After my and Clint’s very conspicuous entrance at the VIP Room on Wednesday night as the only costumed attendees to what we thought was a massive Halloween party, I was wary about donning my second costume (gay leather-clad biker) and decided to be an aloof bystander at what promised to be a very raucous Halloween weekend in Shanghai. Indeed it was, but not exactly because the ghouls and ghastlies were loose about town. In fact, it could have been any other weekend if not for the over-abundance of super hot women in pussy cat outfits running about shaking everything they had going for them at Guandii.

I will now pause and remember that image some more.

On Friday, with Karen still in town from Beijing and looking for a decent send-off, I decided to make it an Intel night-on-the-town and invited a fairly large crowd of co-workers for a rare taste of Eric in my true environment. After they stormed off when I unveiled the sperm cup, I decided I should just take them out drinking instead. One of the IEs (Industrial Engineer) was a visiting Californian who was also looking for a good time on his last night in Shanghai. Unfortunately for him, I had met him a week prior at Cash Box and developed a considerable distaste for him, as his theatrics with a microphone indicated to me that he was trying a little too hard to be the center of attention in a room full of girls. Only I can play the role of obnoxious show-off, so the alpha male in me decided that I would take him and the other Intel folk to the Class Bar, which is where virile young men who are looking to pick up on girls go to rot. Class Bar basically consists of a Chinese cover band and forty other middle-aged Chinese men trying to out-drink and out-smoke each other. No young girls, no loud music, no dance floor; basically, it was the the anti-Guandii. Which made it the perfect place to disappoint him and please my close-to-the-vest Chinese co-workers, whose idea of a crazy night out is a half a can of beer after the first one, then a taxi ride home before midnight rolls around.

I won’t get too much into the details of that night; suffice it to say that we somehow ended up at Cash Box again, which is slowly turning into my third home, right behind my real one and the ladies bathroom on the first floor at work, and while the Intel folks slowly dropped one by one like flies, I was still going strong as Pearl and Clint and Mikkel (an imposter Luigi if I ever saw one) and even Jamie showed up to pay respects to the Carlsberg Mini-Keg. I walked out as the sun was rising, then quickly hissed and got into a cab. After stumbling home and into bed at 6:30, I whispered to myself that I would NOT get home this early again the next night.

Eugenia had been requesting a night out for Halloween, so I happily obliged by first taking her to my friend Rain’s “Party for Scorpios,” which was disappointing because apparently all the Scorpios in Shanghai are old Chinese men. We quickly got out of there and made our way to Guandii for a real Halloween bash. What made it all the more fantasic was Mike and Pei Pei (aka Bei Bei, aka Audrey) making a rare appearance after a week in purgatory. Pei Pei confessed that it had been nearly two years between Guandii appearances, and I tried to dig into my memory to disprove that, but for some reason all I could recall were memories of losing my 1st grade spelling by spelling “bus” with an “a,” so I quickly shook that off and gave her a toast.


Mike dressed as “So Faded,” as that’s how he kept introducing himself to everyone that night

The night took a tragic turn as I was ready to escort Eugenia out the door and discovered that someone had run off with my favorite jacket in the world. It was a felt Banana thing that my folks had gotten me for Christmas a year earlier, and it was the thing, when I wore it, that gave me the self confidence to walk up to any pretty girl and yank on her hair, then quickly sprint away. After angrily flipping through all apparel at our table, I took some random black jacket to avenge my stolen one, and ran outside into the cold, autumn air and waved it at the heavens. Unfortunately, it belonged to a classmat of Clint’s, and after he convinced me not to hold it for ransom, I had to give it back.


After falling over upon seeing Jessica dressed as herself, I decided to be more prepared in case she came close

Anyway, the night ended the only way it could have: with Hobbits jumping out of the trees at Fuxing park and offering me my coat back for a bushel of carrots. Well, at least that would have been more interesting than telling you guys I went to Cash Box and dusted off another Carlsberg Mini-Keg, which is what we ended up doing. Every time I complained about my jacket, Coco would pour me more beer, so eventually I just started ordering song A and then singing the lyrics to song B.

When I finally got home after brawling with the old men doing tai chi in the park, I looked at my watch and smiled. I had kept my promise I made the night before after all, as it was one hour later than the day before. I had literally spent the entire weekend in the dark, waking up to sunset and laying down to sunrise. And all I had to show for it was an empty wallet and broken dreams of lost jackets and super hot girls in pussycat costumes.

Hmm, maybe it wasn’t such a dark weekend after all.