is the word 'diary' better than the word 'blog'? probably not.

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Hours, After Hours.

It all started when we waited in line for a bit too long with a bunch of people who were a bit too young, only to be told that we couldn�t get into the club if we didn�t have tickets. The thing was sold out! I just didn�t think that I�d need to buy advance tickets to the monthly Pop Night at a largish dance club. And also, back when I was a bit of a clubgoer, I just never had to worry about getting in anywhere because I knew people working at most places. But that is no longer true�and if it were it would be sad for all of us.

Walking away, Cristina and I briefly wondered whether we had been turned away because we are old. But it didn�t seem like that kind of refusal. So we moved on. I quickly started texting everyone I had asked to meet us there�the philosopher and fellow dance-lover, the good-old-friend and specialist in Spanish poetry, the political scientist, and the journalist who had vaguely threatened to bring a gaggle of science writers with him. But then what? It�s the end of the semester, the night was younger than we are, and we had to DO something.

Cristina thought of Webster Hall, where she said she had sometimes heard dance music floating down from upstairs to the club in the basement where she had seen indie bands perform. I looked it up on my phone and learned that it was Ladies� Night and Hip Hop Reggae night. We decided to do a walk-by, and gauge the mood outside.

It took awhile to get there because I decided we didn�t need to take a cab.

As we wandered around, waiting too long for the subway, which then bypassed the stop we wanted and delivered us to Union Square, we decided that there should be a sequel to After Hours about people our age, but that it should just be called Hours, because no one stays up that late anymore.

As we approached the club, Cristina said, well, it looks like a high probability of leg humping but it�s free so WHY NOT CHECK IT OUT? I wasn�t sure I would have come to that conclusion left to my own reasoning, but well, she was right: why not? The entry price was $35� which I would never pay� but I am a LADY (or, as the marquee read, a GIRL), so I got in for free, and then paid a lot for every drink. And it was worth it. In fact, once I got through the extremely vigorous body frisk and purse search, I said to Cristina, �Even if this is all that happens tonight, I am satisfied. I have not been ANYWHERE with this much security in a very long time.�

It was like a magical amusement park in there, where every room took you on a different ride. There was the reggae room upstairs that was filled to max capacity most of the evening� and when we finally got in there the vibe was strangely aggressive. I�m guessing it was all peace and love and ganja smoke earlier, before we hit the �bombed and ready� portion of the evening.

The basement had a bunch of different indie/hipster stuff happening. A DJ playing slowed down 90s music with beats. A guy doing street-art type art on a canvas while people watched. Dudes taking turns breakdancing. That was cool for hanging out but no one was going to dance down there, for multiple reasons (hipsters afraid of looking uncool, breakdance space wars, strange DJ decisionmaking, art-as-performance, etc).

The main floor had a really bad DJ who sometimes played good songs and then ruined them by cutting them off too quickly or mixing them with incompatible BPMs. It was also filled with people who had made a truly wide array of outfit decisions before setting out for the evening�and I always love a room full of spectacle, horror and fashion. Cristina and I did a fair amount of dancing in that room, and drank a fair amount of bourbon, and had a lot of fun. At some point a dude who, I am not kidding, looked a lot like Wallace Stevens�old, white hair, balding, dressed in a sweater vest and oxford shirt�started TEARING UP the dance floor and made everyone in the room give him respect.

Early in the evening on the main floor, they kept raising the house lights all the way up to 11 for strange intervals of time and then lowering them back down. It�s not a good look for a club or clubgoers. Cristina was all, WHY ARE THEY DOING THAT and I pointed out it must be a security problem. There were also suspiciously hip guys walking around with earwires, talking into their fists. I suggested we go downstairs for awhile while they worked out whatever kind of drugbust was going on.

An hour or so later we were back on the dance floor, mostly left to our own enjoyment but punctuated now and then by two-guy-units who clearly had (incorrectly) sussed us out in advance as In Need Of Male Attention. These units would swoop in and grab our hands for dancing. In such a situation, I just refuse the handgrab. When I am at a club I am there for dancing, and I don�t need to meet anyone new. Cristina is more friendly and polite about it all, but basically has the same philosophy. I�m not sure which approach is better. It might be hers.

We decided to leave around 1:30, at which point Cristina said we should get another drink. It is only when one has already had 4 drinks that one says yes to such a thing. But, lucky for us, the dance-loving philosopher was ready to meet us, and we went to a bar where there was a whiskey and beer special that found us all sipping whiskey and drinking Genesee out of a can. I quickly pushed my whiskey over to the philosopher and stuck with the beer, and yet I think is not at all controversial for me to assert that I did not need that beer at all. We shut down that bar at 4am.

In the cab on the way home Cristina started talking about how sometimes grilled cheese tastes really good late at night after drinking. And so we redirected the cab to a diner and had grilled cheese, fries and a chocolate milkshake. A perfect evening.

The next day Matthew posted this to facebook: �Cristina got home last night late enough to pick up the morning Times on her way in. JILL STAUFFER is a bad influence.� I think he knows full well the influence Cristina is capable of wielding, but, well, fair enough. I think she and I are both thankful that we still know at least one person who is willing to go to a dance club and stay out late. And it was the perfect way to shut down a long semester and begin to issue in the summer.

Oh, and I just found out, after a very long wait, that I have been reappointed! It means that I am halfway to tenure. (Sure, it�s late-ish. Most people my age�for instance, Gus and almost everyone else I know�have already had tenure for 5-10 years. I meandered on my way here. I do not regret the paths I took.) It also means I get the next year off from teaching and committee work to focus on writing and research.

11:08 a.m. - May 09, 2012

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