Normal is boring?

I often tell my friend, Mush, that life is never boring when he's around. Somehow his presence results in at least a couple interesting or out of the ordinary happenings. He was here for all of 24 hours -- and now I'm in recovery mode.

We started out chill -- old friends catching up after what feels like a long time -- and we ended chill -- watching the Argentina-Ivory Coast match (woohoo, World Cup! Had to be said!). But there was the period in between...

After barhopping in the Meatpacking District for a few hours, we ended up in Chelsea at possibly the strangest party I have ever been to. The scene...I imagine that's what being on something chemical and illegal is like. Or I imagine it's what the inside of Dali's head looked like. Very very surreal. People dressed as neon angels...a fishnet body-suited mermaid...and everything in between. My eyes were heavy with fatigue but it was like walking into another world and not being able to tear your eyes off people. It wasn't M's idea, but I sure as hell haven't been anywhere like that until he shows up in town.

Then there was the scary incident, which is the first (and I hope the last) really unnerving one I've had in the City. It was almost 6am, the sun had risen, and we were walking down my block, almost home, when we hear people shouting and a guy and two girls come tearing around the corner toward us. At first we think it's just obnoxious loud drunk people, but something wasn't quite right and so in a split second, M sticks his foot out and trips the guy. He falls but gets up immediately and keeps running. By now we have an inkling that the girls are in pursuit of this guy, they're screaming "No!" But a few seconds lapse before one of them tells us that the guy has just snatched one of the girls' handbag. M takes off down the street after him, but the thief had a big headstart already. I'm torn between worrying that M will get shot or something (this is New York) and trying to get the handbag girl to stop crying and making sure her friend has called 911. To cut to the chase... cops came, M and another guy who joined in didn't manage to find the thief but they returned safe, and we finally got home. But it shook me up. I don't always think twice about walking half a block late at night in what feels like a safe neighborhood. It just shows, you never know. I'm never again going to do that. From now on, I'll get dropped off at my doorstep.

Like I said, never boring...