Labels

Labels

“Let’s go to Woodbury Outlet Mall,” I suggested to M/Snuff earlier in the week as we tried to figure out our plans for the holiday weekend. “It’s like G-d’s country there. The sky is wide and blue like sapphires, mountains reach towards the heavens and the discounts are enormous. I feel very spiritual there. It’s my temple where I pray to the G-d of discount shopping,” I said half jokingly but emphatically.

M had never been. He salivated as I read the list of Upper East Side stores from Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue who have outlet stores in the center. Ferragamo, Cole Haan, Tod’s, Ralph Lauren, Saks. It is the kind of place where I could get into a lot of trouble, where I have gotten into a lot of trouble.

I am not a label whore, the kind of person who outfits themselves from head to toe with logos, becoming a human billboard for a designer. I hate those types who sport the Louis Vuitton logo hat; Gucci logo shoes; Dior labeled sunglasses and one of those idiotic T-shirts emblazed with some designer’s markings. It’s tacky and a desperate cry for attention.

Quality is in the construction, not in the logo or the label attached to it. The same is true of relationships.

Woodbury was a complete flop. We arrived to an overflowing parking lot, after 40 minutes of circling we found a spot many football fields away. In the oppressive humidity and heat I dragged M by the arm, “We must keep going. Press on. See in the distance, I think that’s Fendi over there,” I said dramatically, skipping and pulling him through the scorching parking lot, my credit cards and the sun burning holes in my handbag.

M likes the process of shopping as much as my father. Men shop differently than women, they know what they want and don’t putz around trying on a million different unneeded items. They neither have the time nor the patience to look at a useless item in the three way mirror for hours, contemplating what items in their overstuffed closet will work with a sheer white ruffled pirate blouse marked down 80%. I on the other hand, have shopped till I’ve dropped, one time passing out during a bathing suit mark down sale with my mother.

M picked up a shirt off the hanger as we stood in the men’s area of Saks Off Fifth, the shelves picked clean as holiday weekenders swarmed the racks leaving a trail of destruction and clothing debris in their wake. “This works. We are done here,” he said as we completed a lap looking at ties and shoes. It took under 10 minutes.

Onward, we hit a few more stores. But the crowds were appalling, the shelves barren – the magic of the shopping experience not palpable as it had been before. It felt more like shopping hell than heaven. We walked into the Ralph Lauren store, the store reeked of body odor as bottom feeders pounced on Polos. I looked up at M as I rifled my way through a pile of pique shirts looking for the blues and oranges he likes. I immediately knew that he was done. “Call it a day?” he said looking as if he had survived a battle, a glazed over look of horror in his eyes. He wanted to go back to the car, back to the air-conditioning and ventilated seats. He did not want to dive into a display of slightly damaged cashmere sweaters.

“Yes baby. We’re done. Another day, another time and I promise you this place can be heavenly.”

With our one purchase in hand we rode with the air blasting to 60 degrees back to the city. It took us 40 minutes to navigate our way out of the complex as the K9 unit of mall security guards and state police directed amusement park type traffic to the highways.

Back on the Upper East Side in the quiet comfort of my air conditioned apartment, we showered quickly before his friend Adam arrived. M and Adam went to boarding school together and have remained the tightest of friends bound by years of crazy stories and wild memories.

“So tell me something I am not supposed to know,” I said to Adam as we sat around drinking vodka sodas in my apartment. “What’s the worst thing M did as a teenager?” I am sure there dozens of tall tales which could be told. “3 iPOD libraries” worth, M offered. They sat there telling me the PG versions, the kind of stories the now successful men in conservative monogrammed shirts with high power careers can relay with distance and humor from the days of their derelict past. Adam would begin a story with one word and M knew exactly where he was going. M would add items of interest along the way and Adam would finish his sentences all the while laughing hysterically at inside jokes.

My head rested against M’s knee as I sat on the floor next to the sofa, “Tell me one from the ‘vault’, I pressed trying to pry. Stretching my toes out, touching what I thought to be the coffee table, I looked up at Adam waiting for a new story to begin. Adam looked down at me, then at my feet. My toes were not wedged around the nickel brushed leg of the coffee table, I was playing footsie with Adam!

“Oops, I am so sorry. I thought you were the table,” I said embarrassed.

“Are you playing with my girlfriend’s feet?” M said mockingly angry to Adam.

Girlfriend. A label I wanted to wear. A word I wanted to hear.

“My boyfriend has a key,” I said to my doorman earlier that week, letting him know that M could come and go from the building. I said boyfriend to my doorman, I had not yet said it in front of M. Unlike the days of high school when people actually had conversations deciding on usage of terms such as boyfriend and girlfriend during study hall or by passing a note in French class, adult relationships evolve into it. I just didn’t want to be the first to say it. What if I said it and he got the same look in his eyes that he had at the Ralph Lauren store: agony, despair, revulsion?

“Carrie, he is your boyfriend,” Melissa said to me before the weekend. “You are spending the whole weekend with him. You left shoes at his house. Shoes! He has stuff at your place. He has a friggin key! That makes him your boyfriend, dumbass.”

Like with clothing, or discount shopping, it is the quality of the merchandise which matters not that label attached to it. I had no doubt about the quality of the fabric of this relationship, but I wasn’t sure about the label. Woodbury was a huge disappointment Sunday, I left with no great deals or brand name pieces, but I did get the label I really wanted: Girlfriend.

Run of Show

As an ex-event planner, ROS (run-of-show) and event day schedules are things I can compose in my sleep. I can break a 24hr event into thirty second intervals even scheduling bathroom breaks for the kitchen staff. This is what 6 years at Playboy has left me with.

At precisely 8:35 am, I left my parents house in the pouring rain for grooming appointments. And so began the wedding day.

M was in a different time zone. At 8:35 am it was 5:35 am for him, so despite wanting to call him while I sat with hot rollers in my hair, I refrained from waking him up. Hopefully waking him up, he was in Vegas after all. 5:35 am – one could be getting into a lot of trouble there, but I pushed that thought from my mind and focused on downing my 4th cup of coffee.

We were adhering the ROS just perfectly, my nails were done, my hair was newscaster big and we were in the car headed downtown the hotel where we were to meet my brother for pre-wedding pictures. And then the traffic stopped.

I76 was a parking lot. Cars weren’t moving and there were reports of an overturned truck up ahead. “Call Rachel and tell her you’ll be late for the makeup lady,” my mother said from the front seat. I didn’t want to bother the bride, who I imagined at this point, was dealing with other drama bigger than my tardiness for eyeliner application.

As we got dressed in the hotel room, my habitually calm and mellow brother was sweating like a pig on the way to the slaughter house. “Where are the beta blockers?” my brother asked. It wasn’t the fear of eternal commitment that caused his nervous river of sweat, but the fear of being the center of attention. He and I are complete opposites, as if somewhere somehow there was a mix up at the hospital and we are not really related. I can stand in front of 1000 people and speak, my brother cannot. He is a science genius, getting a PHD from Harvard in bio-molecular-organic-chemistry or something I can’t even pronounce, and I used the Bunsen burner to light cigarettes in high school chemistry class. But science and pills helped my brother as he swallowed two tablets washing them down with white wine.

The rain had cleared by the afternoon and a golden sun began to dip behind the skyscrapers as we headed outside for pictures. The photographer directed us into the park and positioned us on the grass. My 4 inch stiletto heel, sinking into the rain drenched mud and my dress dragging over acorns and discarded candy bar wrappers, I tried not to complain and just smile.

Back on schedule, the guests made their way to their seats and I stood in the wings ready to walk to down the aisle. The only thing missing was the bride. My brother stood under the chupah, the sweat now covering his brow and flowing like deltas onto the floor by way of his chin and neck. Rachel, looking gorgeous in her wedding gown jumped off the elevator as the music began and the wedding party two by two headed down the aisle.

I was walking down with Rachel’s brother who also escorted someone down before me. The plan was to dash through the kitchen and back out around to grab me. I waited. And I waited. The guests were looking back towards me waiting for the next two to proceed down. I was partnerless.....

Where was Jonathan? “If he is not here in 20 seconds,” I said to the event planner who was directing traffic, “I am taking you down the aisle with me.” Jonathan appeared, lettuce stuck to his shoe, “They thought I was kitchen staff,” he said grabbing my arm and leading me down towards the chupah at Kentucky Derby speeds.

It was a quick ceremony. None of the ‘for richer or for poorer’; ‘to love and to honor, til death do us part’. The Rabbi’s slight speech impediment and stuttering coupled with my brother who at this point looked like he was fresh out of a rainstorm, made me laugh not cry. I glanced out into the crowd, the videographer capturing the moments to later be watched with a different eye. Then I caught sight of something which just about sent me over the edge. Three rows back a man sat in full Scottish garb, his above the knee kilt matched with the traditional Jewish keepah on his head was too much. It was a welcomed distraction since I tend to be quite emotional at all weddings, even watching Lifetime TV corny ones.

My brother’s best man and best friend, Mike he has known since nursery school almost missed the wedding. His wife, nine months pregnant was due on the wedding date. Miraculously, Megan kept her knees together and managed to not only attend the wedding but look amazing in a regular non-maternity Diane Von Furstenberg dress. A feat only she could pull off.

With the party in full swing, friends and family danced the night away to the blind wedding singer’s tunes. And as horrible as I thought it would be, being dateless at my brother’s wedding, M miles away but just a click of the Crackberry from me, it wasn’t that bad. I wished that he was there, but I was content to know that he is in my life even if he was not at my table but rather at a craps table.

My brother stopped sweating before the night was over. I danced with my father; he danced with my mother and his new bride. Tonight, we added a wonderful addition to our family. And moments after Megan and Mike left the wedding, they added a wonderful addition to their own growing family. Megan went into labor in the car on the way home from the wedding.

Sometimes its all about good timing and good luck….and an ROS that runs exactly according to the bigger plan.

What's Grosser than Gross?

Meet the Grosses

It wasn’t my wedding, so why was I feeling anxious.

My brother was calm, collected, sure of himself on Friday night as all of our friends and family gathered for his pre-wedding celebration. The weekend was full. Friday night was the pre party, wedding prep beginning at 8 am on Saturday and a Camp Reunion for me on Sunday in Bumblefuck, PA. I wasn’t calm. With the underlying emotions of my brother getting married surfacing, the added angst of exposing M to my family I was coming undone like a hair in a banana clip.

Snuff, (aka M) was coming with me on Friday night. As much as I wanted him there for all of it, with my family the best approach is like learning to swim -inching your way into my genetic pool, one step at a time. As with all of my friends, I forewarned him about my family. I am lucky; I have a wonderful, caring, loving, warm family but the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. They are strange.

“We are the Osborne-owitz’s” I explained as we walked through Rittenhouse Square passed diners enjoying a Friday night drink at the outdoor cafes. “We are all a little inappropriate. Boundaries are something we don’t abide by,” I explained to M hoping tonight everyone would be on their best behavior.

We walked into the party. The room was filled with relatives and people I have known my whole life, many of whom I hadn’t seen in years or even recognized. From across the room, I saw my father with a drink in hand notice us as we came in. He made his way over and I thought let the three ring circus begin!

“Hi Da-da,” I said as a he planted a big kiss on me rustling my hair.

“What, none for me,” M said jokingly to my dad.

Not one to miss a beat, my father lunged towards M attempting plant a big kiss on him too. So much for first impressions.

I needed a drink, desperately and I assumed M could use one too. So I extricated us from my father and dragged M to the bar where we promptly downed a glass of wine.

We re- joined my mom and dad who were talking with my brother’s friends in the middle of the room. “This is MY mother,” my father said as my mom turned to us. This is a regular line from his canned jokes. “My mother will have the soufflé,” my dad commonly says to waiters as he gestures to my mom. My mom in her pristine white linen suit and Carol Brady sensibility, gives him the finger in return; and this is my family.

Here we go, I thought, realizing the wading pool of Gross family humor is quickly getting deeper.

“So where do you play tennis?” my father asked M. I had told my father M was an avid tennis player and my father told me I should have taken my lessons more seriously back in the day when I played tennis purely for the cute white skirts.

“Germantown Cricket Club,” M said.

Germantown Cricket Club is one of those old suburban Philadelphia country clubs populated by the WASPY types, which require tennis whites and whose membership charters most likely still don’t welcome Jews.

“They are letting Jews play there now?” my dad said half kidding but truly curious.

M reads people well, and having a clear picture of my father’s informality and warped sense of humor he answered, “They make sure you are circumcised before they let you on the courts.”

And to my horror, my father lurches forward grabbing M’s un-tucked button-down lifting it up as if to check on the circumcision clause.

My face turned a color of red Crayola doesn’t make. I was mortified; worrying that when M saw just how Ozzy my Dad can get as he accosted him, he would jump the 33 stories to the ground below. Should I equip my dates with parachutes and life rafts when introducing them into the circus from which I came?

They both were laughing, while I took a while to compose myself. Therapy, that was all I could think. I am going to require therapy after this. Retail therapy, but therapy nonetheless.

This is my family. For better or worse, I love them. It is the kind of love which doesn’t require vows, or a rabbi, or rings. We are bound by jest. We are bound by truth.

M had survived and I, despite no longer needing blush to make my cheeks pink, survived as well. It was a quick drive by meeting, M had a train and then a plane to catch on his way out a conference on the other side of the country…far far far away from the wedding circus which was yet to come.

Live and in Person! It's Monday Night

I will be reading with some other wonderful authors on Monday night at the Drama Book Shop.
Time: 8:30pm
Address: 250 W. 40th (btwn 7th and 8th Avenue)
There will be free muffins and plenty of drinking after the reading. Please click here to learn more. Hope to see/meet you all there!

Fake Bake N Shake!

I decided I needed a tan. Pale, my Miami bronze now flaking off with brown chunk size skin fragments left on my bed sheets, it was time to do something. My brother’s wedding (to which I do not have a date) just a few days away and my next date with M (aka Snuff) on Thursday, I thought a nice sexy glow was in order.

I headed to Hollywood Tans on 71st and 2nd Avenue, excited to try the new fangled spray on sheen stars like Lindsey Lohan have been raving. A sun kissed bronze glow minus the carcinogens of natural sun. I figured, considering my unhealthy ways, I might well try to tan without the UVA and UVB rays.

“I want to do the fake ‘n bake,” I said to the woman behind the counter. Her nails, like painted claws clicked away on a keyboard.

“Have you been here before?” she asked not even looking up. “Ever done the spray tan?”

I had not. Sure back in my college days, I would hit a sun bed to prepare for spring break or a fall formal and a backless dress. I have all of the sunless tanning home products. Jergens, Oil of Olay, I even sprung for the Clarin’s products. But too much time and effort was required.

“Well you need to read this and sign here on the dotted line,” the counter clerk said.

I wasn’t opening a bank account. What the hell was I signing?

“The spray tan works like this: First of all you can’t shower for at least 15 hours…or get caught in the rain or sweat. You need to be shaved, showered and exfoliated before tanning. We require that you sign this waiver stating you understand how this works and the risks associated with it,” she read in a monotone voice.

Huh?

She walked me over to the apparatus. It was a stand up room the size of a coffin…the inner area looking like a miniature version of that game show booth where a person stands inside grabs the money which is blown around by a wind maker. There is an outer area that is used for disrobing and to place your belongings.

“Take off all your clothing. You can moisturize the danger zones before beginning?” she continued.

Danger zones?

“Your knees, ankles and elbows. Pretty much anything which bends,” she explained “These areas will be darker if you don’t add Vaseline or moisturizer. After that, you press this blue button. NOT the red button and step inside. You have six seconds before the mister starts.”

I needed a note pad.

“Once it starts it will last for twenty seconds. Half way in, you need to swing your arms and legs like this,” she said doing a dance routine from an NSYC video mixed with some square dancing steps.

“Keep your eyes closed at all times and make sure the hair net follows your hairline exactly. Once the 20 seconds are up, you need to rub the mist in. You have about a minute to do this before it dries. Then you use this dry towel,” she said pointing to a maroon towel placed on the stool in the dressing coffin. “Use the dry towel to wipe off the excess. Then use this wet towel to wash your hands and feet off. Make sure to scrub your nail beds on your hands and feet. Also DO NOT FORGET to wipe the bottoms of your feet.”

She left me with this laundry list of instructions and 100% confused as I stripped naked and entered the inner both. I lightly taped the blue button, mentally visualizing the Paula Abdul dance steps seconds away.

A shhhhhhhhhhhhh sound started and then it came.

I was being doused from all angles with a heavy spray, hopping around stark ass naked high kicking like a Rockette in a 1ft space with a hair net on like the lunch ladies at my elementary school. (I prayed there were no video cameras in there)

About 8 seconds in, I had to breathe. Having held my breath when the cold mist began, I was unsure if I was allowed to inhale whatever this was. I couldn’t hold my breath another second, sucking in air and something which tasted like freeze dried wax. I am not David Blaine. My esophagus now has a nice sun kissed glow.

I coughed, choking on the wetness as it clung to my tongue and back of my throat. This is how I pictured the gas chambers. I started to freaking out. I never considered Xanax as a necessity in tanning, but I was rethinking it now.

Against her instructions, I opened my eyes to see a white cloud of foul smelling chemicals. Feeling claustrophobic and panicked, I felt for the door handle and lunged into the outer area tripping over my bags and clothing scattered on the floor. Gasping for clean air, I stumbled over the stool and hit my head on the wall.

RUB! That was all I could think. I had so little time before it dried. I looked down at my naked body, brown goblets of goo running down my legs and arms. RUB.

Ferociously I started smearing the brown liquid all over, taking special steps to rub extra hard in the danger zones. The mister was still going off behind me in the inner room. The smell was worse than an airplane bathroom after 400 lbs man who just ate from Taco Bell Dollar Meal board had used it. I rubbed and scrubbed and tried to wipe up the brown rivulets cascading down my butt and onto my legs. Still feeling claustrophobic in the stand up box they called a changing room, I moved at sonic speeds to finish this process and busted out the door into the fresh air.

Half dressed, I wanted day light. I ran past the counter clerk not even bothering to stop and tell her I would never return, that I would rather risk skin cancer in a regular tanning bed or be Thora Birch pale than ever endure that again.

On the street, I caught my breath. I walked a few blocks before I found a clean window in which to inspect my reflection, wondering whether I was going to look streaked like a peppermint candy. And there I was, looking in the window of China Fun – patrons dining on the Lo Mein lunch special looking back at me. I was golden. I also still was wearing the shower cap on my head.

Snuffleupagus

M likes hotel bars. From the W Hotels across Manhattan to the lesser known rooftop hotel bars on the Upper East Side, M and I seem to wind up at these places. There is something sexy about hotel bars, people coming and going, travelers from distant places, a sense of romantic old world charm of yesteryears captured in the antique décor and the fancy martinis.

Friday night, in Philadelphia again, M and I headed to the Ritz Carlton for drinks. Exhausted from his fourteen hour work day, we walked the quiet narrow Philadelphia streets from his house to the Ritz. The lobby bar with its 100 foot domed ceiling replete with replicated ancient Greek and Roman furnishings and busts of Augustus and Caesar was spectacular even by my jaded New York standards.

We leaned back relaxing on the Roman daybed as the white gloved wait staff poured martinis from shakers into our chilled glasses.

“So my brother’s wedding is next weekend,” I said resting my head on his broad shoulder, avoiding eye contact as I braced myself to ask him. “I know you’re leaving for that work conference, but is there anyway you can maybe change it?” I asked knowing the likelihood was low.

“I can’t. The reservations are made and I am flying out with the rest of the office that morning,” M said.

Rather than press the issue, I bargained with him. “Ok, then how about Alissa’s wedding. Will you be my date for that one? It’s June 3rd at the Essex House. There will be lamb chops and a raw bar and a martini bar,” I said hoping the way to a man’s heart is really through his stomach and a promise of free booze.

He exhaled deeply. “Ugh. June 3rd?” he paused before he spoke again. “I am going scuba diving. The trips paid for and I booked it long before I ever met you.”

Reverting to the paranoid girl, buried beneath my tough girl exterior, I worried that all his plans, trips and conferences were merely excuses. Maybe this was the kinda relationship reserved for hotel bars, illicit and wrong. It was beginning to feel like the kind of relationship between a boss and his secretary who speaks bad Engrish while his wife is taking tennis lessons at their country estate.

It has been five weeks. I keep track of these things, because mistakenly I measure success and potential in weeks, hours and number of dates. And although I have kept my friends abreast of my dates with M, our phone calls and text message marathons and I have called seeking advice and soliciting opinions, none of my friends have yet to meet him. He is the unknown X factor in this relationship math problem.

“You’re like Mr. Snuffleupagus,” I said feeling increasingly smaller as I shrank down further into the plush sofa mentally and physically. “Only Big Bird saw Snuffleupagus. He would only appear when Big Bird was alone and then when Big Bird tried to tell the other Muppets on Sesame Street about Snuff, no one would believe him. It’s like you don’t exist…or don’t want to exist outside this,” I said waving my arms around in the cavernous room.

I am not one to push or press forward when resistance is there. Relationships should be mutual, two trains traveling at the same speed in the same direction. If not, then its time to get off. M and I were an algebra equation and I was beginning to feel derailed. To date, our dates have been planned last minute. Nothing further out than day, as if like Snuffleupagus he would disappear from sight if anyone else was around.

Squelching some of my concern, Snuff tried to explain where he was and where he is. “I liked you from our first date. I just wasn’t sure what I wanted out of this,” he said as my stomach made its way to my throat. Rubbing my leg he continued, “It just takes me a while and I think you understood that. I think you read me correctly here. But I am here now, here with you right now,” M, who will now be known as Snuff, finished his thought and his first martini.

He offered to cancel his scuba trip to come to Alissa’s wedding with me as a gesture of good faith and future plan making. But I wasn’t going to take him up on that. Hoping to read him correctly again, he is not one to be chained by a leash. Snuff needs time and space, and his scuba trip.

I am sure mostly out of guilt and to lose his new nickname, Snuff agreed to meet my camp friends at a bar down the street. On the rooftop deck of Stephen Starr’s Continental, we met up with Dookie and Brett who have known me since I wore braces and smashed campers’ shins with hockey sticks.

The jabs flew fast and furiously. “Brett, aren’t there any 20 year olds here you haven’t dated?” I joked with him. “Hey Carrie, isn’t your biological clock ticking loudly,” Brett retorted.

While we toasted with lemon drop shots to things past and present, I began to think this wasn’t the best thought out plan. Maybe there are some friends, Snuff doesn’t need to meet.

Friday night turned into Saturday day turned into Saturday night, Snuff and I spent the afternoon and evenings together walking through Rittenhouse Square, getting caught in a rain storm, eating sushi and buying flip flops at J Crew to replace my Dior heels which died as tragically on the Streets of Philadelphia as Tom Hank’s movie character.

In the past, my relationships have felt forced – like trying to shove a size 8 foot into a size 7 loafer. I have used the shoe horn theory, smashing my foot into something which seems practical which I would force to fit. But it never did. It never was comfortable and while the shoe may have seemed practical as a thought, it wasn’t the right shoe for me. Relationships and footwear should not only be spectacular to look at, but feel right on. Snuff feels right. It always takes a while to break in a pair of shoes…blisters, rub marks, toe scuffs. The same is true of any new relationship. We were in the break-in phase.

At weddings, people notice who is on your arm and what is on your feet, especially if you are wearing a bridesmaid dress. I will have no one on my arm (besides Keri who is now my official date for Alissa's wedding), but I will make sure that I have something both gorgeous and comfortable on my feet. And Snuff, well maybe one day someone other than Big Bird will be able to vouch for his existence. Until then, he will otherwise be known as Snuffleupagus.

NEW YORK EDGE

Small Handbags

“I am moving to San Diego,” Rachel said to me in October.

“Why? Why on earth would you move to San Diego,” I asked her. I knew the reason. It wasn’t for the Southern California weather and relaxed lifestyle of freeways and palm trees and drive-thru colonics. It was for Mike. Mike and Rachel had been dating almost 8 months at that point, having rekindled a relationship which began at Harvard many years earlier.

Rachel was a native Upper East Side girl. Park Avenue was her home, not the brain dead dump of California. I knew if Rachel who is as New York as pair of Todd’s driving shoes on a Sunday morning was moving to California…she really loved him.

In the months which have passed since, Rachel has learned things foreign to native New Yorkers: she learned how to drive, to make a meal of Alfalfa sprouts and avocado, inhale and exhale in cleansing breaths, and incorporated words like “holistic” and “yoga” into her language.

But with one drink at the W in Union Square for Rachel quickly found her roots. “It’s so good to be home,” she said as she scanned the bar taking in the Thursday night happy hour crowd.

“First things first. Lemme see the ring,” I said. Rachel and Mike got engaged a month ago, but this was her first trip back to the city. As she lifted her hand, the twinkle of the gorgeous solitaire caught my eye. “It’s beautiful!” I said hugging her. She was happy. California, Mike, it all agreed with her.

“I forgot what a New York happy hour is all about,” she said as we sat in the lobby bar. The bar was filled with the usual after work crowd. It was a meat market in there, like an 8th grade dance. Single women on one side, single men on the other…no one brave enough to cross the line. Rachel tossed her tiny Gucci clutch purse onto the bar and removed her scarf she had tied around her neck, settling into the bar stool and her drink.

“A scarf? Rach, it’s 60 degrees out. What has California done to you?” I asked, wondering why Rachel was dressed for February and not May.

The bartender dropped a cone shape serving of fries in front of us and topped off our wines for free.

“You know fries are very unhealthy,” a pint size peon in a mismatched shirt and tie combo said, his cell phone worn like an accessory on his belt loop. He had one hair on his head which twirled around and around making a Cinnabon design.

Now that was a line if I ever heard one. “I prefer an unhealthy lifestyle,” I said hoping he and his mismatched pint sized twin would move on. “New York is an unhealthy lifestyle. I enjoy it.”

Unfortunately, tactics such as this do not work. Rather, mini-man seized the opportunity to continue the conversation. “I see you have a Blackberry there. What is that all about?” he inquired.

It’s 2006 and although I was the last to switch from a discman to an iPOD and my Blackberry is so new it has no scuff marks, this is New York for fuck sake…everyone has a Blackberry. It was the fall accessory of 2003.

“I don’t have one,” Rachel said as we swung our chairs to face the bar and away from the fashion tragedy behind us.

“See, you are so SoCal.” I commented as did her mother that morning when she told Rachel she looked “provincial.”

“Don’t lose your New York edge,” I warned her. Five months in California and some of the New Yorker had rubbed off Rachel. She was calmer, laid back. Is she surfing now too?

From the meat market of the W, we headed to the fish market at BLT fish shack. I am a regular there, greeting Wilson the manager with a double kiss on both cheeks. The place was jam packed. “There is going to a bit of a wait for your table,” Wilson informed us. “We are slammed tonight.” Miraculously, we had luck all night getting bar stools, so we plopped down at the bar and ordered another round of drink while we waited for the table and for the others to arrive.

And we waited.

And waited.

I was growing impatient, my stomach growling with hunger I was furious. Rachel calmly sat there enjoying her drink, taking in the restaurant’s ambiance which I talk about incessantly. “Aren’t you starving?” I questioned. “This is ridiculous. Our reservation was 40 minutes ago.”

Rachel was un-phased. The rest of our group had arrived. Everyone typed ferociously on their Blackberrys and Treos, answering work emails, confirming meetings for the following week. Having just left the office at 8pm, the office traveled with them on portable PDAs chaining them to their desks even when a cocktail was in their hand. That’s just part of New York life. Alden, who worked for MTV was typing away figuring out her LA meeting schedule the following week. Melissa kept feeling her bag to make sure it wasn't vibrating. Proud of my newest purchase (that was not footwear), I left my Blackberry on the square cocktail napkin next to my glass.

As we dined on the evening special, steamed clams and ate crab claws and raw bar treats, we paused our conversations as things vibrated in our bags and on the table. Fork in one hand, PDA in the other….we were entrenched in stories and things not present. It was close to 11pm when we finished the last of our drinks, Friday hung over our heads as the restaurant began to empty and the bus boys furiously set the vacant tables for the next day’s seating.

In New York, life happens so fast. It is impossible to turn off and tune out the outside world when we are so used to being plugged in. Could we be missing something else going on across town? Could something better be just blocks away? Can I take care of this today and worry about something else tomorrow. That is New York…a city where time never stops, where gratification must be instantaneous.

Maybe it’s Mike. Maybe it’s being in love. Maybe it’s California. But Rachel is doing something right. Her mini Gucci purse is just large enough to fit a cell phone, lipstick and a credit card – she looks happy and healthy, a hint of a tan, sun kissed streaks in her curly brown hair, a smile.

New Yorkers are known for their edge, their straight forward in-your-face abrasiveness that makes them some of the most successful people in the world. That is who we are. We drink too many cocktails, we exercise too little, and we indulge too much. We go to therapy like those in Southern California call the Dionne Warwick astrology line for advice and counseling. But maybe New Yorker’s could learn a little something from our brethren on the left coast….about the value of small handbags and about decompression.

And again, there were Three

Girls fight. So do sisters. Anyone who has ever bought a box of Tampax can attest, friendship with your girlfriends at times, can be more complex than relationships with boys…but usually more rewarding and lasting.

There were always the three of us; from freshman year at college when Keri and I lived across the hall from each other in Markley and when I picked Alissa up in a drugstore and shared my first cup of adult coffee with my first adult college friend. Together, the three of us work – like the components of a jet engine. Apart, we are not whole, we cannot take flight. Keri, Carrie and Alissa…the three of us from 1992 until now, we have been one, soaring.

But three strong personalities don’t always match or agree. Tonight we settled those mismatched disagreements at Paris Match on 65th and Madison. Who says nothing is in a name?

Coming from all different areas of the city, we met as night fell on the Upper East Side. I was coming from cocktails with Keri2 and Ron at their UES apartment. Drunk on good red wine (Pillar Box 35) and filled with advice on everything from my career to my dating predicaments, I trekked the 10 blocks to the restaurant listening to my college mix on my iPOD, my head spinning. Counting Crows, Pearl Jam and the traffic on Park Avenue meshed into a loud cacophony of rules and regulations and standard practice and Manhattan principals, as preached by Keri Cherry.

There had been recent disagreements, friendships strained. Long past the days of childish ways of fighting, we acted civil towards each other instead of putting gum in the hair of our enemy. We co-existed.

“It’s the magic carpet,” Keri always said. She described how we are together; a magical place that others cannot touch that only we can reach with the three of us.

Three of us. Three can be lonelier than one, three is the loneliest number. Three is the number where someone is always left out. Three people can’t play tennis together, they can’t ride a bike built for two. Three people take sides; two against one. Three people as best friends are unusual.

We know all of these things, yet we do not fall susceptible to them.

Tonight, we did not discuss the root of the problem. Rather like a gardener, we uprooted the weed without thought; we put down new fertilizer….we put grass on the mulch, we planted new seeds.

Too much discussion is useless. A hamster wheel of run around BS without an end. Sometimes things need to be dropped, like fine China and a bad boyfriend. They do not need to be analyzed and over processed like turkey filler. Instead, we drank filthy martinis and ate oysters and French Bistro fare. We talked about Alissa’s wedding and the maid of honor speech which Keri and I will give together.

“I am not going up there alone. No F’ing way!” I said as Keri ate the French fries off my plate. “We are doing this together.” Even as a writer, an actress…a person who leans towards the dramatic…standing alone in front of 300 people at the Essex House would make me crap my pants.

“That’s fine, I like that,” Alissa said handing Keri the olives from her martini. “Do you what you guys want.”

The martinis kept flowing and the oyster shells piled up on a side plate. “We need to sit down and write it together,” I said. Stains and strain removed, we giggled trying to find a time with our crackberries and crazy schedules to write the speech for our dearest friend Alissa.

Fifteen years of friendship…through boyfriend and break ups, through good times and make ups…we have stood strong and solid by each other’s sides. We are family. Not the kind bound by DNA testing and organ compatibility, but bound by a more righteous commonality: choice.

Sisters share clothing, they share triumphs and they share pain. We share all of those thing…we share everything but bras.

And tonight on the Upper East Side we shared a moment, quiet and simple which means more than any of us would ever have the words or the speech to convey.

A Brid's Eye View

A Bird’s Eye View

A good Sunday Night with M left me tired on Monday. But rejuvenated by a quick run and with some convincing by recently single Keri, I threw on a sundress and a blazer and headed to the Peninsula Roof Top Bar for some sunset drinks. A spontaneous Monday night out in Manhattan inevitably leads to intrigue.

Tourists flocked to the side of the roof top patio to take in views of the Trump Building on 5th Avenue. Cameras and hotel room key cards in hand, they nearly dropped like spare change from the side of the building as they clamored to get a good shot of the home of the Apprentice.

“Are you drinking?” Keri asked me as we stood staring down the bartender ready to shake up a martini.

“Tough one. I guess I can have one,” I said knowing that one will lead to two, will lead to three, will lead to Advil and my bed at an hour too late for a Monday. But I couldn’t let her drink alone. That would just be damn right wrong!

Drinks in hand, we slid outside through the open door trying to find a table. But with the seasonable warm weather, it seemed every New Yorker had the same idea we had. We stood in the corner waiting for someone to drain the last of their drink and pay the tab. We would swoop in like vultures, grabbing the table away from the others lingering on the sidelines with the same intent. Keri spotted a group with cash in hand, trying to do the math on the bill. “Run!” she screamed as a girl closed the leather bound bill holder and signaled to the waiter.

I attempted to run…in heels in which I can barely walk nearly doing a header into a planter. But Ben Johnson I am not. We lost the tabled to a well-heeled (although not as high as my own) woman and her companion.

“Girls, come sit with us. We won’t bite. I promise,” a man in an Armani blazer and pair of metrosexual sunglasses said. He was sitting with two other men, a cigar dying in the ashtray in front of them. They had two extra chairs at their table and a full bowl of nuts. I was starving.

Keri and I glanced at each other. With over fifteen years of friendship between us, we don’t need words to answer questions or convey thoughts. “It’s a place to sit….they can entertain us….don’t leave the other alone to go to the bathroom” We agreed silently. We sat.

It didn’t take long to find commonality. We played the name game. College, Business School, areas of growing up. Two of them were hedge fund guys and the other one a patent attorney and patently boring as sin. “Michigan? You both went there?” Ray inquired. “What year did you graduate?”

“Holy shit,” I said looking at Keri. “Do you know what today is? Today is exactly 10 years since graduation.” I was ill with that thought. Where did 10 years go? What have I done? Not done, not accomplished? Missed? My thoughts were getting too deep to say aloud; instead they stirred in my head as I stirred the martini.

“You know, I was at Michigan when you were there,” Ray said. “In fact you look familiar. I know that smile. It’s a hard one to forget.”

Keri nudged me under the table. Cheesy.

“Did you date a guy named Andy in college?” Ray asked as he pushed his sunglasses off his face and onto his head scratching his goatee. Just when I thought they were trying the divide and conquer theory as outlined in the book THE GAME, where the wingman moves in on one prey and the other turns to his own prey, separating the herd, it turns out he really did know who I was.

“Yea. I did. A long time ago,” I said still not being able to place this guy.

“I was roommates with his friends. I tried to pick you up at Touchdown one night. You were sitting by yourself in a booth,” Ray continued and I began to recall this night with clarity. It was an ugly night.

“I almost got into a fight with him,” Ray said.

Fighting with Andy, unless you were a linebacker was not a smart move. At over 220lbs and built like a tank, Andy bulldozed whatever was in front of him or whoever tried to encroach upon his possessions. Me, being one of them.

As Ray went on to describe the night as he remembered it, I remembered my own version. Flattering as it was, the thought of two guys pummeling the shit out of each other over the naïve 19 year old version of me, it was strange to have it flashback into my head all these years later.

“Not smart to screw with Andy,” I said. “He would have kicked your ass.”

“That’s a pretty stupid statement,” Ray said getting huffy, my comment obviously hitting a nerve. “I’ve gotten into a lot of fights and I have won all of them.”

I pictured him wrestling a Tonka truck out of the hands of a hysterical four year old or bitch slapping an old lady for the last box of Cheezits at the grocery store. Ray was not small, but he was not big. Not big enough to win a fight against Andy.

We sat with them a while longer making idle chit chat. It was the kind of small talk that means nothing, and gets tiring when you are already tired. “So now that Andy isn’t around. Can I ask for your number?” Ray said.

“Well, I’m seeing someone right now. I don’t feel comfortable giving out my number.” I said. M who is as big as Andy, I laughed to myself. Someone I wished was there right now.

“Well I don’t see him,” Ray said still trying for the digits. “Let’s get drinks the two of us. Somewhere classier than Touchdown, how about Orsay?” He put his cold hand on my leg which I removed quickly.

Where was my wingman when I needed her? I looked for Keri, who was engrossed in conversation at the adjacent table, two new guys fawning over her as she tossed her long chestnut hair over her bare shoulder, her pink shirt falling to the side. Guys have wingmen. Girls have bathroom partners.

I gathered my wingman/bathroom partner and made a quick pit stop in the ladies room before calling it a night. “Did you give that guy your number?” I asked Keri as she smeared Rose Salve lip balm on her bottom lip. “Nah, turns out I know his ex girlfriend. She was in my house at school. I vividly remember her stories from dating him. He had some issues in the bedroom, if I recall correctly,” Keri said.

Amazing, a perfectly simple Monday night in Manhattan can be a graveyard of your past.

Going Bananas

From the Upper East to the Lower East, what a difference 70 blocks makes.

I spent my Saturday night in an alternate world…the downtown art world. The downtown art scene is so very different than the ritzy galleries of the Upper East Side whose works are by recognizable artist from Art History 101. The MET and the Whitney, two of my favorites house works of Picasso and Renaissance painters, identifiable to me with my philistine skill set. The downtown art scene is something totally different and completely foreign. When the streets become names like Delancy and Essex, I know I am no longer in Kansas.

Tony was hosting a pre-party tonight in his Village abode for an up-and-coming new artist hot on the scene from London. Tony, a finance person by profession is a world traveler and purveyor and supporter of the arts. From London to Buhtan to Vietnam, he has traveled the world collecting pieces of esoteric art to decorate his magnificent apartment.

Dressed in my “Ucci” outfit (Pucci and Gucci) I guzzled the champagne with curators and gallery owners at Tony’s posh flat with mind boggling views of the Empire State building. Hip Brooklyn artists and the fringe came to celebrate Doug Fishbone, the installation artist who took Trafalgar Square by storm installing a piece comprised of over 34,000 bananas. Doug was in New York to do his new performance art show this week at Joe’s Pub. His show he explains as, “Jon Stewart with visual stimulation. A comedy show that is interactive in a 21st century way.”

From Tony’s our mammoth group of downtown hipsters hailed cabs to continue further downtown to the Hermes sponsored Art event on Essex Street. When I envisioned this part of the evening, considering Hermes was the sponsor, I pictured bankers and Wall Street types swooning over works of art whose price tags were greater than an Hermes Birkin bag. Champagne with berries floating on top and mounds of caviar. What I did not envision was signing a waiver to enter a building marked for demolition in a decrepit part of the Lower East Side.

This giant raw space was an old abandoned warehouse. The bathrooms were porta-potties located outside on the street and the inside the crowd was anything but Upper East. Vintage leather jackets circa 80s Punk era of downtown was the outfit du jour, throw in a couple of transsexual’s dressed as cowboys and a stage with live music and some bongo players singing about his dislike of Jessica Simpson, and that was the event. No Hermes gift bags. No champagne. No cushy banquette tables and bottle service.

I don’t pretend to be hip or downtown. Nor do I pretend to understand the fringe’s art designed to express a statement of political dissent or stir up controversy. I can certainly appreciate art, as a writer, I understand the need of individual expression. But here, I was perplexed. Where was the art?

From the ramshackle art event, we headed to Freeman’s – a well hidden, well-kept secret on the Lower East Side. Tucked behind some buildings, a poorly lit alley hid this understated gem from street view. Freeman’s had the style of an old English pub but ensconced in a trendy wrapper of sheer caftan wearing model-set. We gathered at a table in the back and over $16 martinis discussed nouveau art.

I was curious. Banana installation art? Was there an underlying phallic innuendo? There had to be. If not, then why not use pineapples or pears. “You would be surprised. Bananas are a very controversial fruit,” Doug said. “We had people protesting our art. When we did it in Ecuador people were furious. There were people dressed as guerillas who tried to prevent the installation.”

How much free time do these people have? Time to go out and purchase a guerilla suit. Time to get up in the middle of the night, head to Trafalgar Square in protest of fruit? What did a banana ever do to them? I was having a difficult time understanding. To me a banana was a fruit topping on frozen yogurt, fruit to add to a Jamba Juice creation. I hold no ill will towards the banana.

We sat drinking, eating bacon wrapped dates and discussing art, creation and inspiration. Art is one those things subjective. I find my art in the observations of daily life. This night to me was art. Different people, different scene, things which make a difference in my views. And while I can enjoy a jaunt out of my comfort zone and find interest in things foreign and different, I prefer to find my bananas in a fruit salad….or a cocktail.

Boys Will Be Boys (at any age)

Boys will Be Boys

Not one to miss a holiday that involves drinking, I met Melissa and Peter at Santa Fe on 79th Street for some Cinco de Mayo festivities.

“Frozen margarita for you too?” the waitress asked as I sat down in the booth next to them. I looked as if I already had too many. My hair in a pony tail, my “I don’t care what I look like” outfit on, I knew this would be an early night for me.

I am allergic to tequila. Not the kind of allergic where bad memories of tequila poppers from spring break in Cancun return and I get a sick feeling. But the kind of allergic where my throat swells shut and my uvula (that hanging ball in the back of the throat) gets so large I choke on it. “Just some Sangria,” I answered here preventing a trip to the emergency room.

We waited for Peter’s friends to arrive before we ordered. Two of Peter’s friends from U Penn were joining us for dinner. Matt and Russ arrived looking beleaguered from long week of work. The tequila flowed and the chicken fajitas got passed around the table and for a change, the boys discussed relationships and I listened.

Boys juggle, like circus clowns. Matt ran thru his dating schedule. Many first dates, a few second dates. His phone kept ringing and he took the calls outside, leading me to believe the callers must be the girls from his little black book checking on his Friday night plans. “What was wrong with the girl you went out with last week?” I asked him after he told me they had a nice date which ended with a nice kiss.

“No spark, I guess,” he said cutting into an Enchilada. “I didn’t call her right away. Waited for like three days. She is a friend of a friend so you know; I need to make sure that I don’t screw up the friendships.”

He had been on as many dates are there were types of tequila gracing the backlit bar wall. “How many dates do you go on a week?” I asked both of them. “Three, maybe four” seemed to be the answer. Time consuming and expensive for them, since the guy always picks up the tab on a first date. Guys always start their statement with: “She was hot, but…” Hot being the single superficial detail to propel them forward.

The waitress brought over a round of free tequila shots that made me want to gag. The boys threw theirs back and Melissa and I pushed ours to the middle of the table. “We should go give these shots to some girls in the bar area,” Matt said looking at the two untouched shots looking lonely next to the salt and pepper shakers.

“What girls are stupid enough to take shots from some random-ass guy who walks up to them in a bar carrying already made shots. You could have slipped a roofie in there,” I said.

The boys discussed this pick up strategy while surveying the bar for the best looking girls. “They are eyeing us,” Matt said. “That group of girls right there. They keep looking over here at us.”

As it turned out, they were eyeing our table - since they were starving and wanted to sit down for dinner. They were not eyeing the boys, who with their masculine bravado and raging testosterone think all looks from females have to do with sex. They just wanted the table which we vacated when we headed to Stir for a few more cocktails.

Stir was packed; people poured in and out as the bouncer inspected my ID and let us in. As it turn out the owner of Stir and I used to work together at Playboy. John was a sales rep when I was a marketing manager. Now, both of us long gone joked about the silly times and BS of the job. Life is much better without the bunny.

People watching at Stir was great. A real mixed crowd, we focused in on one slice of life that we couldn’t take our eyes off of. She was young. In her twenties somewhere, dressed for the races. With a tummy bearing top and a salsa skirt, she nibbled on the ear of her companion. Her companion was a senior citizen. I mean, inches from a plot with a flower bed around it. His toupee drooped into his forehead, his upper bridge of dentures hung by a drop of Polident. He looked as out of place at this nightclub with Snoop Dog playing in the background as I would look at a geriatrics home sucking applesauce through a straw. “Do you think she is by the hour?” our group asked. “Either that or he has an Amex black card in his wallet and she is written into his Will,” I said.

He was too old to stand, taking refuge on a bar stool while the girl jiggled and gyrated on his lap. You couldn’t help but stare, the old man’s wet eyes and shaking hands trying to grasp a glass of wine looked sad. “I wonder what the back story is,” Peter said as we all drank our Cinco de Mayo cocktails finding more interest in this show and than the Mets game on the TV.

It reminded me of Hef. It reminded me of the nights out in LA at Barfly and Las Palmas with Hef and his crew of 7 girlfriends. Hef looked like the dead guy from Weekend at Bernie’s being propped up by interchangeable plastic blonde bimbos. Only with Hef, it was an image he needed to perpetuate…to sell the lie. To sell the lifestyle to the Midwestern men who read the magazine like a bible of the good life. What could they have in common? These two? She, who was probably a massage therapist or a telemarketer and him; dressed conservatively in a suit with a kerchief his Waspy roots apparent by the way he held his glass of Chardonnay.

The single boys in our group scoped the bar, spreading out seeking the cutest girl in the shortest skirt to work their magic on. Finding their target, they moved in. We watched. The lines flew. They returned from battle unsuccessful. No numbers. No offers to buy them a shot of tequila. “She was hot, but nothing upstairs,” one said. Tonight was not a success on the dating battlefields of the Upper East Side.

I am not recreating the wheel when I point out the obvious. Boys like hot girls. Drawn in by plunging necklines and barely there skirts and Angelina Jolie lips, boys of any age, 18 or 80, like them young and spicy…like tequila. Wine may get better with age, but not everything does. And here on Cinco de Mayo on the Upper East Side, it is a night for tequila slammers…and not fine wine.

The Games We Play

Games and Other Childhood Things

Last night, three Upper East Side girls decided to have dinner in Flat Iron. A change of scenery, a change of pace – a change of life. Cabs, the 4 train and some comfortable walking shoes, we all arrived nearly on time (girl time) for our 7pm dinner reservation.

I was meeting my campers for dinner at BLT Fish Shack, sister restaurant of the Upper East Side star BLT Steak. Back, in a galaxy in time far far away, I was in charge of molding young minds and shaping futures. I was a camp counselor.

At 17, putting me in charge on fourteen, thirteen year olds was moronic. Children raising children, my bunk should have been a poster for Planned Pregnancy. How parents ever sent their off-spring to camp knowing that an idiot like me was in charge of them, I cannot understand. At 17, the only thing which mattered to me was what pair of Tye-tied EG Feet I would wear with my brand new pair of white Keds. Structuring a healthy lifestyle of malleable pre-pubescent girls was secondary.

Stacy and Lori were 13 when they were in my charge. Now, at 28 and able to drink alcohol without sneaking shots behind the field house, I feel almost the same age as them. “Would you like to see the wine list,” the waiter asked. He handed me the list, treating me as if I was the parent of my two young disciples. They were still “misses” and I was a “m’am.”

“So give me his stats,” I said to Lori as she told us about the blind date she was being set-up on. Stats for single women are not RBIs, but height, weight and EP (earning potential). At 28, Lori’s friends bit the bullet early….bought white dresses, marched down the aisle and said I do, even if they don’t. Child Brides, in my opinion. “I called him but his mailbox was full, and I didn’t leave a message cause my number would come up on caller ID. Ball is in his court,” she added commenting on the games we play before we even meet the other.

“Why don’t you try Jdate,” I suggested trying to sport an optimistic outlook for my impressionable campers. There are success stories in my repertoire; Melissa and Peter, Colby and Greg, Ron and Keri, potentially…maybe me. I try and sing the praises of something I loathed as much a teeth cleaning. “The stigma is gone. It can work. Patience, screening, open minded outlook, it can be a good thing,” I said slightly believing my own words. While Lori still looked for her Mr. Right, Stacy was enjoying the 4 month company of her Mr. Right.

“So tell me all about your relationship,” I pry hoping Stacy’s relationship can shed light on my own. “Tell me all about the beginning. How did things progress? How many dates did you go on per week?” I asked a million questions that she, years ago in a Winnie the Pooh night shirt, asked me. The stories of Jarrett, I told while she ate Ramen Noodle soup and Pringles holding a flashlight on my cot at Camp Kweebec.

As the waiter dumped a large pot of steamed crabs onto my plate and tied the childish lobster bib over my tank top, Stacy told me she read my post about the show I will be doing in June, Mortified, where I am reading from camp journals.

“I can’t believe I hooked up with Jarrett,” she said sipping Reisling and laughing at my bib which I was now wearing backwards as a cape. “I had braces. It was my ugly phase,” she added referring to those awkward years.

“You what?” I said appalled. “You hooked up with Jarrett? When? When he was my camp boyfriend?” I was doing the math in my head. Stacy was 4 years younger than me and Jarrett was 2 years older than me and by far, the best looking guy at camp.

“No, it was the following summer. I was fourteen. I thought you knew?” she said. Back to the math which I am not good at, I conclude if she was fourteen, Jarrett was twenty!

At camp, age didn’t matter. What would get you arrested in any other place besides Schwenksville, Pennsylvania was overlooked at camp where things like age and high school popularity were eschewed. Still, I was repulsed. At fourteen girls still collected puffy stickers and wore matching short and top outfits with daisies on them that their mothers picked out from Wannamaker’s pre-teen department. At fourteen, we were still daddy’s little girls, playing kickball and GaGa.

We had barely graduated from bibs and bottles at that age.

“At that age, it seemed cool to be hooking up with a guy who was in college. I mean, I wasn’t even in high school yet,” Stacy said. “Now, it seems disgusting, like he’s a pedophile.”

I worried perhaps my influence may have been a bad example for them. Letting them have 15 more minutes of flashlight time or not taking away the contraband Jolly Ranchers my campers had shoved in tissue boxes, these seemed small errors in judgment compared to the head games a 20 year old played with minds’ of girls still wearing training bras and night guard retainers.

Games have been part of our lives since we were toddlers. As we get older, the games change and get more dangerous. Dating is one big game. A game of who calls who first, who calls whom back and how many times. It’s a numbers game…how MANY dates, how MANY bad dates to get to a good one….how MANY phone calls…how MANY failures. It’s a game unlike Clue or Boggle that comes with rules and instructions. At fourteen we played wholesome games of softball, but sitting here as three adult women – it is clear our need to play games is as strong as it was when Ron Dagan sang Bob Dylan songs and we wore longs and longs to camp fires. Now we play games at bars and with blackberries and cell phones and online dating sites. And of course, still with boys. The times, they are a changing…yet strangely staying the same.

Mixed Signals: Driving and Dating

Mixed Signals: Driving and Dating

Walking in New York City is dangerous. You take your life into your own hands, when you decide to hike the ten blocks to the gym or cross against the light dodging MTA buses and crazy yellow cabs. A green arrow for turning traffic doesn’t mean go and no one yields for the yellows. New York, the Upper East Side is filled with mixed signals and hard to understand signs. No turns between 7am and 10am on certain days of the week. Walk or Don’t Walk. Alternate side of the street parking? In a city where street directions are unclear why should dating be any different?

Fresh off the plane from Miami, showered and changed into a spring cotton dress, I waited patiently for M to arrive. I had barely begun to unpack when he got to my apartment.

“Hi,” I said opening the door. Unsure if a kiss on the check or the lips is more appropriate, stopping to gather my thoughts. Unlike split second decisions you need to make in daily life, dating life is riddled with decisions you toss and turnover like a bad night sleep. Thinking and rethinking, analyzing and over analyzing from every possible angle. It is the one thing in New York that you can always find time to do.

“How was your weekend with the girls?” he asked from a horizontal position on my couch.

My weekend? Well, it was a blur of Red Bulls and skin. “How was your weekend?” I asked him. Hoping the stories wouldn’t be – “Friggin great, I banged this chick I picked up at Egypt night club.” He couldn’t recall Friday night.

“I’m not sure what I did. Where is my Blackberry? Let me figure it out.” While he tried to piece together his weekend, I sat thinking this is not good. Not good. “Oh yea, I went out with some friends from college. Just had some drinks,” he said while I started thinking.

“I’m starving,” he said changing the subject but looking oh so adorable in his striped Polo golf shirt, his Tumi bag parked next to my own unpacked suitcase. “Sushi?”

Sushi always works for me, even given that it was a Sunday and common theory says you shouldn’t eat sushi on Sundays because there are no fresh fish deliveries. I took him to my favorite place. Barely on the map Taki, is an 8 table sushi restaurant on 49th and 2nd Avenue which has the best rolls and freshest fish.

My plan was to ask him to the wedding, or weddings-multiple weddings! Ideally, I would like to present a calendar to someone with all of the weddings I have coming up like a Yankee’s schedule. Maybe I should offer incentives like “Free Hat Day” like they do for the bad Yankees games. Rewarding people, almost bribing them to come with souvenirs and crap for the junk drawer. Come with to this wedding and you will be entered to win a free stereo system!

I was poised to ask, but I aborted putting the breaks on and screeching to a stop at a red light. As I drank the Sake, sipping slowly and gathering courage, I started to get a bad feeling in my gut. Not the kinda of feeling where the Sunday sushi will give you Monday food poisoning, but the dating kind of visceral gut reaction.

Was it in my head? I wondered. Was my stomach merely misreading bad messages from my brain? Are we on the same page? While he gulped the cloudy Sake and devoured the sashimi, I picked the tobiko off one by one playing with my food and playing with my head. I have no reason to doubt his intentions. I have no specific reason to feel fear perhaps or maybe not; the abbreviated emails, less phone calls, no specific plans for another get together, no real conversation as to what or where this is. Are these signals or just the way guys are? I find reasons. Perhaps I should buckle up for a bumpy ride.

What I do have is my past experiences as my road map, past experiences which have ended with a huge car wreck of emotion. In the past, occasionally dating in New York seemed like clear sailing down the FDR. No traffic, the wind in my hair, the skyline out the driver’s side window, until bam! You run straight into the guard rail and over the side and into the East River. Relationship traffic accidents do not have All State insurance…no helping hands of your friendly neighbor there to put you back together and on the road again. Past crashes become points and penalties on your driving dating record which you cannot erase.

Back in my apartment, we had a perfect Sunday night. Entourage, the Sopranos, my head on his shoulder as a week of exhaustion set in for both of us. It felt comfortable. It felt like my airbags were working. I wasn’t sure who was driving, but at that moment it didn’t matter. We laughed, joking carelessly and crassly.

The rush of cars and horns from Second Avenue eleven floors below was audible through my open window. The chill of the night air was cooler and crisper than Miami the night before; we covered ourselves with my old sofa blanket from my “Star and Moon” phase of college decor. Why was I so worried? Why, with all the confidence in the world that I use to navigate through the streets of New York, in work, in general life - am I so unconfident here? He seems like he likes me. He seems happy to be here. Seeming to be and to be are quite different.

I used to have a car in Manhattan. I used it solely to drive to the Hamptons because I was terrified to drive in the city. On one particular Friday evening with very bad traffic, I made a critical yet common driving error trying to get to the mid-town tunnel. I went south on First Avenue, quickly realizing as the headlights of oncoming cars blinded me, I was going the wrong way on a one way street. I missed the one-way sign. My heart racing and my stomach in knots, I quickly turned onto a side street barely averting a head on collision. After that, I didn’t drive in the city ever again.

New York is a complicated city. Signs are miss-marked, directions are unclear. Dating is the same. Head on collisions and accidents happen a lot. I see the headlights of cars a lot; I look in the rearview mirror too much, focusing on past accidents. But drifting off to sleep, with M next to me, I was hoping to avert another collision. But you never can tell. Every time you get behind the wheel, every time you cross against the light, you are taking a chance. Life, New York, the Upper East Side is a series of missteps; dating and driving are purely chance mixed with dumb luck. Buckle up, it is never a smooth ride.