What came out of me felt like someone tried to funnel Niagara Falls through a coffee straw. I swear my sphincters were screaming. It felt like my delicate starfish was a gaping maw projectile vomiting a torrential flood of toxic waste. 100% liquid. Flammable liquid. NAPALM.

I laughed hard as Genevieve gave a dramatic reading of the terrible things that happen when one eats sugar-free Haribo gummy bears. I had heard about the reviews before, but hearing them read aloud in an Australian accent by the Ford Model my friend Annie and I had just met gave the content new life.

Haribo!

Once every few minutes, Genevieve’s model friend Linde looked over from the adjacent banquette and mouthed “ARE YOU OK?” Genevieve sweetly and confidently waved her off. She appeared to be having fun with us mere mortals.

*     *     *

One of my main complaints about life in DC was that I didn’t get invited to many things. I wasn’t a lobbyist, an attorney or a GS-15. An invitation to a White House Correspondents’ Dinner after party was out of reach, forget the dinner itself. If I was very, very lucky, I would get to go to the soft opening of a restaurant and get to tell my friend, the owner, what worked and what didn’t. That was the extent of it.

After a fifteen mile commute home to DC from the office in Northern Virginia – that usually took more than an hour – I often went home, plopped on my couch and thought about my stalled social life. I didn’t have the energy to go out, but I also lacked opportunities. Part of me was withering away (unfortunately that part wasn’t my thighs or butt, but I digress).

The bright side is that if not for my uninspiring social life, I might not have a blog or several Twitter accounts. So there’s that.

But here in NYC, I usually feel like anything is possible and somehow, invitations are always coming my way.

Which is how I found myself last week, not a movie premiere. Not at a club opening. Not any of these things. But at the unveiling of a menu, Strip House‘s updated bar menu to be exact.

Know what? It was terrific, all of it. We ate potato truffle popovers and steakhouse bacon BLTs, and drank a stellar variation on an Old Fashioned.

There was a beautiful burlesque performer and an aerialist and a man juggling knives.

And in the midst of it all, there was me, sitting on a banquette while a model read me hilariously bad Amazon reviews for sugarless Haribo gummy bears. And I was loving my second chance at this NYC life.