Best Date Ever

“Took myself on a date, pick me up at half past eight.”

It’s from a hand-game song we used to sing as kids, but Thursday night it was real life. Like some of the dates I’ve been on, I didn’t realize it was a date until about a third of the way through the evening, but that's me for you. After treating myself to dinner and snagging a front-row seat at a free dance show, I realized I was on the best date ever with none other than myself.

It started quite unassumingly. While checking my email at work, I found in DailyCandy’s Weekend Guide that there was a free modern dance performance by the Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects at the Lincoln Center Atrium at 8:30. Since I get out of work at 6, I decided to kill some time by taking myself out to dinner (which I am wont to do on a semi-regular basis, much to the chagrin of my bank account). But where would I go?

A day earlier, my boss had asked me to find her an interesting restaurant on 9^th Avenue in the 50s, walking distance from our office. I gave her a bunch of choices, stumbling upon a restaurant I wanted to try for myself at some point in the future called Casellula. On Thursday I decided to actually go since I had the time. I bundled myself up to brave the cold, medium-strength winds and walked to 401 W. 52^nd Street, hoping a glass of wine would warm me up.

When I arrived at the tiny restaurant, I instantly noticed the soft orange hue cast upon the two white walls and the two exposed brick walls. A dark wood L-shaped bar bent into a third of the restaurant, the rest populated by small tables for parties of four or less. Behind the bar, exposed shelving on the brick wall displayed an infinity of wine glasses and wine bottles. Next to it, a small food station with a multitude of cheeses and a little silver oven for warming, toasting, grilling the menu items, all small plates like macaroni and cheese, paninis, and salads. Near this kitchen area was also a tall cheese display case, three shelves of Roqueforts, Camemberts, Bries, Goudas, Chevres, Bleus and more, their different color skins and molds making some sort of delicious-looking dairy rainbow.

I sat at the bar and perused the wine list. After looking at the menu online, I had already decided I wanted the macaroni and cheese, made with Fol Epi, Comté, and Chevre cheeses, lardons (pork fat) and caramelized onions. I know nearly nothing about wine, so I took this chance to learn something.

“Is there a wine that goes with the macaroni and cheese?” I asked, laughing at myself. I knew wines went with different dishes, but I didn’t know if mac and cheese counted. I found out it does. Nikki, the caramel-skinned bartender with a curly, reddish afro, told me a red would complement it nicely, and recommended a Pinot Noir wine (Pinot Noir is so called because the grapes it’s made from are blackish in color). I don’t usually like red wine, but I decided to take her word for it. She let me try the wine first.

She poured a little bit of wine into a glass. I smelled it—it was fruity, almost floral, really light—and then took a sip. It tasted exactly like it smelled. Yum! I was all set to get a full glass.

“You’re actually supposed to drink the whole sample at once,” Nikki said helpfully. Whoops! “I’m still learning,” I laughed happily and ordered a glass of the wine, a McKinley Pinot Noir from Willamette, Oregon. Not too shabs, Pacific Northwest! I really just wanted to keep smelling the wine, maybe take it home and use it as perfume. I didn’t know wine could smell that good. I sat at the bar with my wine, fully conscious of how weird I looked smelling between delicious sips.

My food arrived after a while, macaroni and cheese bubbling hot in a little skillet about the size of a CD. Initially I was worried that this seemed like such a small portion, but as I tasted it I realized it was just right. It was a dish to savor and really try to taste all of the ingredients working together. (I’m fully aware of how pretentious this could sound, but I don’t really care. It’s important to taste food, not just eat it.). The cheeses were creamy and tangy. The lardons and onions were soft, sweet and salty. There was a kind of crisp on the mac and cheese from where it touched the hot skillet that was chewy and just a little bit charred. Delicious, perfectly portioned, and fabbbbulous with the wine. I don’t have any more of a food vocabulary to describe the relationship, unfortunately. You’ll just have to try it for yourself, so visit Casellula and enjoy.

Satiated and just a little bit buzzed, I walked up 10 blocks to Lincoln Center, passing the trees and sculptures near Fordham Law that were lit up for the holidays. I had some time to kill before I went to the performance, so I ambled around Lincoln Center a little bit. I hadn’t been there in about 10 years, and was fantastically struck by the modern beauty of The Met, The New York City Ballet and New York Philharmonic buildings. Though they were beige, they were by no means “beige,” shining with soft white light and filled with patrons dressed up in their wintry theatre attire. The iconic circular fountain in the center of the three buildings was almost like a beacon of this same white light. My only word was “Wow.”

I then made my way inside the David Rubenstein Atrium at Lincoln Center, which is just across the street from the aforementioned building trifecta. On Thursdays, Target sponsors all kinds of free performances in the atrium (all shows are at 8:30, but get there early because there’s limited, first-come, first-serve seating).

By some stroke of luck, I wound up in the front row of the free Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects show that had been set up inside the building. Tonight was the first modern dance performance in the Target Free Thursdays series. Special dance flooring had been taped to the atrium floor to be a stage for the dancers, with rows of chairs set up on three sides of it for the audience. I was on stage right.

Jody Oberfelder Dance Projects (JODP) is now in its 20^th year as a company, performing in an athletic, post-modern and expressive style that has been consistently lauded by publications like The New York Times. According to the company, “With inventive athletic virtuosity, wit and whimsy, JODP works to create dance and film pieces that are explosive, reflective, and seductive, relating to the vastness and intimacy of personal experience.”

In the performance, dancers were creatively tossed about and formed into interesting, bizarre shapes. What I really liked about the pieces (“For Intents and Purposes”, “Moves” and others) is that you could never anticipate what the next movements would be. Even so, they still made perfect sense—there was never a moment where I thought “Uh, what?” or felt like something didn’t belong, even though the movements and phrasing were so unusual. I’m not a dance critic by any means, but you don’t have to be to appreciate people making beautiful movements and shapes with their bodies like the dancers in the JODP. I guess I just know that seeing something beautiful always puts me in a good mood.

I’ve always believed that you can have really meaningful and/or exciting experiences on your own, and this night was no exception. It’s fabulous to go out with friends, but sometimes it’s nice and even cleansing to appreciate the world in solitude. The most important relationship you can ever have is with yourself and as with any relationship, dates are highly encouraged.

The Great Bedbug Scare of 2010

“Don’t freak out,” my roommate said to me.

As I pulled up in a cab from the airport after being home for Thanksgiving, I saw her rolling her suitcase down the sidewalk. I had shouted hello from the cab, only to be greeted with the words no roommate wants to hear.

“We might have bedbugs.”

I sat open-mouthed in the cab and stared at her, the meter still running. Bedbugs, parasites of the family Cimicidae that feast upon human blood, have been causing trouble in New York for a while now. Nobody really knows how or why they came to New York, but some have speculated that the amount of travelers the city receives on a daily basis has something to do with it. Sadly, New York seems to be prime real estate for bedbugs, which enjoy a dark crevice and a good fabric seam (clothes included). They will take up residence all over apartments, which are full of both these things. And they’ll bite, leaving small red welts on the bodies of their human prey.

While my roommate and our friend EJ were hanging out, EJ noticed one singular bedbug crawling on one of our futon’s throw pillows. He immediately killed it and my roommate bagged it for future evidence. Not taking the chance that there might be more, she threw clothes in a suitcase and got the hell out. That’s when I ran into her.

I was scared. Were we going to be another unfortunate pair of New York residents whose lives and bank accounts were turned upside down by horrifying creatures no bigger than my thumbnail? Would our Sweet Caroline (the name of our apartment) be no more?

I eventually got out of the cab and my roommate and I stood on the sidewalk, trying to make plans for where to stay that evening. We realized, though, that we had to call our super and tell him about the bug. To his credit, he calmly talked us down from our metaphorical ledge, telling us to go back into the apartment and bag everything up in the general futon area. My roommate, ever stable, made us a plan. Too stunned to formulate coherent thoughts beyond “ohmygodohmygod”, I listened. I clung to the hope that we did not have more than one bedbug.

Just in case we did, though, we would leave our bags in the lobby of our building and go upstairs, she said. We would then put the contents of our living room (and parts of our bedrooms) into plastic trash bags. Into the bags went sheets stripped from beds, pillows wrangled from their cases, the covers torn from the futon and table along with anything else we could fit. It was a pleasant surprise to not see any more of the wretched creatures, but I didn’t want to get my hopes up. Weary and subtly terrified, we cabbed it down to friends’ apartments (RB and LA are both actually from heaven) and resolved to skip work to deal with the problem the next morning.

LA plied me with drinks and cigarettes and conversation to rid me of my fears, and eventually I passed out at 2am, not thinking about the tiny beings that might be eating me alive if I were in my own bed.

At 8:30 am I rustled my bones and headed back to our apartment, my roommate arriving soon after. Still in the clothes I wore on the airplane, I began piling things in the laundry cart to wash—nay, scorch—in hot water in the washers downstairs. I knew, but had to be reassured that if we did have bedbugs, they cannot swim and certainly do not enjoy being boiled. Through my fog of sleep deprivation I hurled the sheets and pillowcases and futon covers and tablecloths into the washers, taking up three of the four machines we believed would be our salvation.

My roommate threw some pillows into the shower to drown them in hot water. We realized later, as we squeezed the pillows out and wound up with our own, personal wet t-shirt contest that perhaps this was not a good idea, and simply threw the pillows into the dryer to burn the bugs to death, if they were in fact there at all.

Around 11, after all had gone into wash that could, we paused our cleaning endeavor and went to our respective workplaces. The super would be by later that evening to check and see if we actually did have the creatures. Nearly passing out at work from being so tired, I slogged through the day still hoping we didn’t have an infestation.

Luckily, on the way home from work I found out we didn’t. My roommate texted me and I smiled, replying “YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSSSSS!” Apparently the super came in with a flashlight and spray, the whole shebang, and went into every crevice and/or bedbug hiding place in our apartment. No bedbugs to be found. We instantly felt safer in our own home and breathed mental sighs of relief.

People have said to me recently, “New York is not a place to live,” and I disagree, even with events like these. If I was living in Kansas, I’d have to worry about tornadoes. In Los Angeles, earthquakes. We dealt with our bedbug scare, and are incredibly thankful it was just that. But we’re not going to pick up and leave because of it. I guess, somehow, what doesn’t bite you makes you makes you stronger.

Nothing

There are times during the week when I come home, swamped with deadlines and personal projects, and flop onto our massive futon, thinking, “Dear God, I just wish I had time to do absolutely nothing.”

Strangely, though, I am a person to whom the concept of “doing nothing” is sometimes lost. Doing nothing is different for everyone, I suppose. My “nothing” always involves something, but some people really can just sit there and be perfectly comfortable doing that. Occasionally I envy them but I am often too caught up in my own nothing to think about it. I find myself utterly incapable of just sitting there, though I often wish I could—and I find this especially prevalent living in New York. There is just something to do all the time. Anywhere. If you want it you can find it. Sometimes I find that I start to “itch” if I’m not doing anything. I’m worried that if I am not going out and finding “it” then I am not taking true advantage of living here.

But this is simply not the case. Months ago, MS warned me of this very phenomenon. Because there’s so much to do, so many distractions, we have to focus our attention on the things that really matter. Is it so vital that I go to the Union Square Farmer’s Market right now? No, I can go next weekend. Do I have to go to the Guggenheim tomorrow? No, it will be open many other days during the year. Part of living in New York and learning to be a New Yorker is that you have to learn to live here as if it weren’t the city that never sleeps. Sometimes you have to wake up with nothing on the schedule and then go forth with doing that nothing because that’s what normal New Yorkers do. They are not tourists who have to see something every second of the limited time they’re here. Grand Central Station will be here next week, next month, next year and the next ten years—I can go in any of those time segments I choose. There’s no rush.

Instead, occasionally you have to sit in your pajamas all day and read the fashion magazines that have been piling up on your desk and drink your tea and maybe you’ll eventually decide to rustle your bones and jaunt down to the grocery store so you don’t wind up eating stale Cheerios for dinner during the week. That’s it—that will be your day. And it’s okay because that’s the “nothing” you’ve been wanting to do for a while (if you’re me, anyway).

The nothings, no matter what they may entail, are necessary in New York. If you do something all the time you’ll really just burn yourself out. And what kind of a way is that to enjoy living in such a bustling, lively place? It’s better to have the energy to do the things you love than have no energy because you were doing a bunch of things that didn’t matter to you. The “nothing” moments are far more important than we think they are, but unfortunately we only appreciate them when they’re unavailable. So it’s important to have a lazy Saturday, and maybe even a lazy Sunday if you’re feeling ambitious. Because without your own silence, you can’t appreciate the city’s music.

Not For the Faint of Heart

At 20 minutes til, I was one of the first people there, but we could not go in until the exact hour. In front of the dingy iron door, more and more women, and the occasional brave man, began to line up as the clock neared 11.

And then, 11:03. A stout, unibrowed man held open the door with a fleshy palm. He wore an army green v-neck t-shirt that danced atop his swollen stomach. The shirt swayed in gust of wind created by the first 10 or so women in line rushing past him to fill the industrial elevator that would bring them to the fourth floor, the location of their long-awaited treasure: the Lutz and Patmos sample sale.

Lutz and Patmos is the child of Tina Lutz and Marcia Patmos, who joined design forces to produce timeless, casual knitwear for all seasons. Together since 2000, Lutz and Patmos created a niche market for both themselves and their customers. However, the two split up after this past Fall collection, each desiring a different path in the fashion world. Now the line no longer exists, so the sample sale was highly sought-after.

Retailers, like Lutz and Patmos, use sample sales to get rid of excess merchandise. Shoppers can purchase near-mint condition garments for a fraction of the original price and when it comes to designer labels this fraction is a significant one.

All of the women in the elevator knew this, and knew that this would for the most part be their last chance to get anything Lutz and Patmos at such a slashed price. The unibrowed man heaved open the elevator door, and a barrage of women walked quickly to the metal doors where the sample sale lay in wait. A cacophony of clacking heels and boots and the shuffling of ballet flats resounded along the hallway.

The sample sale was not in a large room, a room perhaps no bigger than a family living room. The beige walls were lined with silver wheeled clothing racks. In the center of the room were tan cardboard boxes filled with scarves, fur accessories, belts, skirts, tank tops, and silk dresses. On the racks were the famous Lutz and Patmos knits—cardigans, shrugs, sweaters, capelets, dusters, and even knitted fur jackets and vests, all soon to be torn through and flung about by the same women who were making their way down the hallway at that very moment.

Hearts racing, the women practically threw their coats and handbags at the coat check girls and flew into the racks of clothing. It was every woman for herself—if they even had an inkling that they might like an item of clothing, into their arms it went. I was no exception. As I made my way through the first rack, I was particularly charmed by a long red knit cardigan and a silver and grey argyle shrug. I wrapped them in my arms and held onto them for safe keeping—I had visions of Monica on Friends pinning down a woman at a sample sale who wanted her same wedding dress, and I did not want to be that other woman.

When I began looking at the second rack, I found something quite wonderful, however. A jacket of woven navy blue rabbit fur for more than 70% off the original price not only in my size but the last one on the rack. I grabbed it and wrapped it around my arm for security. Nobody was getting near this jacket until I tried it on. Suddenly, I seemed to be infected with the same sample sale fever as the women slinging clothes around me left and right.

Stray, unwanted clothes began piling up on tables, fallen soldiers littering the pathways between and underneath the racks. Clothes covered the chairs where women tried on their finds, keeping them close and in sight. I expected some of them to burst out with an unearthly “My precioussssss,” like Golem in the Lord of the Rings movies, but thankfully nobody did. Instead, they quickly stripped out of their clothes, bras exposed, underwear on display, to jump into the Lutz and Patmos creations and see if the garments were worth the trip to the register, suspiciously eyeing any woman who came near their stash mid-try on.

Yet again, I found I was no better, as I piled my own belongings on top of my stash to mark my territory while I tried my pieces on (thankfully they were mostly jackets so no stripping was required). The two sweaters were okay, but the rabbit fur jacket was exquisite. But did I have the funds to bankroll this garment? I put the two sweaters back from whence they came, holding tightly to the fur jacket, and found a people-free zone near the entrance to telephone my financier (aka my mother).

The jacket was a go. I found a place in the line for the register, which extended the length of the room. Clothes and their women still flew around behind me, but being in the line was a welcome lapse in the chaos. I paid and exited, donning my new rabbit fur coat proudly (and warmly, I might add). I was not a sample sale victim who had their garment of choice ripped from them by a cruel woman in a passionate fashion frenzy. I had bravely protected myself against the masses and emerged victorious with a fabulous coat.

Entering the elevator, the chaos finally stopped. Strangely, I felt my pulse slow down. Sample sales, I realized, were not for the faint of heart.

My precious...

The Meat District?

A story of an evening out, for no reason in particular.

At 2am, Feebs, ALiCo and I hustled ourselves into a cab.

“We’re going to Little West 12^th and 7^th, the Meatpacking District.”

“That does not exist,” the cab driver said. Problem. ALiCo quickly dialed LO, who corrected us—Little West 12^th and 9^th.

“So what’s it called, the Meat District?” said Feebs, who was visiting from Florida.

“Yup. Something like that,” I said.

Just below Chelsea and just above the West Village, "the Meatpacking District isa 20 square block, 24-hour neighborhood on the West Side of Manhattan, flanked by Chelsea Market to the North and Gansevoort Street to the South." About 100 years ago, it was home to 250 slaughterhouses but now contains numerous high-end designer stores, restaurants, bars, hotels and more, all housed in grungy-gorgeous old buildings, surrounded by thick, uneven black brick streets. In the past 20 years, after serious renovation, it's become what some say is "New York's most fashionable neighborhood." I don't know how much I believe it myself, but I'm sure everyone there thinks it is.

Leaving the cab, we walked past the sleek Hotel Gansevoort, subtly lit up with thin red neon lights and down underground to 675 Bar. Once we walked down the stairs  and passing through a door covered in graffiti, we entered through two glass doors into what looked like a brick lair for hip young people (with complimentary coat check). A red pool table lit by a giant horse lamp—an actual size horse with a bulb atop its head—occupied the front half of the room and the four of us found ourselves there for the rest of the evening. Turns out Feebs, ALiCo and LO are all really good at pool, winning something like four or five games in a row while I sipped a Tom Collins in a spiffed up barber’s chair nearby.

Eventually Feebs left us, having been up for 21 hours and desperately needing sleep, and we went off in search of food. ALiCo said loudly and happily to LO and I, “I WANT SOME PIZZA!” So we crossed over the Meatpacking District’s black streets and wandered down 14^th Street until we found Rocky’s. The pizza place was still open because, well, this is New York and that’s how we do it here.

Around 4am, I sat on a newspaper vending machine and bit into a slice of ALiCo's Penne Vodka pizza. Anything tastes delicious at that hour, excluding or not excluding whatever beverages may have been involved up to that point.

Top 40 radio blasted in the background while I popped pirouettes and arabesques near the cash register, waiting for LO and ALiCo to get their food. LO shook roasted red pepper onto her pizza as ALiCo heaved her pizza outside. “Holy crap there’s pasta on my pizza!” she said. We sat and talked about nothing except how freaking delicious the pizza was while men who had hit on us at the bar walked past and tried to get our numbers yet again.

I jumped into a cab not too long after that and as we made our way down 14^th Street, I watched all the lights go by. There were still people on the street, still traffic rustling past. “I love New York!” I said to the cab driver, just because I felt like it. He didn’t acknowledge me. I must be one of millions who have said that in a cab here at 4:30 in the morning. I didn’t care.  

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Run, Forrest, Run

One of my favorite things about New York is the crazy things you can see from your window. On Halloween, people with apartments overlooking 6^th Avenue got to see the parade, but this past Sunday people all over Manhattan and its four sister boroughs got to see the New York marathon.

At around 11am, I stepped up to those somewhat iconic police barricades and snapped pictures of the runners as they trickled onto the street from another borough’s bridge nearby. They ran in the sunlight on the left side of the street, as if they might freeze if they ran in the shadows on this already chilly day.

Runner after runner crossed in front of us, strides long and powerful on even the shorter entrants. Their legs were unbelievably toned, one long line of definition extending from hip to ankle with nothing jiggling in between. No two runners were dressed alike, from short black shorts to full pink bodysuits.

Earlier in the morning you catch the stronger athletes, the ones who break away from the pack either on foot, or wheels for the disabled (nobody is excluded from the marathon). People fly past with their names on their shirts so people they’ve never met, like me, can shout out “Go Tony!” or “Come on, Joe!” to support them as they make their way through the marathon’s 26 miles. That’s part of the great fun of the marathon, really—cheering on people who need your support.

And they deserve it, too. You don’t just get up one day and say hey, I want to run 26 miles. You train for it for months and months, maybe even years. People come from all over the world to participate in the marathon, too. I saw people proudly displaying their flags on their running attire, from places like Australia, England, Canada, the Netherlands, Italy, Venezuela and Germany, just to name a few. Onlookers gather behind a giant flag and go nuts when they see one of their own, hoping they’ll win.

There’s one winner for the marathon overall in the open division (there’s $130,000 in it for the winner of the open division, $200,000 if they’ve won the marathon once before). There’s also a winner for other divisions: Age-group divisions for ages 18-19, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, 45-49, 50-54, 55-59, 60-64, 65-69, 70-74, 75-79, 80-89, New York Road Runners member divisions (open, ages 18-39; and masters, age 40+), wheelchair division, and handcycle category.

When I first started watching around 11, I saw mostly male runners and while I am not at all averse to this sexy man parade, I was a little disappointed. Where was the womenfolk representation? But then, at around 11:10, I saw the first lady I’d see for another 20-30 minutes at least. I was so proud of this girl for keeping up with, and even surpassing some of, the men.

I left and came back later in the afternoon, around 2:30, when you get more joggers and even people in costume—I saw a Minnie Mouse, some woodland creatures, a man in KISS garb, a guy in a bunny mask, and more—and of course that one guy who just walked alongside runners and took a bunch of pictures. Oh, and there was also the guy who juggled while running.

 

It’s incredible for anyone to do the marathon, though. Person after person ran, or wheeled, or walked, or crutched (yes, a man on crutches!) past me and I just thought to myself, Hero. Hero. All of them.