Power in Numbers

The Power in Numbers

Trying to control the movements of 12 girls is like trying to herd cats. Twelve is a posse – it requires strategy, patience and planning.

To conserve on funds, we shared rooms. Four girls per room does not make for comfort. Girls come with accessories; multiple pairs of shoes and flip flops, hair irons and hair dryers, and a battery of cosmetics that made our bathroom counter top resemble Bloomingdales’ first floor. Getting dressed and out the door is a process.

Miraculously we all made it to the lobby bar for pre-dinner drinks in time. “Whoa, what’s the occasion?” a table of guys in the corner asked as they noticed our train of skin and cleavage as we rushed the bar like a linebacker on QB sack. Twelve girls, scantily clad make a statement.

“We are here for a bachlorette party,” Keri said, “for this little munchkin,” she added pointing to Alissa who was eating the olive from her martini.

“Cool. Where are you from? You guys have a quite a large crew,” Bob said. (Note: we didn’t know his name, it was just easy to call him Bob).

As we tell Bob we are from New York, we learn that Bob and his group of guys are also from New York here to celebrate a birthday. A thousand miles from home and Bob lives in the same building as my ex-boyfriend on 85th Street and 2nd Avenue. Miami is basically an extension of the Upper East Side, far away but populated with the same people.

Bob bought us a round of drinks, a pretty hefty price tag to endure our abuse. “Can you take a picture for us?” we said handing Bob our Nikons and Canons and Casio XLMs. “One more.” “Can you take one from that angle?” “Can you take one the long way?” “I look fat in that one, take it again.” We piled one on top of the other, smiling, showing off our tans and the results of our Crest White Strips for the camera.

“Oh and by the way my name isn’t Bob, it’s Gary. Why do you guys insist on calling me Bob?” Bob said.

Well, Bob – it kinda makes it more fun. We are twelve very drunk and giddy girls….just roll with the punches. B-O-B, also known as a “Battery Operated Boyfriend,” Chelsey added, “Is a Total Tool.”

When we arrived at Metro Kitchen for our 9pm dinner reservation, we were unpleasantly surprised to see the restaurant completely empty. There wasn’t a single diner besides us. Never a good sign and a downer when the bride-to-be is wearing a veil and a shot glass around her neck. We had our groove on and the restaurant did not.

“Can we smoke in here?” Ali asked the waiter who tried patiently to deal with our complicated orders. Even the non-smokers on this trip were grubbing Marlboro lights embracing the smoker inside of them. Bachlorette parties are the new spring break for the 30 plus set.

“You are the most important people in here. We will bend the rules,” he said bringing us an ashtray. We were a fun group that was rewarded with free after dinner shots and free run of the land.

It was nice to receive the VIP treatment even if we were the ONLY people in there. Once the martinis started flowing and the DJ came on, the spirits and environment perked up. A few additional diners showed up and were seated at the opposite end of the restaurant, as far from our group as possible. We toasted with champagne glasses, sipping Veuve Clicquot through straws with penises on them.

Unlike the rituals of bachelor parties, we had no interest in going to a strip club and having a half naked man gyrate on our lap. Instead, we headed down the beach after dinner to Prive, a hot Miami nightclub.

I once would have been able to make one phone call, have our door admission comp-ed and a bottle of Grey Goose waiting at a table for us. Those days of Playboy connections and a Rolodex to match, have passed. I am back to being a civilian, relegated to stand on the line with the masses of people clawing to get the bouncer’s attention. “We are hot girls. Let’s push our way to the front,” I heard one nearly naked girl say as she took her friend’s hand and barreled through the throngs congregated around the door.

Our herd of girls made a valiant effort to stay together, getting separated we would never get inside. With Debra leading the charge, we linked hands as the bouncer counted heads and we slid past the velvet rope into the inner sanctum of Miami nightlife. It is a far cry from the rope-less neighborhood bars on Second Avenue. Red Bull vodkas in hand, we took over a banquette table overlooking the dance floor. More Bobs approached our group, more Bobs took more photos as we danced to the pulsating club music. At 4am, my shoe had left a permanent imprint on my foot and the vodka left an imprint on my liver and my sanity.

Alissa was lucky. Surrounded by her adoring friends, our group was big. But it is the quality, not the quantity of friends that matter. She had both. Our group had multiplied this weekend as groups of Alissa’s friends from college, work, and life came together as one. And then again divided as the night wore on and people wore out, leaving in shifts.

Drunk and exhausted I slipped into bed with Debra awaking early and longing for my own bed, my own New York. I called American Airlines trying to get on an earlier flight. $500 later, I had a first class seat on a morning flight. It was the only seat available. I missed home. I missed New York.

Tonight I have a much smaller party. A party of two. Just M and I….and the Sopranos.
Parties are great. Both big and small. In Miami or in New York. As long as you are in good company, that’s all that matters.

Rituals and Superstitions

“Make sure you step on to the plane with your right foot first,” Ali said as we traipsed down the jet way onto the American Airlines plane at 8 am this morning. Twelve of us, leaving the concrete jungle of the Upper East Side in trade for the sun soaked beaches of South Beach for the ritualistic last rites of the bride-to-be, bachlorette Alissa.

We dragged our carry-ons past first class, past Fabian Bassabe who was too cool to take off his shades in seat 1 A and past Anthony Bourdaine, the legendary chef and author of Kitchen Confidential who enjoyed the luxurious comforts of first class and we headed back to the peanut gallery in coach. The part of the plane filled with a vile tour group headed on some tacky three day cruise where the flight attendants regard us second class citizens.

What? Step how? What are these marching orders?

“It’s just for good luck. For a safe flight,” she said as she removed enough prayer cards from her bag to make a Tibetan monk shake his head.

As Ali recruited the rest of our group of girls into her prayer circle, I began to think about rituals and superstitions. We all have them, even if we don’t openly admit to them or we keep them in our closet of weirdness next to some funky pair of platform shoes that went out long before heroine chic.

Some people knock on wood, or their head for that matter to ward off bad thoughts. We don’t talk about a relationship until we know what it is for fear of jinxing it. We keep a rabbit foot, a lucky penny, Chinese fortune cookie slips of paper we deem good fortune in a drawer for luck. Athletes wear the same unwashed socks and jock straps believing that this plays a role in winning the game. The “Something borrowed – Something blue” wedding day tradition is followed in the hopes that this gesture to the G-ds will ensure a happy marriage. Our culture and our lives, so steeped with traditions and rituals we blindly follow even when proven wrong. Yet, it seems impossible to escape the misnomer of illogical fallacy for rational thought.

If I make this shot, if this tissue goes in the garbage, then he will call. If I leave my apartment at 9:29 am and don’t step on the crack on 68th Street, then today will be a good day. It’s the if, then, when game. A game we play with ourselves as we try to prevent disaster and preserve hope.

We are poolside at the Raleigh Hotel now covered in sun block with a range of numbers like dress sizes. Brown, a healthy tan being the goal of the weekend. We are drinking mid-afternoon cocktails, chain smoking and gabbing about clothing for our evening plans, dates, boyfriends and husbands. All of us, in different phases of life wishing that the fortunes of others will soon be our own, bestowed by the winds of fortune stronger than the ocean breeze which gently shakes the palm trees lining the picturesque pool filled with tan bodies on way too many male Speedos and female thongs for my taste. This is Miami after all….the land of skin and plastic.

We are comparing rings, cushion-cut vs. princess cut. Cut clatrity, carat, color, an expertise some in our group have acquired – and some hope to acquire. It is the bible of the female persuasion, ripe with tradition as old as Tiffany’s on 5th Avenue.

Later, as ritual dictates – we will bust out the penis hats, condom lollypops and shot glass necklaces and dance in skimpy tops in poorly lit cheesy night clubs a la Paris Hilton style. These rituals, these superstitions are fun, harmless enjoyable sidewalks down the parade of life’s traditions. These are the ones which should be perpetuated. Even if I don’t hit the garbage can, even if Alissa doesn’t puke from drinking too much….maybe everything will work out fine.

Time

Timing

7pm, I was running late. Time slipping away from me this afternoon, I was in hurry.

After a very busy day, I dashed out of my apartment clad all in black and feeling very New York as I tried to get a cab during rush hour. After some finessing, and attempting to stagger in 4 inch spiked heels I made it to Bruno Jamais on 81st Street. I was dining there to write a restaurant review (soon to be posted on this website).

One fabulous dinner later and few glasses of wine under my belt, I was back in another cab flying down Fifth Avenue at record speeds. The cabby obviously holding on to some crazy dream of becoming a race car driver, he practiced using pedestrians and other cars as obstacles.

Technically, I am not sure if meeting M for drinks later than 10:30 pm constitutes date number 7, but the fury of life at New York speeds dictates uncommon practice in dating rituals. Busy lives filled with “crackberries” and email and text messages has redefined dating as well as work.

“Can’t wait to see you,” he texts as I stumble out of the cab grasping for my cell phone and cash to pay Mario Andretti.

The cold wind whips the air on the balcony outside the bar. M is standing amidst a group of co-workers drinking a vodka soda, his go-to drink when the martinis grow too strong.

“You’re here,” he smiled. He was a bit tipsy, I could tell, but that is what drinking with your office buddies for 5 hours will do. “Do you want a drink?” he asked the rhetorical question.

I stood next to him, sipping the wine, my hand touching his as his co-workers assessed me. Four guys and one very tough girl, they were the prototypical Wall Street group. Smart suits with ties loosened as the hour grows later and the drinks get stronger, they can revert to being frat boys outside the confines of the office.

“What do you do?” one asked me.

Telling this group of people that I am a writer is like telling them that I sell ice cream out of a truck while wearing a paper hat. In the world of high finance, jobs that don’t come with prestigious titles like “partner” or “managing director” seem ludicrous. I feel self conscious.

We let the night wind down. “Are you going to ask him?” Melissa asked me earlier in the day. She was referring to my brother’s wedding.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Is it too early on in this budding relationship to ask? I mean that is pretty heavy. It’s not just a wedding, it’s a FAMILY wedding. My family. The Jewish Osbornes. I don’t want to freak him out and have him run for the hills.”

What’s the protocol for this? How many dates does one need to go on before being able to ask someone to a wedding? Is there a rule book, some sort of road map that helps you plot out timeline questions like this? A gauge? A compass? A barometer?

Dating is all about timing. Right time to meet someone. Right time to sleep with them. Right time to know when to shut up. Right time to know when to give up. Right time to say the wrong things. Timing is everything. Bad timing can ruin everything and seemingly there is no such thing as good timing.

Time is measured in hours, days, weeks, months and years. Time is age. Time is wisdom. Time is a time bomb.

The timing wasn’t right. I didn’t ask. Maybe because I am too chicken shit. I decided to wait for a better time to ask him. Let time take its course and find the right moment outside the awkward ones.

This morning he texted me, “I had a great TIME last night.”

Me too. I enjoy spending time with him. I really do.

So Hollywood Baby!

So Hollywood Baby!

I had an audition today.

Words which I never thought I would utter, given that I have stage fright and don’t do the casting couch route or live in LA. The last time I auditioned for anything was my fifth grade play for the role of a singing snowman. But this audition was different.

“This would be perfect for you,” Morty said. He had just walked out of an off off Broadway show….in Tribeca. “It’s more like a reading. The show is called Mortified and people read things which they wrote when they were teenagers. Diary entries and stuff.”

I kept a journal all my life starting back when I was at sleep away camp in my teens. The blue spiral bound notebooks housed my most secret thoughts, hopes, dreams and fears. I kept it buried behind the pile of Camp Kweebec T-shirts in the way back of my cubby. It had been years since I even looked at these things filled with childish scribbles on what boys I had crushes on, when dating was rounding the bases and making out behind the hockey boards. Today, at DTUT I was going to read these entries to a stranger; a woman casting for “Get Mortified” – the show touted as “public humiliation” in NYC, LA, Boston and Chicago. I have a death wish.

I got there early to sneak in a glass of wine before I bared my tortured 16 year old soul to one person in the hopes of being able to bare it to a large audience of people. I felt very Hollywood in my over-sized shades and Juicy sweats blabbing on my cell phone (on the bus, not in my convertible on the 405). I sat down, white wine in hand to collect my thoughts and drift nostalgically back through my teenage years.

“May I sit with you for a minute?” asked a total stranger. He was tall and dark and looked more LA than New York with slick back hair that hung long in the front. He screamed Italian.
Taken off guard, I nodded.
“You look very familiar,” he said visually inspecting me. “Are you from LA?” he asked.
“Nope. New York,” I said. Nice line. What’s next? What’s your sign baby? Come here often?
“I work in the film business – a producer,” he said. “I live both here and in LA. I am sure I have seen you before. Are you in the industry?” he continued.

I kept looking at the door waiting for the producer of MY show to walk in, thinking I tripped somewhere on the Upper East Side down a rabbit hole to LA. “Industry” the term, in New York means banker; real estate; Wall Street….that is the industry here. I am unaccustomed to speaking LA lingo anymore, but at this vortex in time at DTUT I might as well be on Wilshire Blvd sipping a Frappacino discussing premieres and casting calls.

“You could be an actress, you know?” he said lounging backwards in his cushiony chair. “You have that look. I mean, you are very pretty but don’t take this the wrong way – you are not model pretty, like Uma Thurman. You could get cast for a lot of character roles. You have great energy.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or an insult. But I was sure; I had no interest in being an actress.

“I would like to invite you to the Law and Order party on Thursday. Would you like to come?” he said.

“Uh, sure. Yea,” I said trying to down the glass of wine while making sure to keep my eye pealed for Guilia. The one thing about Hollywood that I could get used to is the parties.

“I must go,” he said. “I hope to see you again. Ciao.”

Before I could recover, pinch myself and remind me that I am still in fact in New York, Guila approached me. I pulled the tattered journal from my bag and handed her the Xerox copies of the entries which I was to read.

We made some small talk. A little about the show, our backgrounds…how we both came to be here and involved in this production. “So, tell me what you are reading?” she asked.

I gave a short intro. “It’s from the summer I was 16 at camp. I had a huge crush on Jarrett, a counselor and a full year older. In retrospect he was a complete asshole. Of course at 16 and at 31, I still like the same type of guy. Elusive, hard to read and poised to crush me. Funny how that doesn’t change.”

So I read from the pages with pink ink and hearts in the margins with Jarrett’s name in them. The entry included a description of camp’s Atlantic City Night. It was a night where the oldest girls’ bunk got dressed up as hookers and vagrants that are commonly found on the Boardwalk in AC and there are casino games and boardwalk food for all the campers.

“I had been waiting for this night since last year, when I got boobs. I always wanted to dress up like a whore. Because you get to step out of your body and be someone else. Like make believe. Tonight I want a Pretty Woman Story to happen. I want Jarrett to notice me,” I read from the notebook. Pages and pages of teenage whines, my biggest concern to be noticed and look pretty. I continued to read and she laughed. At me. At the 16 year olds voice which used phrases like “Worst day of my life ever” and “I will just die, DIE, if he doesn’t go out with me.”

After I finished humiliating myself in a semi-public venue, she said, “I think this stuff is really great. I would like you to do the June show in New York. Try and get together some more pieces, edit it and string some entries together as a theme.”

So it seems a slice of Hollywood lives in New York City. I just hope I don’t trip and fall on the red carpet and really give myself something to be embarrassed about. I would just DIE DIE!

You Can Never Go Home Again

They say you can never go home again. Someone did, and the expression stuck. And I often think of that expression when I make my pilgrimages home to the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia to see my family. Sitting onboard Amtrak’s Acela with the skyline of New York fading into the landscape of northern Jersey’s industrial plants, I feel lost without New York. Going home, you expect, time to be frozen with your bedroom like a shrine to your youth, nothing moved, Kurt Cameron posters still tacked to your wall. Only like the speed of the Acela train you realize the landscape of home too has changed.

This specific trip home was for my sister-in-law-to-be’s bridal shower…and another dress fitting. Anxiety, PMS and the sheer weight of life stresses, I arrived home already in a bad mood. Going home is hard. Things do change. Even when you wish they wouldn’t.

It’s amazing how my parent’s sprawling house can feel smaller than my Upper East Side shoe box apartment. But space is mental not physical. I am no longer an adult, a responsible self-sustaining grown up when I utter words like “Can I borrow the car” or when my mother asks “What time will you be home?” – I revert, quickly to being a child. A 31 year old child forced to face the fact that I am sitting at my younger brother’s fiancée’s shower feeling single. The pity palpable. The Mimosas not strong enough.

M.

I had to get out of the house. My space shrinking, I borrowed my Dad’s car headed into Center City. Not THE City, like New York – but the small town of Philadelphia known mainly for the Liberty Bell and Cheese steaks. I cranked the radio up flying down 76 the rain whipping against the windshield, the radio stations still stuck in my childhood as Billy Joel and James Taylor reminded me that although time is moving forward the play lists of these radio stations are permanently entrenched in days of Ton sur Ton and Naf Naf and camp dances.

Three dates with M in New York and now I was jetting into Philly for our fourth (fifth and sixth) date. Although growing up outside Philadelphia my knowledge of the city’s geography and offerings is very limited. I am a foreigner in my home town. But M is not. M mixes the cosmopolitan flare of New York and the unpretentious part of Philadelphia. He knows this city and I was looking forward to being shown it, learning something I should already know with someone I want to see it with.

Ten miles from my parent’s house, and 90 miles from my home, I immediately felt hominess with a drink in my hand sitting next to M in his crisp jeans and plaid shirt overlooking Rittenhouse Park from my perch 19 floors above. I never make it to the fourth date in my recent dating debacles, I exit long before I know someone - knowing early on that I don’t want to know them. I forget what happens at this point. And then, I am quickly reminded.

Nerves. Not butterflies, but fear.

I like him. There I said it. I really like him. I like that he loves sushi more than me, that I know he doesn’t like mackerel or egg or eel. I like that I remember those things. I like that they matter to me. I like his giant oaf-like drooling dog who looks more like a horse than a pooch. And I like how his smile makes me laugh and his laugh makes me want to smile. I like the intangible feelings I haven’t yet attributed to specifics. I like he makes me too nervous to eat and too nervous to sleep. I even liked Philadelphia.

My usual panacea for date nerves is a dirty martini, but since I was driving my father’s car and I was a responsible adult who does not want a DUI, I couldn’t fall back on my crutch of confidence. I had to dig a bit deeper to find a non-liquid version in my soul. And I found it.

My snobbish New York side aside, I began to see Philly differently than just a pit stop between NYC and DC as we sat in his friends’ huge loft apartment only steps away from the park, grabbed a late night egg white omelet, watched the sun set from his friend’s rooftop garden, sang Elton John off key at the piano bar. The city I hated growing up, hated because it wasn’t New York, because it wasn’t glamorous or sexy or urban in the way New York is - looked green and alive. Because of him.

On the fourth and fifth dates you reach the point of conversation that goes beyond the black and white basics. Closet doors open, skeletons come out, ghosts make appearances, and gloves come off. As the piano singer belted out the cookie-cutter sing-along songs we discussed the Ex factor.

“I usually just stop calling,” he said as I gulped the wine. “You mean you don’t break up with someone. You just get bored or whatever and then just never call them again?” I asked him. I am guilty of the same thing, to some extent. I have had my fair share of relationships whose demise I handled with the same aplomb I did in high school akin to having a friend pass him a note in study hall. “Why do you do that?” I asked him realizing now, armed with his piece of knowledge, I will convince myself every unreturned email or phone call signifies the death of whatever this is. “Don’t know,” he said. “Just is.”

I hate that I felt myself becoming “that girl” – the worried, anxious, over analytical crazy one who seeks reassurance from their friends at ever turn and every corner that things are okay. The girl who picks apart emails and sentences, who picks apart relationships inevitably ruining them with potent fear. I put it in the back of my head.

The dates ended with me sneaking back into my parent’s house in the early morning hours, tip-toeing across the hard wood floors hoping to not wake the dogs, who would then wake my parents, who would then ask the prying questions. The seventeen year old inside of me invigorated by a new crush and worried about being grounded.

Nestled in my bed, between the layers of down and Egyptian cotton sheets – my parents sleeping soundly down the hall and my brother on the other side of the Jack and Jill bathroom, I tried to sleep. Home is where my family is. Home is where my heart is. Home, this time around is where M was. And I am reminded, I can go home again. I just have to expect home to change, and times to change and people to change. Fear and change are merely parts of life. Drifting off to sleep, ripe with the excitement of this school girl crush, I am happy to feel like a kid again. That is best part of childhood, even if you do have a curfew.

BUSTED

There is nothing I hate more than bathing suit shopping….except bra shopping. And there is nothing I hate more than bra shopping, except strapless bra shopping and buying bridesmaid’s dresses. Today was a one two punch of both those detestable activities.

I am what you would call “top-heavy”, the PC term for having a chest that is way too big for the rest of me. “In some professions people would pay a lot of money to have your figure,” the woman who was measuring for yet another atrocious bridesmaid’s dress said. Great! I’ll let you know when I become a stripper so that comment would make some sense. Until then, let’s call a spade a spade and acknowledge this sucks. Her peppy happy demeanor did not at all mitigate that I was buying a dress that is double my normal size for a price so outlandish for something that will wind up being recycled with my newspapers.

I went to Bra Smyth this morning with the high hopes of finding a strapless over the shoulder bolder holder. Supposedly the Upper East Side spot for the most variety in the most sizes, Bra Smyth is legendary for having experts with a “hands on” approach to fitting you for the correct size.

I strolled into the store on 72nd and Madison feeling nauseous and queasy at the sight of all the cute frilly pink size A cup lingerie they had neatly hung on delicate racks that to me looked like eye patches and not bras.

“Excuse me,” I whispered. “Do you carry strapless bras in a 34DD?” I said in a hushed voice so that the other store patrons wouldn’t turn and stare.

A very petite French woman came over and stared at my chest. “You are not a DD. You are tres grande, even bigger” she said in a think French accent while grabbing my chest from both sides. “You! I don’t know what to do with these,” she said shaking her head in dismay. I felt the tears in my eyes begin to well up. But before I could cry, another even smaller French woman comes over.

“Did you see who that was?” she asked.
“No, who?” I said.
“That was Halle Berry,” she said showing me the sales slip from her credit card charge with Halle Berry’s signature on it.
“She is so small. She did not look like her. She has a big butt,” the sales woman said. “Very nice here,” she said motioning to the boob area, “But her butt is very large, very large.”

As they picked apart Halle Berry’s physique, I patiently waited as another sales attendant went to scour the backroom where they store the ugly, large size undergarments that don’t deserve to be displayed in public. “Try this,” she said handing me something with a size half way down the alphabet. I don’t even think alphabet soup has this letter. If my chest were an East Village/Alphabet City street letter – it would be in Brooklyn.

I went into the dressing room and squeezed myself into this contraption as the sales women pulled back the curtain screen to offer their opinion in uinson. “Zis bra almost fit,” one said grabbing and pulling at it. Almost fits? The other woman just shook her head as if they had identified a new species of female on the Upper East Side. “You need straps. These are just too big for strapless,” she said.

Right, Sherlock. I do. But that’s not an option. I have a strapless dress, no wait, scratch that – I have four strapless bridesmaid’s dresses in a rainbow of colors. So I need one all-purpose supportive strapless bra. What I don’t need is any more humiliation or colorful commentary.

I bought the one and only bra that came in the size that I needed. Leaving the store, I wondered what kind of comments, jokes and heckles will be made at my expense. But then it dawned on me, that if the gorgeous perfect Oscar winning body of Halle Berry isn’t so perfect, then my not-so-perfect problem is just par for the course.

With my boobs and Halle Berry’s butt, we would make a great JLO.

Hanging by a Thread

Hanging by a Thread

Tonight was girls’ night. A night to gossip, rehash dates, drink wine by the bottle. Tonight was a night, to just stop worrying about everything and start blabbering about it. I was meeting Melissa at Loui Loui. When she suggested the after work dinner venue, I broke into song “Louie Louie, Oh Oh, you got soul.” I sung it all the way there.

I walked. From work. Downtown. About 2 miles. But, it was a beautiful night and I was going to be early and taking a cab seemed like a waste of $8 that can be added to a fraction of the pair of the Jimmy Choos I am eyeing…or I could take the subway. But seriously, why would I smash myself into a jam packed subway car that is a disease feast this time of year. Ah Choo. ( I feel a spring cold coming on).

Walking up Second Avenue, camera in hand for whatever reason. I stop, dead in my tracks when I see 10 cop cars, ambulances and fire trucks by the Queensboro Bridge. In my fear riddled mind, I am convinced Al Qeada has suicide bombers on the bridge. “What is going on?” I ask as fellow passer-by.

“The tram is stuck. People are suspended over the East River,” he says as I get air sick thinking about it. I glance over at two cable cars hanging precariously from the cable ropes over the river. I can’t help but feel that parallel in my own life – “waiting to fall, fear, dangling” but realize my own selfish thoughts merely touch upon the sheer panic those Roosevelt Island commuters must have been feeling then.

When I finally reach my intended destination at 75th Street and 3rd Avenue, Melissa has a table right out on the sidewalk. We sit outside drinking a chilled bottle of Chardonnay watching the sites and sounds of the Upper East Side as the sun sets and the streets get dark.

As I relay the story of the news scene I captured earlier on film, I reiterate to her “With all the things to worry about in this city – terrorism, heartbreak, rapists behind dumpsters or giant sewer rats, I am sure no one ever worried about getting stuck on a cable car.” See, that’s the thing with New York. You can find so many things to worry about, but it’s the things that never crossed your terrified mind that wind up happening.”

Great Expectations

It is so rare to have good date…when everything coalesces and you feel like finally, maybe, you just might have met someone good. First date jitters are nothing compared to second date worries. Expectations high, butterflies swarming in your stomach as you try to pick the correct outfit from the closet full of nothing to wear. What if it was a fluke? What is he sees my faults? What if everything goes wrong tonight? What if everything goes right? What if everything becomes real?

I meet M at a bar in midtown for a very early post time for a date. At 5:3O I am usually clawing my way out of the office.

A grey sky blankets all of Manhattan, dropping dime size rain pellets. It is a Friday night to be spent ordering in and watching a Law and Order marathon. But again, so rarely promise arises in the dating world, I toss on my newest jeans and my favorite wife beater T and head out into the bleak NYC afternoon.

We meet at the rooftop bar at the Library Hotel with its amazing views of midtown from its lofty perch above 41st Street. Unfortunately the weather does not allow us to enjoy cocktails outside, but we enjoy cocktails nonetheless. He looks even cuter, with freshly cut hair and casual in his relaxed jeans and a button-down. It makes me smile.

Dating is a precarious balance between staying sober enough to accurately measure your connection and being tipsy enough to feel comfortable. Nerves cause me to lose my balance momentarily, quickly downing a few martinis and twirling my hair with nervous energy. My signature tell-tale sign. Do I have fat rolls in these jeans? Did I forget to shave under my arms? Is my lipstick on my teeth? I start to worry about his expectations and if I am meeting them.

But the alcohol settles me and I start to relax. We laugh. Our humor stems from the same origin, we find common ground with our shared love of Ali G and his parade of characters. He does the voice as well as my brother. And I realize, he is the same age as my brother and I feel old. Does he think of me as an old lady, one step away from Depends, a girdle and mashed foods? And then I start to worry again, I start to think…when did I get to be this old? I am grateful to be carded twice that night. I am grateful for alpha hydroxyl creams and the fortune of good genes and my 94 year old grandmother’s flawless skin.

So I have another drink. Our similarities are apparent, but so our differences. Politics. I fall right of center. He falls left of center. But I think: differences are good. Differences mean debate, debate means intensity, and intensity means passion. Passion is never wrong. I like differences. I could never date a Mini-Me, I would kill it. It would annoy the life out of me.

Eight hours pass before I look at my watch. We have had dinner, we have had more drinks, we have had fun. I can feel the night drawing to a close probably because the bar was about to close and we were getting the evil-eye from the cocktail waitress who had been on her feet too long that night.

And I worry how it will end. What does he EXPECT? I move slowly. I am overly cautious in dating. Does a second date require an invite into my apartment? Is he one of those guys who pulls the “Can I use your bathroom?” at the end of the night. If I don’t invite him up, does he read it as disinterest, because that is not what it is. Or lose interest because he is looking for some Ho to give it up. Which, if that is the case, then so be it. The advantage of years, of experience – means I no longer feel weakened or sad if someone chooses not to like me because I don’t pull up my skirt first off like so many of these girls who I know. I was never that girl; I will never be that girl.

Outside my apartment we kiss some more as we have at every stop along the way that night. I know he wants to come up, but I want to hold off. Expectations? His or mine? I am buzzed, not drunk but not sober enough to drive a bus full of school kids either. I know better and I know my limitations regardless of expectations.

So, tonight is our third date. We all know what the expectations there are…..

The Definition of Perfection

Over the River and Through the Woods to Brooklyn

The last thing I wanted to do this morning was to ever drink again. But a promise is a promise and I had sworn to Ron that I would meet him and Keri for a day of play. Ron, my fabulous friend from Michigan who recently got engaged to Keri, my fabulous sorority sister from Michigan had plans…plans that commenced early and had no end time. The kind of plans which make up a spring day in New York. I skipped the brunch at EJ’s while I drank a gallon of water and searched my apartment for Tylenol.

“We are going to Brooklyn Brewery,” Ron said from his crackling cell phone connection.
“We must have a bad connection. I thought you just said BROOKLYN!” I said laughing.
“I did. We are going there to meet a bunch of people. It’s only one train stop outside Manhattan. Just get showered and meet us there.”

Brooklyn? The idea of going south of 59th Street in my state seemed nearly impossible. The idea of transporting my battered hung-over self (from a good second date last night-blog to come) seemed infeasible. Like moving a mountain. Like running a marathon. Like getting out of my bed and not having the room spin. But a promise is a promise.

Two miserable subway rides, one missed transfer and a 10 block walk later in the world’s most uncomfortable pair of flip flops; sweaty and exhausted I made it to the Brooklyn Brewery. Truth is, I have never been to Brooklyn. In my 8 years of life in New York City, my outer borough experiences have been limited to the airport and one very terrifying wrong exit off the highway. I am a 212 kinda girl. Brooklyn seemed both scary like scenes I imagine from Bonfire of the Vanities or uber hip in an anti-Manhattan way. A world far away from the string of pearls and trust funds of the Upper East Side.

When Ron told me that we were meeting up with his friends for beers, I pictured an outdoor café overlooking the skyline of Manhattan. Primed with my new pair of Nicole Richie-esque Dior sunglasses brilliantly designed to hide the sins of the night before, I was anticipating the cool breeze from the East River to help smooth over the morning’s rough spots. Why else would people go to Brooklyn except for the amazing vistas of Manhattan?

I was dead wrong. The Brooklyn Brewery reminded me of a college mess hall. The giant indoor space was filled with picnic tables and swarming hipsters using the Brooklyn Brewery tokens to buy beers from a single counter. There were no waitresses, no open kitchen with California cuisine or a brunch menu. There were delivery menus from local greasy spoons and groups of friends’ playing cards or Monopoly drinking the freshly distilled beer from the large vats that were the only decorations in the room. When in Rome….

At first I was pissed. An hour on many different subway trains and a borough away from home, I didn’t want to waste a gorgeous Saturday afternoon swigging beer from a plastic cup. “You dragged me out of bed to sit in a gymnasium,” I was ready to kill Ron. I’d rather get a 40 of Old English and drink it from a paper bag outside with disheveled bums. Ron, Keri, Susie and Brett seemed to be enjoying themselves so rather than be the naysayer I attempted to fit in, yet I refused to remove my sunglasses. I tried sipping a beer, hoping to apply that “hair of the dog” theory. Within a few sips, I relaxed and began to make the most of the day despite being in a sweltering room with no windows in Brooklyn. It’s about the people you are with, not where you are – I reminded myself. But it didn’t take long for the people I was with to realize the novelty of Brooklyn was gone and it was time to head back across the bridge to familiar lands.

We squeezed five people into Susie’s mini Cooper which was a feat in engineering. The backseat of a Mini was barely large enough to fit two Chihuahuas, so as two grown women and one man we were packed in like circus clowns. Navigating our way back to Manhattan like tourists in a foreign land, we decided to continue our day of drinking in a more picturesque outdoor setting.

At the outdoor garden at B Bar, safely back on 212 turf we were able to convince others who found our jaunt to Brooklyn too far outside their zone of comfort to join us. It was only 5 o’clock, an odd hour to begin the evening and too late in the day to consider the activities daytime. Friends of friends started to arrive and quickly our party of five turned into a crowd of 10. Drinks flowed. Charley sipped tequila while the boys drank beer. Glasses accumulated on our table as day turned into night and slight buzzes turned into early evening hangovers. I hadn’t had a day like this since college. Self indulgent, gluttonous, unplanned, fun.

Conversation drifted between how hot is Jessica Simpson (guys=VERY HOT girls=NOT SO HOT) to a political debate argued from both the right and left sides of the spectrum and finally, as the last of the beer ran dry and the wine got warm to issues far more personal and real. Real life kind of things; dating, love, future plans, insecurities. It’s the kind of conversation you have with strangers only after seven rounds of drinks and two shift changes of wait staff, when the people who were strangers earlier in the day now are friends with places in your cell phonebook and in your heart. Future plans for a 5 borough pub crawl were made, talks of T shirts to commemorate the event, detailed notes were jotted down on cocktail napkins as the excitement of trying to recreate this impromptu day was planned. The error of planning perfection is that perfect is never planned. Perfect evolves.

Our crowd slowly dissipated and only five of us remained again. The day had been too perfect to end even as the chilly wind of a spring night shook the bee lights that hung above. “More food?” Keri asked patting her stomach. We had a continuous array of food since that morning….oysters on the half shell dotted with Tabasco sauce and a beet vinaigrette, calamari, hamburgers, salads and finger foods. “I’m in,” I said agreeably. “Mexican?” Brett suggested. The gluttony didn’t end.

We jumped in a cab uptown to Mary Ann’s where amazingly we were promptly seated without a wait. Margaritas and Sangria. We started off on the right foot, continuing to damage our livers. What started out 10 hours earlier on a subway to Brooklyn began to whither on a street corner on the Upper East Side. Unlike the days of college, when drinking for 10 hours was merely an appetizer for a night to come, in our thirties we were ready to call it a night. The drinks remained nearly full as we crunched on chips we were too stuffed and too tired to eat. Sluggishly we all started to fade, conversation dipping to silence and we reflected individually back on the day and eagerly planned what face wash to use tonight and what TiVo’d show we would watch as we drifted off to sleep.

I got home early for a Saturday night to be called successful. By midnight, I was comfortably under the covers watching Jerry Maguire on TNT. Today was perfect mostly because I didn’t think it would be. I was surprised. Pleasantly. Sometimes the best things in life are the ones you didn’t try to get, things that happen when you just go with the flow. A day with friends, new and old – with adventure and drinks – that is what a perfect Saturday in New York is all about.

Don't Put All of Your Eggs in One Basket

Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket

I love New York City for many reasons. The foremost being that at any hour of any day I can leave my apartment, walk the 500 feet and be at Duane Reade. So last night at 2am, unable to sleep and unable to write anything worthy of the “Control S” tab on my computer, I wandered downstairs in my Old Navy pajama pants and ratty Michigan t-shirt to buy some conditioner. Certainly, the Pantene Pro-V purchase could wait ‘til day light hours, but staring at the flashing curser on a blank page made me feel edgy – as the weight of the world and my dreams of publishing this manuscript eluded sleep. I just needed to get out of these four walls.

A trip to Duane Reade for one item inevitably becomes a full basket of goodies. And now with their cash back Discover Card-like rewards system, the guilt of buying yet another package of hair bands or the Swiffer Wet Jet is gone. I perused the seasonal aisle of pastel colored marshmallow and chocolate treats, a talking Easter bunny jabbered away as I passed by. I paused to look at the artful arrangements of the pre-packaged Easter Baskets, loaded with candies, toys and those chocolate eggs that are filled with the crème centers which are my weakness. And then I had one of those fleeting moments of thought which comes only when you are sleep deprived and mentally anguished after numerous pensive hours focusing on one thing.

It is one of those dumb ass clichés that people utter when they don’t know what else to say: “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket?” I mean really when you think about it, was some farmer walking around telling their egg collectors this because someone dropped whole giant basket of eggs? What is the origin of this cliché? Any why, in this modern world of prepackaged organic egg-whites, do we still use it?

I used to be a drifter. I guess most people are in their youth, meaning their twenties. I had no life plan. No directives. No set time line for marriage or my career….just a hazy idea of wanting both. I went where the wind blew me, without thought, without care – believing that I would just wind up wherever I should be. “It all works out in the end” – yet another cliché so commonly vocalized. This kind of thinking is how I wound up in New York in the first place, I just came to visit – and I stayed, leaving behind Chicago and memories of a relationship gone awry.

It was as if the universe had some master plan for me. When I went on job interviews and they asked me “So what is your five year plan?” I would hold back my laughter and contempt for their ridiculous inquiry. Plan? My plan is to see what happens tomorrow and take it from there. My plan is to meet my friends for drinks later at Atlantic Grill and discuss how friggin dumb this interview was; my plan is hunt down a pair of strappy sandals at the Barney’s warehouse sale. My plans – seemingly were short term and banal.

But the best laid plans…..(another cliché) always backfire. Any stab I have ever taken at controlling or structuring my future has been for naught. For me, life is about falling ass-backwards over my 4 inch stiletto heals and landing upright. So now, when I attempt to set goals or expectations – as I feel at 31 I should do, they all seem to fall flat. When you chose a goal; be it a guy, a job, a lifestyle – “putting all your eggs in that one basket” – anything short of attaining that precise piece is failure.

Life is a hodgepodge of mistakes that some how become successes even having been failures. You date the wrong guy for years, but somehow because of that error you find your way to the right one. You set goals that fail in the short term, that you seemingly find your way into threw a door you never envisioned.

So while Easter Baskets may be a good place to put all of your eggs; in life, in dating and in dreaming – life is more of an egg toss. And even a broken egg or two – may lead to a great omelet.

Weather Vain

I realize that the Upper East Side is technically NORTH of most of the city....and I realize things associated with the North are usually cold...IE: North Pole, North Face Jackets, North Dakota. However, when I left my apartment on this beautiful perfect spring morning, I was perplexed to see multiple people (read: Idiots) walking down Second Avenue sporting winter coats. In fact, I am pretty sure one lady had on gloves and a scarf. I wish I had my camera to capture the preposterous outfits of some of these people. Maybe people don't tune in to Good Morning America or fail to check the weather online, but simply opening your windows to let in some of that clean spring air would alert you to the fact that IT'S 65 DEGREES OUT! Buddy, you don't need to bundle up! The only rationale, albeit illogical one, is that these people who sport their three-quarter length cashmere coats and Burberry scarves on glorious days such as this - is that they must have paid way too much money last season for them. Some people are so Weather Vain.

Friends

Friends

When you are single and living in a city of 10 million, your friends are much like your family. They support your dreams, reminding you that success does not come over night and push you to reach higher than you think you can on your own. They are your backbone, holding you up when you think you may fall.

They hold your purse when you need to pee in the movie theater bathroom and there is no coat hook. They hold your hair back when you drink too much. They hold your hand when you just need something you don’t know how to ask for.

Friends are important. Friends don’t come and go like boyfriends or acquaintances. They are there permanent. Through the good, the bad and the ugly, friends are a constant. A static reminder that sometimes even when you are alone, they are just an email, phone call or IM away.

Tonight. I am reminded how important those friends are.

It's a Small World After All

After Hal huffed and puffed and failed to blow my shirt off last Thursday night, I did what any mature 31 year old would do: I avoided his phone calls and text messages. Opting for the easy way out, I assumed ignoring him would send the signal that I was not interested…as if he thought I could be given my behavior on the date. So I scratched Hal off my short list of things to do this week and decided I would approach my dating situation differently. Rather than sit back and wait for someone worthwhile and interesting to approach me online or at a bar, I decided to try being the pursuer. A novel and new approach for me.

Enter Matt.

I emailed him because I found his profile normal and his pictures attractive. However, I was well aware that both of those factors do not mean that he is either interesting or cute. But when my inbox was flooded with emails from 60 year old men far outside the 212 area code in such scintillating locales such as Kansas, I had to do something. “We make our own luck.” A quote I heard a few times this week which I have taken to heart.

A fresh coat of lip gloss and hair flip later, I arrived at Mad River Grille. Coincidentally, the same bar where I met Hal just a few days earlier. I scanned the bar when I arrived a few minutes early not to see Matt sipping away on a cocktail, but to see Hal, on a date with another poor unsuspecting girl as he breathed his hot deli counter breath in her face. He noticed me as I tried to grab a table outside his line of vision. I considered having the waitress send him over a mint instead of a drink, but I opted for restraint and maturity and did nothing.

When Matt finally arrived I was both pleased and surprised. He was cute! He was well dressed. And he was not Hal. His breath wouldn’t kill begonias.

The first few seconds of a blind date are very telling. As much as one person would like to appear casual, it is impossible to hide either the disappointment or the excitement. Eyes dart up and down the other, trying to quickly assess the information apparent. “This person is fatter than I thought” “This person has no hair” “Run run run.Get out fast.” My instincts told me that both Matt and I were pleasantly surprised.

“Dirty Stoli martini,” Matt says to the waitress who came to take our order. “That is my drink,” I said. Already we have one thing in common, albeit alcohol. But as the date progressed and the dirty martinis flowed like a muddy river, it was more than just our penchant for olive juice and vodka that we shared. He lived in Philly; I was from Philly. He played tennis competitively; I own a tennis racket! He had a warped sense of humor; I am completely demented when it comes to irreverent humor. Things were going well.

I had forgotten that Hal was even there until I went to go to the washroom and came face to face with his halacious breath. “You are naughty,” Hal said “Going on another date to ‘our place’ with someone else.” This guy was deranged. I didn’t want to get into a debate or even a conversation with him, so I pretended that I didn’t even recognize him. “Oh you must have mistaken me for someone else,” I begged off his statement and breezed past him back to normal breath Matt.

Seven martinis later, Hal was gone and Matt and I were well past drunk. A huge first date mistake I continue to make. Fueled by the drinks I probed Matt. “So you can’t be normal. There has to be something wrong with you? Do you like little boys? Keep a stack of kiddie porn in the bathroom? Are you missing a toe? Do you have a criminal record?” I wanted to unmask his oddities and demons. No more surprises or disappointments for me. I was going to find out right then and there what the chink in his armor was. I pushed. But nothing. He was normal from all accounts. He was definitely drunk, but he was normal.

We stumbled out of the bar. “Hey do you have a cigarette?” he asked me. “You smoke?” I said, finally hitting upon something. “Just every now and then. When I am drunk,” he said. He was even better than I thought! A little naughty, but totally normal.

I am looking forward to our second date. A sentence I have not uttered in a very long time.

'Hal'itosis

“Hal”itosis

What is worse than going on a date with someone who has very bad breath? Well, let me tell ya…. It is going on a date with someone who has bad breath and is a close talker. And so my Thursday night began with a Hurricane Katrina breeze of breath which smelled more like raw sewage on a hot August night. “So do I look like my picture?” Hal beamed his stained tooth smiled and leaned in so close I thought he was trying to plant one on me.

No, um he looked vaguely like his online photo, but certainly I was reexamining my selectivity at this moment. He met the basic standards, but he had a dorky impish quality to him that was only apparent face to face. He had a gut that was hidden by his suit coat and an awkwardness in every movement that I am sure made him the subject of school yard bullies in his early years. “You look even prettier in person, but your eyes aren’t grey,” he added. “They are more of a periwinkle blue. Like the sea on a dark night.” “Yea, well that wasn’t one of the drop-down selections on Match.” I said.

Clearly within the first three sentences I was already sure that again, this was not a match made in heaven – and leaning towards the conclusion that this would be hell. Hell with alcohol is always slightly better and we ordered drinks. Hal was a lawyer, but not a real one who worked for some big firm. He was an ambulance chaser who sued companies all day because some fat woman claimed there was a wet spot on the floor which caused her to slip and fall. I have a hard time finding respect for someone who chooses to make a living by perpetuating the ever-growing unjust litigious society we live in. Calling himself a lawyer is like a chiropractor calling themselves a doctor.

I pounded my first drink, a dirty martini in under five minutes. At this rate, three drinks and this date would be over in less than 20 minutes. I would have a nice buzz, reward myself with some sort of fattening fried take-out and be home watching TiVo in an hour. “Wow, you can drink. I bet you are a naughty girl,” he said leering at me with devilish grin his breath causing me to hold my own breath. Excuse me, did he just use the word “naughty”? “Trouble is my middle name,” I said egging him on, “I do love a good drink.” If he wanted naughty – I was going to give it to him.

Pitching me his lines as he would a jury he goes on to tell me that parents love him. “You mom would love me- a nice Jewish lawyer, over six feet tall with all his hair. So when am I going to meet her.” I just about spit the half chewed olive out of my mouth. I motioned to the bartender for another drink. I was going to need it. “You see, Hal. I am more a party girl. Tara Reid with a better education. I am not really the kinda girl who brings you home to meet Mom,” At least I wasn’t planning to bring him home to meet any relative especially when I was mortified to be seen with this guy in a public place where I didn’t know a soul. And then, just for shits and giggles, I added that in my past job I was a party planner for Playboy. This is the truth, and the last truth I would tell for the rest of the night.

I love to tell people what I used to do for a living, because I love to see their reaction. Hal stood silent for a minute. He was probably wondering if I was lying to him. “Playboy. Cool. I’ve seen it. I read it for the articles,” he said attempting a stab at humor.

Original answer. I am sure his collection of porn is bigger than his collection of legal briefs. “You really are a naughty naughty girl, but you know, I’m no angel.” I really was hoping he wouldn’t elaborate on that for fear of what his demonic side looked like. “Well you sure drink like a girl,” I said trying to amuse myself. “Why don’t you pound that one and catch up to me.”

He looked at his nearly full glass and then at me. “Are you trying to get me drunk so that you can have your way with me, you naughty girl!” He twisted the drink straw around in his glass, stirring the vodka mixture and lifting it to his lips. He leaned in closer; I could feel his breath as he grabbed my hand and started to caress it. “You don’t need to get me drunk to have me,” he said 100% seriously. I picked his hand up off of mine and put it down on the bar. “You know, I really don’t like being touched by people I just met. And I really don’t like my personal space invaded,” I said as I took a step backwards with only a few inches between my back and the bar. “You are being naughty,” he said.

Was he kidding? What was it with him and this naughty word? “When am I going to see you again?” he asked as I finished my third cocktail that I offered to pay for because, despite my bitchiness and need to mock him, I wasn’t trying to take him financially. “I am around Saturday. We should go out again then,” he said.

I’d rather take my own wisdom teeth out with a soup spoon then spend my Saturday night with halitosis Hal. “I am really busy. You know, with hunting season starting and all,” I said hoping he would see it ain’t goin to happen EVER. I swigged the remnants in my glass, grabbed my fabulous handbag and headed for the door with Hal behind me. Pausing outside the bar, I thanked him obligatorily as he tried to snag my face and kiss it, missing only because I was fast enough to jump to the side.

On my walk home, I was discouraged yet again from another atrocious date. Hungry and lightly buzzed, I stopped at Burger King and got a Whopper. I really am a naughty girl!

Spring Cleaning

Spring Cleaning

I keep thinking the same thing. By 30, I should have matured. Now I am not talking about buying cookbooks, opening an IRA and throwing away all my mini-skirts, I am talking about my taste in men. The bad boys should have lost their appeal between the heartbreak and countless weddings I have attended (at none of which where a bad boy was the groom). Aged wisdom, and my married friends say the same thing. “In the end, it’s the guy with the good heart who you ultimately want.”

I do not disagree with that philosophy but yet I cannot accept that the good boy has to be boring, balding or overweight. Are these characteristics mutually exclusive?

Tonight I went out with another doctor. Perhaps I should leave the medical field off my dating radar and save the doctors for only when I am sick. We decided to meet up at Merchants on 63rd and First Avenue. His suggestion. It was fine with me, relatively close to my apartment and the typical first date place. He was nice enough. Decent looking and who knows, maybe more. But by the time we sat down, I knew he wasn’t for me purely based on gut instinct. We made our way downstairs to the cigar lounge which I forgot existed. How could I, as a smoker, totally forget the fact that there is a place in New York City where I can indulge in my two vices: smoking and drinking? Maybe it was too much drinking which has caused my brain to be porous and forget this fact.

In the last few days I have approached spring like I do January 1st, attempting to restructure my life, set new goals, resolutions and throwing out the old to make room for the new. I have taken my winter shoes in to be re-heeled, donated a bunch of clothing I would never wear on a bet to charities whose recipients don’t care about this season’s newest looks and finally threw out my old issues of Lucky and New York magazine. I have gone to the gym just about everyday, cut out the carbs and curbed the cigarettes; trying to embrace maturity and spring in a deep inhalation of clean spring air. I have tried to carry this philosophy over into my view of dating and men. But theoretical and practical applications are far apart.

Surviving on alcohol alone (since I am currently not carrying cigarettes out with me), I ordered a glass of wine and began the tedious chore of first date small talk. As a first date expert, I am worn out on covering the basics: job, childhood, college and sharing the few PG rated stories which you tell over and over again as funny anecdotes and ice breakers. It all seems so clinical.

Without that instant chemistry, dating is like a job interview with cocktails. Unlike the last doctor I went out with on Friday night, this one was little looser and didn’t mind the smoke filled basement of Merchants, even though he didn’t smoke. A live jazz band helped to create an intimate atmosphere as the smoke from the cigars created an unhealthy albeit sexy fog in the room. Conversation was pleasant, but both he and the conversation lacked that momentum which makes my palms sweaty and my heart race with excitement and possibility.

Maybe I am looking for too much, or something that only exists in the minds of Hollywood script writers. Maybe I need to give the good guys another look, from a different angle and learn to find interest in the mundane as oppose to looking for drama and excitement. But ingrained in my personality, in my core, in my existence is the need for share life with someone who doesn’t always play by the rules and causes my adrenaline to spike.

In life, it is much easier to clean out your closets and your physical space than it is to make room in your “mind’s closet” for a new and different wardrobe of men.

So my hunt goes on this season….for new clothing to fill the barren space in my closet and to fill the barren space in my heart. I will continue to try new styles….that may not look good on the hanger, but may feel better on. I will let you know.

Anesthetized to Death

Anesthetized to Death

Love is in the air, I thought optimistically as spring was apparent yesterday. It was warm, the sidewalk cafes of the upper east were brimming with people enjoying the season’s weather as the sun dipped behind the buildings and another Friday night began. Suddenly, New York seemed alive again. With freshly manicured toes and new sandals, I dashed off to an early date at Per Lei. Tonight’s suitor was another online find, Match.com. I could tell by our initial phone calls that this was not a match. First off, he was 44 and never married. Red Flag. Secondly, when he called he would say hello and then there would be dead silence. Not even “how are you” “what are you up to” – conversation was stilted and forced. Third, he didn’t live in the city. But he was a Jewish anesthesiologist and that alone warranted one drink. If for no other reason, but to prove myself correct and prove to myself that I can be open minded.

I arrived at Per Lei, the newest Italian restaurant on the Upper East. It was smaller than I expected, with large windows opened wide onto 2nd Avenue enhancing the European element with al fresco dining appeal. The crowd was a mix of Euro downtown models and those who travel with them to feed them and the Park Avenue set. People pounded away on their Blackberries looking beautiful yet bored. The Euro men were clad in tight fitting Italian suits where the pant legs always seems too short giving me flashbacks of my recent trip to Europe. The décor was modern and simple with bright orange chairs and white flowing curtains that reminded me of Miami, but the large crystal chandelier affirmed that we were still on the Upper East Side. My date was no where to be seen, so I snaked my way up to the bar and ordered a wine to sip while I people-watched. Fifteen minutes and two phone calls later, he arrived confused unable to remember the name of the restaurant we were meeting at or where it was located. Boy F*cking genius.

“It is kinda tight in here. Maybe we should go some place where we can get a table and sit outside,” I suggested with my still half-full glass of wine in hand. With that suggestion, he failed to utter a word, but turned and dashed out of the restaurant leaving me to find a place to leave my wine and hurriedly scoot after him. Our two block walk to Cinema Café was conversation free and I was already planning my escape. On paper, he was a catch – in reality, he was something to feed to the fish.

At Cinema Café we were seated at an outdoor table. I quickly ordered another glass of wine because I knew it would be needed. “So, in your profile you say that you smoke occasionally,” doctor dweeb says. “I find that a repulsive habit,” he adds. Ok, fine. I admit smoking is not one of my finer traits; however I am honest about it. And if someone finds it that deplorable, then don’t email me, don’t ask me out, don’t tell me to quit or show me pictures of blackened lungs or regale me with stories of disease and death. I am well aware.

As conversation went, this was as light as the topic got. I learned before the appetizers arrived that he also found curse words highly offensive when I used one and he shook as if I had offended his inner core. I certainly don’t have a truck driver’s mouth, but peppering my sentences with an occasional four letter word is not uncommon. Through the first course, the topic of conversation was a brief political history of the world. I was beginning to nod off and fall asleep in my French onion soup. He was as dry and stale as the Ritz crackers that have been in my cabinet since I moved into my apartment 6 years ago. Melissa gave me the “emergency call” after our plates were removed and I was downing a second glass of Pinot Grigio. I had already written off this date as beyond painful and tried everything in my power to offend him, flavoring my sentences with as much profanity as I could, talking of my college days where bong hits were breakfast (he was a fervent anti-drug preacher) and telling him how great it must be to be an anesthesiologist with access to all those great drugs. I was hoping he would end the date early, cancel our order, give me a number for drug rehab and head back across the bridge to where he came from. No such luck.

During the main course he could have taken out my spleen without anesthesia. I picked at my tuna tartar (which wasn’t very good) and attempted to listen to him drone on about the geopolitical affairs that effect the medical profession having lost any feeling in my head. He didn’t laugh once, smile, make a joke – he was painfully rigid and I was just in pain. It had to be obvious to him that this was misery - for both of us.

I told him I had to go to a birthday party at a bondage club downtown. It wasn’t true; I just enjoyed watching him wince in pain every time I said something off color. That was my only entertainment. We said goodbye and I politely thanked him and bolted further uptown to Melissa’s apartment where I shared every detail down to his nervous twitch over a bottle of white wine. “Wow, you will never hear from him again. Sounds like you really made yourself as unappealing as possible,” she said. We were as mismatched as an argyle sock and a sweat sock.

The next day he left a message. “We should do dinner again soon.”