I love this place. Going to Geisha is like going on the Best Date Ever. I don’t have to wear a “nice dress”. I don’t have to smell like the pages of a French perfume catalogue. I don’t have to sit quietly like a trained poodle. I’m free to just be me.

Serenaded by the booming bass of the Funktion 1, this is love on the dancefloor. When the Geisha event pages pop up in my feed, I get that same helium-balloon-feeling in my tummy that I do from crush convos. My eyes shine with stars.

I do mental calculations and bend numbers around rent, bills and gig tickets. I think I know how it felt for Charlie in the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland. Before I know it, 4:45am has rolled around. Like some kind of tragic comedy, the best nights are followed by something like my grandmother’s 80th birthday breakfast 5 hours after. At this point, I realise with creeping horror that my eau de parfum will most likely be eau de vodka. Then comfort myself that there’s alcohol in most perfumes. I tell myself it’ll be just like the real thing with added fumes.

Also I’ve usually left “that nice dress” my mother insisted I wear in the washing machine with a careless “I’ll be home early this time. I’ll hang it out then”. Well, I’m never home early. As I continue sashaying on the dance floor, I’ll remind myself “en route drying doesn’t work. The cousins will ask if I wet myself”. Then they’ll ask if I’ve lost my hair brush. We all know the Family Event the Day After starts out as a rite of passage, then morphs into part of the tapestry of hilarious weekend tales. Just like all the characters you meet on a night out.

I’ve met people from all over the world in Geisha. No single style-tribe dominates. Everyone is drawn in equally. So, as I sit at breakfast, willing myself to get through it, I’ll suddenly remember one of the truly awesome moments from the night before, and break into a secret grin.

Geisha, you’re the highlight of my week, and the port in the storm of life. Please, you keep doing you.