Partying is for people with their shit together.
Not me.
Partying Isn’t the Problem—I Am
I enjoy partying, I do. I’ve actually been enjoying partying lately more than I ever did in high school or college, or even after when I first moved to Los Angeles.
Hm. Is that a complete truth? Yeah, for the most part. [eyes drift towards brain to sift through memories]. Okay, I’ve always been a party girl, an outsider looking in would say. Someone that really knows me would know that I’ve always been a nerdy girl too.
I’m outgoing, I’m talkative, I have no problem approaching people or getting in strangers’ cars and going who knows where until who knows when. Alcohol being a socially acceptable, legal drug makes its use widespread and its opportunity for profitability great, which in turn makes events, functions and venues involving alcohol as common and readily available as traffic lights. So, it’s not, and has never been, that I’m a party girl, per se — I’m a social girl and parties, places where I can be who I am, are everywhere.
Right now, sitting in Barnes & Noble, there’s a petite patron with caramel skin, green eyes, soft glam makeup and nails manicured. She is sitting at a table, typing away, and I’m sitting at another, trying to do the same. The way my friendly a** mind works, immediately upon observing her, the voice inside of my head said, “ou, she’s cute and she comes to a bookstore cafe? I wonder if she wants to be friends.” I always see a friend, this is to say, I always see a person with which I’d like to engage. Typically, women is where I’ll have these thoughts, as I’ve learned that men take my welcoming smile and warm nature as “she wants to f**k me,” which is hardly ever the case.
In a social setting, such as a typical party, bar or nightclub, I’d’ve been having a conversation with this girl before my mind could even formulate the thought. The physical space and movement through the space would’ve allowed interaction to naturally flow. Whether it was commenting on her lip combo in the ladies’ room or hyping up a lil’ dance move she was hitting, we’d’ve easily engaged. Then, from there, conversation could’ve continued or set a base for conversation to start the next time we’re in the same place. Wait, didn’t we meet at… the aerial dancers coming from the ceiling was craaaazy. Boom. New friend. Maybe y’all hang out again. Or, more likely, and equally as great, you never see this person again in life. That kee kee^ while waiting to pee was all it needed to be.
Barnes & Noble cafe isn’t structured to be a communal place. Thee only way two people could end up in conversation is if they’re waiting to pick up their drink order at the same time or there are absolutely no more seats someone is forced to ask the other, “hey, is someone sitting here?”, knowing good and well it’s only that one person with her belongings sprawled taking up a 4-person table. This, I did have to do this evening, as I guess everybody decided to spend their Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Monday evening in the bookstore.
The caramel cutie was sitting at a 2-person table and it seemed unreasonable to interrupt her workspace that she’d obviously been well-settled into, when there’s 3 seats open at a 4-person table only a few steps away.
Eventually, I end up with my own 4-person table and set up tightly, intentionally not spilling out of one quadrant — computer on the corner edgle of the table, notepad to its left (since I’m left-handed), and totebag hanging on the chair in which I’m sitting. It’s packed and I want to make it clear, feel free, there’s space here. Maybe another cute girl within my demographic, youthful and caring about her appearance will walk into the bookstore cafe looking for somewhere to sit.
A frigid elderly woman with a wig sitting six inches high off her head and bifocales down her nose comes over, one shaky, unstable-looking step after the other.
“Oh, sure, please,” I say with a soft smile when she finally makes contact. I’d seen her five minutes prior and kept my head straight anytime she’d look this way. Am I a terrible person?
[sigh]
Now the caramel cutie is gone and grandma is flipping away through Targeted: Beirut. She has three more books stacked in front of her: Do Not Cry When I Die, Funny in Farsi, and Hard Road Out. The first may happen sooner than later with the way my girl was walking.
Lord, you know Hell is too hot for me.
Mamaw’s taste ain’t too bad, I ain’t go’on lie, after reading a couple lines from articles that came up when I searched those three tittles. Memoirs are actually my favorite genre of book. Looka there, I was hoping that chance would have it that someone with similar interest to me would end up seated at this table and thought it was over when I heard granny’s voice say, “is, is someone sitting here?” If you didn’t read that in a little old lady’s brittle and somewhat high-pitched voice, read it again. But yeah, goes to show what I already know, despite my intentional ignorance and discrimination, no matter how different we may look, we all have something in common.
And now she’s flipping through the tabloids, child, People, Star, and Life. Interest in pop culture and celebrity gossip would have to be something she has in common with my peers. They love that got damn ShadeRoom and TMZ. Ew, not me.
Girl, why did I get granny started? I already am not good at staying on task or finishing anything in a timely manner, now I’m really typing at snail speed as I try to be polite listening to her stories about her time working as a secretary for the military and living in Turkey. While living in Turkey, she took a vacation to Beirut right before the bombing that is written about in that memoir; that’s what attracted her to it. That’s where our conversation started.
“You a Creole,” she’s asking me now. I am, I tell her. She could tell. She’d asked me if I was born here in Los Angeles. When I told her that I moved here from Louisiana, the Creole conversation started, telling me her grandmother was from Louisiana. “My grandmother was a Creole, whenever she would come visit, they’d be speaking that Creole… it’s a broken French, ain’t it?”
She definitely would fit right in at our family reunion with my grandmother and her aunts and first cousins with the light brown skin ranging from yellows to reds to olives in undertone, yet something all so similar about their faces. It’s akin to seeing an Ethiopian and thinking “she looks Ethiopian.”
“I want to go down to the Mardi Gras,” she continues. “I’d love to see it. Bourbon Street, all of it.”
Girl, me too.
Ugh, it’s looking as though I won’t be able to go home for Mardi Gras again this year. Last year, I happened to be home towards the top of Mardi Gras season because New Orleans hosted the SuperBowl, which pretty much guaranteed me event gig work — and that’s all I need to book a flight, even if I’m going to break even.
Ouuu, what a week! Baby, I did it all, from partying with Cardi as a showgirl for her liquor line to dancing with Kendrick Lamar for halftime. (The hyperlink is a carousel post on Instagram, click it to see clips from my wild week working SuperBowl event gigs as a model and dancer.)
Even though I was there during Mardi Gras season last year and I’m grateful, it’s a whole different level of Mardi Gras mayhem being in New Orleans during the last week of Carnival, culminating in Mardi Gras Day.
I want to go to Zulu Ball, I want to see Rex roll.
Unfortunately, it was somebody’s bright idea to overlap Zulu Ball and NBA All-Star. Those are two of the Blackest big events and y’all put them on the same weekend?!
Zulu Ball 2026 — Friday, February 13th
NBA All-Star Game — Sunday, February 15th
Grrrrrr.
If you’re not familiar with the culture or these events, you may be wondering, why not fly to New Orleans for one then fly to Los Angeles for the other. Those are only the dates of an anchoring event for each. Yes, there’s a coronation ball the Friday before Mardi Gras Day, but it’s a whole funky good time in New Orleans through Fat Tuesday. Yes, the NBA All-Star “Game” is Sunday, but the exclusive private parties and brand-sponsored events Friday and Saturday are why people really fly into town.
NBA All-Star Weekend and the big Mardi Gras finale weekend DIRECTLY overlap and that sucks.
Losing My College Class Ring
It doesn’t suck for the purpose (or hope) of partying. As I opened this blog draft saying, partying is for people with their shit together. I’ve gone on fifty-leven tangents, but I came here to say that I’m not partying anymore until I get my shit together!
I lost my f**king college class ring in the ocean this weekend, partying.
If I wouldn’t have been SHITFACED jumping off the side of a boat, it’s likely that my reflexes would’ve reacted quickly enough to grab for my 18k gold ring adorned with real diamonds when I felt it slip off of my finger. Or, better yet, maybe my stupid, dumb, duck a** wouldn’t have jumped into the f**king ocean wearing an 18k gold ring with diamond embellishments!
“You’re poor, TK. Oh, it’s just a material thing, it can be remplaced is what people with money who can replace their shit say,” my best guy friend Calvin taunts me the time I let my two-thousand-dollar croc-embossed leather Saint Laurent bag get stolen (or lost) leaving Zulu Ball in New Orleans one year. Baby, I called that New Orleans Convention Center so many times asking if someone had turned in that classic Saint Laurent crossbody. [sigh]
Why This Loss Hit me Differently
I wasn’t really that mad about the bag. Could I afford to reach in my pocket, walk right back into Neiman Marcus when I got back to Los Angeles and buy another one? Well… Even if I could, Neiman Marcus never carried the exact Saint Laurent bag, in the same color and leather finish, again. I checked other luxury department stores, as well as Saint Laurent directly, on occasion and I never saw it again.
There was my pair of 6-7-hundred-dollar gold hoop earrings from Lana Jewelry.
Italian-made leather boots from Barneys Beverly Hills, bought during there going out of business sale.
An olive green, 100% silk dress from Theory.
My dignity in Atlanta, ending with a black eye that took weeks to heal.
The list goes on. I’ve lost so much getting lit.
The how of losing my class ring makes my heart a little less.
This ring though, losing my class ring though, a physical piece of memorabilia marking one of the best times in my life?! The one that I slaved for to be able to afford for myself?! The one that meant so much because I hadn’t afforded one for myself in high school, where all the other kids had parents who paid for theirs.
My little part-time job in high school at Tanger Outlet Mall only paid so much. I had to contribute to the household, pay for rides to get to/from the part-time job in the first place, pay for prom and senior dues, field trips and extra-curricular activities. Plus, I had to have a cushion ‘cause I knew I’d be going off to college and for damn sure didn’t think some sort of fairy parental figures were going to come in helping me at that point if they hadn’t before then. I made the decision to take care of other things and pass on a high school class ring.
I made it a point to participate fully in college with this particular milestone marker. My college class ring. Real gold. Real diamonds. Top of the line. Make it the best of the best! I’ll work 5 jobs on top of my full-time class schedule and darn near even fuller campus involvement life. My dear sweet UL. THEE University of Louisiana.
As I was walking to Barnes and Noble, my thumb kept reaching across my palm, the tip touching the base of my ring finger on my right hand. Oh yeah. (At the time of typing this, it hadn’t even been a full 24 hours since my stupid a** got out that water, climbed back up to that boat without my college class ring.
I stared at the water solemnly, only for a second, trying not to make a big fuss about it as we were on the boat celebrating a girlfriend’s birthday. I didn’t want to damper the mood. Now, it’s the next day, and boy oh boy is my mood dampened.
Fck man.
To others, it means nothing, I’m sure. Been lost, been gone, or been in a box kept by their parents that bought it. I know because I got compliments on my college class ring often. I wore it the way people would wear the finest of jewels. No one ever thought it was a class ring. Ohhhhhh! They’d be surprised when I’d tell them, and would usually say how they haven’t clue where their class ring could be or how they never wear it. Some would wish they’d customized and thought of theirs as a lifelong piece of jewelry to actually wear, when they were ordering it, as opposed to a memory box item.
I loved my ring, man. Ugh.
And, it’s almost weird, for me to be sad about a ring. I’m not one to get worked up nor wound down behind a material thing.
My college class ring was meaning, not material.
I’ve lost plenty… the items I began to list above, idgaf, not fr. Never once ever have I felt the way that I do now as I continually look down at my finger. I squeeze the index finger and thumb of my left hand around the ringer finger of my right hand.
Ugh. This is weird. It, too, can be replaced. I can put my order in for a new class ring with the seniors the University that’ll be adorned at UL’s ring ceremony this spring. A new ring will come in for me, shinier than my last. For some reason, that doesn’t make me any less sad.
For one, I don’t have a couple of stacks to go replace a gold ring right now. Shoot, I’m trying get a couch in my house. (I recently moved in to my first solo apartment; this is my first time having to buy dining and living room furniture).
Okay, Barnes and Noble is making it’s 15 minutes ‘til closing announcement. Let me close this up.
I’m not drinking anymore.
Now, I don’t know how true this is as that’s a party person’s favorite line. I’d be willing to bet that any person that has ever gotten drunk before has uttered the words I’m never drinking again after falling face-first on somebody’s bed or waking up in a place she doesn’t remember going to sleep.
Myself, I’d probably need to borrow the hands and few of a friend or two to count the number of times I’ve said that I’m not drinking alcohol anymore. I was what, 13 or 14 the first time I got drunk? That’s a story for another day. And I’ve had high school and college with white folks in wet a** Louisiana and done been Diddy bopping through quite a few cities since… I’ve been drinking longer than I’ve been driving.
I’m Not Done Forever—Just Until I Get My Shit Together
Obviously, none of those times that I said I’m never drinking again was a time that I stuck to it. Will this be the time?
As I was walking to the library, (yes, I walked to the library first, not realizing today is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day they’ve been having signs up saying they would be closed on), I thought to myself, I won’t say I’m never drinking again, but I for damn sure don’t need to drink anymore until I get my shit together.
Ugh. My head has been pounding almost the entire time I’ve been sitting here, at least since Ms. V (grandma that lived in Turkey) left. I don’t even know that I’m formulating words in a sensible way.
Aie aie aie, I’ll figure it out another day.
I don’t know who this may have found, my little scribble scratch in a teeny tiny corner of the Internet, but if it’s you, thank you for coming AROUND. (I’m almost positive, I was still drunk when I wrote this. Please, come back, it’ll get better).
Glossary
^ kee kee = light conversation. Black Southern mothers, aunties, or women in authority would often mimmick a minor’s unapproved chatter amongst peers or playful remark to an adult with the sound ah-KEE-kee-kee. Ahkikiki my a**, why them dishes ain’t washed yet?!