Hanging with my homies

Carmen pulls a lionel richie â€" “all night long”

By Carmen Jones on November 15, 2007

I’m on the brink of my 32nd birthday, and I’m honestly discovering more and more that growing up is really, really hard to do.



Sure, there’s a school of thought out there that says, “What the hell, why bother?” and so many believe in staying forever young, but you’d think that by this point I’d feel at least slightly compelled to reach a higher level of maturity.



But arrested development is so much more fun!



My party pants are always on because I find it very difficult to stay home when I know there are people nearby (or anywhere in the world, for that matter) having a good time.

With that in mind, let’s examine what happened to me last week.



I did a gold-star job on this work project that came to a close after months of dedication and coordination. While I do take my work responsibilities very seriously, in addition to having perfect party pants, I also firmly believe in the “work hard, play hard” motto.



Naturally, after the curtains were drawn on my successful project, I HAD to celebrate.

With a Cheshire-cat grin, I went and visited Alexo Rulz at The Red Hot with The Lawyer, Natasha (for like a second. She can be SUCH an annoying grown up sometimes) and Syd Vicious. There we stumbled upon Pappi Swarner and a cameo appearance from Matthew, K-Love, Chaz, Julie Jordan and Nicky Dubbs.



The Red Hot was wicked busy due to their first Italian Night where they were serving Peroni beer on ice, cheap wine, secret meat sauce paired with precisely prepared Italian sausage, and a slice of provolone on a roll, and (of course!) Dean Martin and Sinatra. Holy crap, those dogs and brews were flying to the moon! They even ran out of dogs and Peroni.



A completely random aside: Did you know that the Red Hot offers MoonPies and RC Cola? Julie Jordon has them put her MoonPie in the freezer and eats it nice and cold (just like Grandma’s house) right as she’s leaving. Too funny.



So you’d think that after my 6th Ave. Strut dog, Lazy Boy IPA beers, and all of the love and the sass that I received (especially from Matthew, Alexo Rulz and owner Chris Trashcan) that I would’ve gotten the fun out of my system and been satisfied.



That might’ve worked perfectly for the average person, but for me, it just wasn’t quite enough.

Syd Vicious was kind enough to give me a ride home, however, instead of sending me off to my doorstep like a good school girl, I went the naughty route and had her drop me off at the bar that I’ll very soon be marrying: The Top of Tacoma.



The plan of action was to just have one little drinky-pooh and be home by midnight. But when you suffer from my level of arrested development, you’ve sunk $5 in that AWESOME juke box, you wind up with Senor Gato on your right, Lovely Larry on your left, and Jaime Kay batting those pretty eyes, who needs sleep anyway?



And when you’ve gone that far, I figure why go back, so I joined the guys back at Senor Gato’s house for after-hours fun, which all took place on a (whoops!) Wednesday.



The hazy, sleep-deprived Thursday that I spent in the office is what compelled me to draw these words together, and forced me to question whether I should actually focus a little more on growing up.



On this brink of my 32nd birthday, why am I doing the same thing now that I was doing when I was on the brink of my 22nd? Is it time for me to make a change in the way I feel about and respond to social situations and libations? Should I focus more on pursuing appropriate amounts of non-alcoholic behavior adjustments? Do I need to just throw in the towel and donate my party pants to charity?



FUNK NO!!!



Rather than resolving this examination with the conviction of a well-adjusted, contributing member of society, I’ve firmly decided not to break my decade-plus streak, especially because the s*** aint broke.



Who wants to party tonight?

I\'m Carmen, your new chameleon. Drop me your favorite parties at permanentlipstick@hotmail.com.