WOO-HOO!

I had such a fun, crazy night on Friday that I am just now recovered enough to post about it! Okay, so maybe I was just too lazy to post during the rest if the weekend. But anyways, fun times!

A couple of girls from work (and one’s boyfriend) and I went out downtown with a girl we met in class last month, Gemma. She turned 21 on December 27th, and this was our first chance to celebrate with her. We all met up at her house in Cockeysville, and then headed out, trusting our lives to Mike behind the wheel. After circling for what seemed like forever looking for street parking, and one miserable attempt at parallel parking, we finally gave in and paid five bucks to park on a lot close to where we were wanting to go. Then off to Magerks we went!

It was such a cool little place! Downstairs there were two bars and upstairs was the dance floor, along with another bar. Not that I am really sure the second floor was meant to be a dance floor—I think it was more a matter of everyone up there was just sort of dancing. They played the best mix of music! One minute you would be dancing it up to Prince or Madonna, the next 50 cent or Gwen Stefani. In other words, you never knew what was going to come on next, so it kept you on your toes!

It was a strange night, of course. I have finally come to terms with the fact that if I am involved, strange things are going to happen. The first oddity of the night came early on, when we asked this guy to take a picture of our group for us. Before he would, Gemma had to take a picture of him with me. Don’t ask me why—he didn’t even continue talking to me at this point (he later came back, but still). He had our picture taken, took the picture of the group, and walked away. Who knows! Eventually we started dancing some with him and his friends, who included this girl named Kelly. She seemed normal enough, but ended up being a bit off. She danced with us for maybe half an hour, and then the rest of the night, she kept bringing random people over to meet us, guys and girls both. She would walk up to us, do introductions, they would dance with us for a few minutes, and then she would be off again, only to come back a little while later with someone new. It was very, very odd and we couldn’t figure out the reasoning behind it, no matter how hard we tried. But, even that wasn’t the strangest thing of the evening, at least not for me. That point came when some guy took my picture. I looked up and there was this camera pointed straight at me, and snap, my picture was taken. The guy who took it then caught my eye and smiled at me, then went back to dancing with the girl he was with. I looked around to see if I was mistaken and maybe he was taking a picture of someone or something else, but nope, nothing else on interest was in my general vicinity. I was taller than most everyone around me, so unless he was shooting for the tops of heads, he had to be aiming at me. Weird, weird, weird. As my coworker, Kelly, so nicely put it, “You are in the spank-bank now!” I don’t even want to think about what my picture is now being subjected to....

There was one point in the night that was very emotional for me. I haven’t posted any about the tragedy in WV last week because I try to keep this blog at least somewhat light hearted. But, right now is an extremely emotional time for West Virginians, no matter where they may be located now. Most everyone in WV has or has had someone they know that works in the mines, and an event like last week is a constant threat that you dare not to think about. The death of those twelve miners is something that I can’t find the words to explain, and my heart goes out to all of their families, and I continue praying for the one man that lived. With that being said, the sad part of the evening came when the DJ played County Roads as a tribute. Even typing now, my eyes are becoming glossy with tears. It touched me to think that all across the country, people are coming together to remember those men and their tragic deaths. And I have to admit, hearing that song here made me just a bit homesick. It is a staple at bars back home, but I can honestly say I never thought I would hear it here, much less hear an entire bar of Baltimoreans singing along. It was a very touching, emotional moment for me, one that won’t soon be forgotten.

The rest of the evening, minus odd occurrences, was spent dancing and drinking, just all in all having a good time. I will definitely be heading back to Magerks sometime in the near future to spend my night dancing away once again! Gotta try to keep myself young somehow!