a way that night served as an opportunity for me to reaffirm who the real me was and still is, it gave me in some sense a new perspective on how I really looked and portrayed myself to the world, now nothing is hidden and exposed to the world. I love myself and I hope you do too.
Picture google.com
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