Those of you who want to do a quick catch up on my Miami trip can do so in installments one (the plane ride) and two (rowdy dinner).

The first nightlife venue we frequented is a place called Rok Bar. As we mingled with the crowd of Rok Bar sidewalk hopefuls waiting to get in, I start chit-chatting with these Brazilian guys we know from New York, one of whom quotably stated: “I came to Miami to relax my problems.”

Me too, man. Me too.

It remains a huge mystery to me why warm places like Florida and the Hamptons don’t have open air clubs. I won’t digress into that rant, let’s just say if I’d wanted to choke on second hand smoke in an overly air conditioned cave I could’ve done so without dropping four hundred dollars for a plane ticket. Rok Bar was disappointingly indoors, yet its décor put New York clubs to shame.

To me, Rok Bar seemed like one giant art instillation. In fact, had you taken me to Rok Bar empty, under different circumstances, and then told me it was actually an experimental floor in the MoMa I probably would’ve believed you.

The ceiling flashes psychedelic waves of purple and black. Deep triangular pockets plunge into the wall with 3D Goth faces digitally flashing in alternating shapes. The best way to describe it is a flat kaleidoscope wall - on crack. Titanic rock posters adorned the wall behind the bar, stretching all the way up to the very high ceilings. The suspiciously good-looking DJ spun perched at the top of a spiral staircase, grooving with the crowd like something straight out of a music video.

Seeing the DJ several floors above made me realize that this place felt uniquely Miami because of the high ceilings. New York’s more into underground caverns, bat-like places where people above six foot have to duck. Miami seemed to party upwards on the vertical as opposed to being suppressed into the horizontal. All energy shot UP. The people jumping up and down probably had something to do with this.

Jumping turned to leaping when a song I’d never heard before, but everyone else clearly had, shot through the speakers. Apparently, this is some sort of Miami tribal theme song.

“Drink all day. Play all night. Let’s get it poppin’. I’m in Miami, bitch”

People went nuts!

Observe…and what’s smash? Some drug I evidently haven’t heard about yet? Watch and enjoy:

When I wrote about my first date with Marquee a few weeks ago, I failed to mention that I returned to the club the very next night. My pride only just got out of rehab.

This time, I was there for another event. I’ll be honest: I don’t even know what the specifics were–only that it had something to do with the empowerment of women in the workplace and that a friend of a friend hooked us up. The crucial detail of the night: for one hour, there was a vodka fueled open-bar.

We arrived promptly at 10:15 p.m. At 10: 30, the bouncer gave me a coy wink as he unhooked the velvet rope to let us in. Or was he reacting to the close proximity of a hair toss from the carefully straightened mane of a supermodel in front of me? Either way, the outcome made me feel a little special. I couldn’t help but feel the promise of this Friday night.

One hour’s worth of free drinks…and my friends and I intended to take advantage of the alcohol. We’d paid $25 to attend the event, so we had to drink more than our money’s worth in order to consider the evening worthwhile. Economically efficiency is always a first priority.

I’d worn a sparkling black and silver headband that everyone just loved. I could tell by the way that people smiled and pointed at me. Enthused, I decided to send a quick text to another friend about plans for later in the evening. It was Friday and I was ready for a late night. But as I opened my phone and attempted to type the text, the vodka reared its ugly head and sucker punched me in the face, sending me spinning. Oh, the spinning.

I didn’t feel buzzed. I didn’t feel drunk. I just felt ill. Horribly ill. And angry.

I recently finished college, a four year program designed to educate an individual about alcohol intake through hands-on experience. Such training should theoretically result in an expanded tolerance and a keen awareness of one’s limits.

But just when I think I’m all grown up and prepared for real life, my world spirals out of control. I tumbled out of Marquee, confused friends in tow. One loyal confidante reentered the club to retrieve my jacket, despite my pleas to, “Leave it! Leave it! It’s nothing to me now!”

As another friend and I waited outside, a guy tried to sell us Ecstasy. Apparently it was obvious to any Tom, Dick, or harried drug dealer that I was in need of a serious pick-me-up.

“I dthon’t dooo druugth!” I told him–the combination of drunk and cold induced a speech impediment best described as delightfully tacky, yet unrefined. It’s not often that one is filled with the essence of a Hooters bar, particularly not in front of Marquee. We needed to go. Immediately.

Just in the nick of time, my courageous friend emerged from the club with my coat in hand. We hailed a cab and were off!

…Until 2 blocks and half an avenue later when I suddenly felt like we’d kicked into Warp drive. As someone prone to motion sickness, particularly car sickness, this high-speed sensation is a personal nightmare of mine. At the red light I told my friends, “I gotta get out of here,” and gracelessly dumped myself onto the pavement.

After an avenue and three blocks on foot, my friends convinced me to get into another cab. This time, I rode in the front seat with my head hanging out the window like a dog.

The next day, after sending out a sad little batch of apologetic text messages, I solemnly vowed never to drink again. For one week. As someone who feels a bit of nostalgia for college, I guess it’s a comfort to know that the lessons continue beyond four years of formal instruction. In this case, I learned that, just as with Mexican food, sex, and grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s after 5:00 p.m., an open bar should be approached with enthusiasm, but also a bit of caution.

After being in New York for nearly three months, my social scene remains somewhat limited. While MMB tends to frequent the most exclusive nightclubs in the city, her little sister is reluctant to venture out of the East Village. I’m comfortable in the scene I refer to as NYU.S.A.—an address that’s a fusion of college life and New York. Such a combination makes me feel somewhat at home.

But I can’t remain a village idiot forever. When MMB had to leave town on a business trip, she asked me to attend an event at Marquee in her place. She had to talk me through the whole arrangement several times, very slowly, as terms like “nightclub” and “business trip” are somewhat foreign concepts.

How could I say no? It was time to venture out of my comfort zone and discover what a club had to offer.

I had two concerns about going to Marquee:
1) Running into fellow intern and arch nemesis Sushi Girl, who frequents Marquee like a bad case of herpes.

2) Being obviously out of place in a crowd of people exactly like Sushi Girl: impeccably dressed, subtly judgmental, effortlessly bitchy.

But if Marquee’s the most famous club in Manhattan five-years running, I decided it must be worth seeing. My sister wouldn’t feed me to the wolves! Besides, who am I kidding? I rely on subtle judgment and bitchiness in each blog post I write.

How out of place could I be?

I put on a little black dress and very high heels. My headband stayed home. I was ready…I guess.

The event at Marquee was hosted by TruthThroughAction.org, an organization that “brings independent filmmakers together to create edgy film and video content to support the Democratic Party, its issues and candidates.” I think it’s both commendable and effective when people use their own creative energy and channel it towards a greater cause. Be sure to check out the viral videos on the website. While surfing the world wide web, you may also want to take a glance at McCain’s crazy faces. That should be a real push towards “political monogamy”–a status that Truth Through Action promotes through its “I only sleep with Democrats” shirts. Sex doesn’t just sell; it also votes.

My friend T and I strutted into Marquee at 9:00 PM and immediately downed two cocktails. We surveyed our surroundings, unsure of our next move. The club had a projector that showed behind-the-scenes footage of the “I only sleep with Democrats” photo shoots. Sleek photographs hung on the back wall and blue balloons floated in a few tastefully scattered bundles around the crowded interior. This Democratic party looked good.

The DJ was fantastic, playing everything from Rihanna to Jay-Z to Oasis to Pat Benatar, each song dressed up with irresistibly danceable beats. There was also a live performance by Madison, who boasted an oversized white oxford with Obama’s face printed on the back of it. She too had solid dance music to contribute.

Yet no one was dancing. I wasn’t completely naive. I never assumed that the inside of a New York club was going to look like the Britney’s “I’m a Slave 4 U” music video. But I did think that signs of life would extend beyond the occasional shudder and twitch from a collective crowd. Perhaps it was just too early. After all, nightclubs thrive in the after-hours.

But the music! It was too good not to enjoy. I hadn’t felt this compelled to dance since my last drunken college frat party when I ended up dancing on a Beirut table to “Shake Ya Tailfeather,” only to land flat on my face in what I tried to play off as an attempted crowd-surf. T and I tossed our inhibitions aside like empty beer cans and began to bust out in full force: flailing arms, shimmying shoulders, I don’t even know what was happening with the lower half of my body but, word to the wise, doing the running man in heels is both difficult and dangerous.

It may sound outlandish and embarrassing, but T and I were having a great time. With each new song, we’d let out a wooo of excitement, another tradition of college partying that didn’t seem to carry over into the Marquee scene. The rest of the room became a blur until some youngish guy approached us.

“You guys are like, the only people dancing,” He told us.

We gave him a nod and a shrug. People stating the obvious don’t tend to hold our interest.

“What are you, like, 18?” He asked skeptically

“Yeahhhh.” T exclaimed while breaking into a ridiculous pelvic thrust. “It’s her 18th birthday!” As she pointed to me. “Birthday girrrrl!”

I think that T prefers acting drunk to actually being drunk. This guy propelled her into full force faux-toxication. We probably appeared to be the drunkest, most immature people there.

I took a look around the club.

We were definitely the most immature people there.

But no one cared. Yeah, it probably looked a little like Romy and Michelle’s Marquee Intrusion if anyone was seriously surveying the scene, but everyone was immersed in his or her own Marquee experience.

Almost everyone.

T noticed her strapless dress had slipped down to an almost inappropriate level–then she noticed that a guy standing a few feet away had also noticed and continued to unabashedly stare and grin even after she had readjusted her apparel. She shot him a glance that said, “You are testing my gag reflex.” While a glare of death can sometimes be interpreted as sultry, there’s really nothing ambiguous about a pre-puke face. He continued staring. Since T wasn’t about to follow through and pull the trigger in the middle of Marquee, we decided it was time to leave.

Though Marquee wasn’t quite the scene we were accustomed to, like so much of New York, I walked away thinking, “I could get used to this.”