I Don't Wanna Be a Hussla'

My girlfriend Carly and I went dancing this weekend at the Jack Rabbit lounge in Buckhead. Our friend Elliot was djing, and we wanted to represent. Meanwhile, my husband, DJ, and Carly's fiance, Robbie, went to The Earl to see Oneida.

I had never been to the Jack Rabbit before, but it is a cool club. The dance floor is cute and the couches and tables are stylish and comfey. It's also pretty small, which makes it more accessible than the other clubs I've been to in Buckhead.

Elliot did an awesome job. The music was really good. He played the new Jay-Z/Beyonce song, and the new Christina Aguilera single, among others! It was the perfect mix for having a dance party. After a few Cosmo's and some Coors Lite, the new beer of choice, Carly and I danced it up.

After a while, we started to notice a problem. Most of the other people in the club were mixing it up - the couples were dancing together and the singles were moving around, meeting each other. This was my first visit to a club since I got married, and it posed a little bit of a quandry. Throughout the night, several different guys came up to us. We looked like single girls, I guess. There were just the two of us, dancing together. You know how it is in a club like that - the music is loud, and it's hard to really have a conversation. A couple of the guys wouldn't even really say much. It would be like, "Hey, I'm Mike," and then they'd just start dancing with you.

Carly and I quickly realized the problem: How do you let someone know that you're not available without coming off as being completely pretentious or rude? Do you yell back, "Hey, I'm married," first thing? Do you just stop dancing and politely excuse yourself?

Carly and I tried to take a more subtle approach. We would talk to the guys for a few minutes, then gradually work our husbands/fiances into the conversation. This worked well with one of the guys - he recently moved here from Canada. He seemed really cool and we talked to him for a long time about being new to the area and going to Braves games.

This didn't work well at all several times, though. Twice we had guys buy us shots. Before we started talking at all, they just said, "Hey, you guys come over here and let us buy you some shots." What were we supposed to say to that? We took the shots, of course!! We both made sure to take them with our left hands, hoping that they would notice the rings. They eventually got the message, but now without some scathing looks from at least one of the pairs of dudes.

The question is, could we have handeled it better? Robbie and DJ says that we where hustling people, since we accepted shots from "unsuspecting mens." Is that true? That actually made me feel kindof bad. I mean, I don't want to pull one over on anyone.

Is going to a club after you're married considered "false advertising?" Are married women not supposed to go out to certain places without their boys? Is this the end of girls night out?! I certainly hope not, as we had so much fun. By the end of the night, DJ and Robbie joined us, and Carly demonstrated how to do push-ups on the bathroom floor!

Tom Petty Has Been Rockin' for 30 Years

I heard a really cool interview with Tom Petty on Fresh Air this afternoon. One time, someone tried to burn his house down while he and his family were sleeping in it! He talks about "I won't Back Down," one of the coolest songs ever.

The interview also features some of the songs off his new solo record.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5586675

Hello There

Welcome to my blog!

Today I had an eye-opening experience - I visited several of my friends' blogs for the first time.

I have always had a fear of online posting. To me, it would mean putting something out there for anyone to read. What if I didn't want strangers to see it? What could I possibly say that people would want to read? What if my grammer is really horrible?

Today, however, I realized the pure awesomeness of the blog. In ten minutes, I was able to see what three of my really good friends have been up to over the past two months. I got to see the new things that they're interested in and the things they have written about their lives. It is amazing to me how much you can learn about people you've known for years, simply by reading what they write!

So now I feel like I finally understand the blog. It's not something that strangers are necessarily going to read and critique at all. It's not a place where only people who are really clever and interesting can write. It's just a way to stay connected to the people I care about. And since a lot of my friends are doing exciting things right now and are moving to exciting new places, that is more important to me now than it has ever been.

So that is the purpose of this blog - to find out about all of the exciting things that are happening in the lives of my friends and family and to share some of the events that are happening in my life as well. And everyone will just have to forgive my horrible grammer.