Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Standing in Line

They pop open their menus immediately upon being seated. The only view across the table is the flipside of their menu. The waiter arrives and they speak into their menus as they order. The waiter tucks their menus under his arm and leaves. That was the climax. Now, they're mentally drumming their nails on the table. Their thoughts are the same too, "where is our food?" It's been four minutes. The plates are placed afore them and now their view is of the top of each other's head. Doggie bags are requested as they get ready to head home to a sex-less Netflix night. The dining dead, my greatest fear.

If I meet someone and we stand in line for the early bird buffet, I want to him to be wiping mashers on my face as I stop his tray by keeping mine still on the rail. Standing in line, we do a lot of it. At one point, it won't feel like we're waiting.

Friday, August 26, 2005

Missed Moments

Consider the regrets of non-doings.

I was waiting for my scone when a guy was fiddling with his glasses. A lens popped out. He catches me look over at him fumbling with the circular plastic piece trying to snap it back in. He puts his single-lensed glasses on then looks over at me. I laugh. He says, "I could be constantly winking." I say, "A quick wink is hard enough to pull off." He laughs. My heated scone is up. I reach for it. His heated scone is up. He opens the door for me, it's a small space so he opens it and leans against the door while I brush alongside him to exit. I say thank you. He winks. Then, he shakes his head and acknowledges that's it's hard to pull off, "You're right, that is hard to do." I nod then follow it with an assertive wink. The cafe is at a street corner. The light turns white. I walk.

Should I have walked or talked? Better to pursue a moment of intrigue or best if we leave it as a fond moment in our day? I'll bet a lot of us have a lot of these.
Today to Tomorrow

Today, I hit my favorites.

No agenda, laundry done, patio cafe lunch and a Venti Iced Americano traveling with me from Central Park South to West Broadway. I lied. I do have one obligation for the day, an appointment for a mani/pedi at Bliss. Another favorite.

Sugar scone from Patisserie on Spring & Lafeyette.

Chai tea from Hampton Chutney on Spring & Lafeyette.

(Not in too many cities could you get two seemingly hand-in-hand delights from two completely different stores but on the same block).

Summer clearance/fall preview sales all over the city.

The invention of "short" sizes for pants.

Cloth shopping bags.

Sunglasses that stay on your head firmly and hold your bangs back.

Art galleries with no one in them.

The great roomy bench in between Ralph Lauren and Anthropolgie.

The restrooms at Crate & Barrel. A friend of mine discovered it, it is the hidden jem of SoHo...no public restrooms avail anywhere and this one is always open and always clean.

Washington Square performers...except for the magician...I don't care for the magician. He juggles ocassionally, but it still doesn't do it for me.

Toe separators, they're super funny looking.

Coming home to an empty house. This is an all time favorite. In fact, it's the favorite part of my day...everyday. I wonder if it will ever end. This idea both excites and frightens me. There's a possibility that one day I will walk through a door and have to speak, "Hi, I'm home." Dropping everything and taking all my clothes off and sitting al fresco in front of my laptop can't be done. Rather it'll be about...

Shopping on both sides of the store, men's and women's. Buying two scones, one to bring for home for the mister. Making a call just to say hello from a bench. Having someone educate me on the oil swirls on a canvas. Skipping the magic show to scurry home to cook dinner together. I should enjoy right now while I can...and eat that second scone while my toes are drying.

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Ticket for One for All

Tonight, I took myself to my third in-the-park screening for the summer. There were many couples there but there were also many singles. Men and women laying on their mats for one, single sandwich in one hand and solo Poland Spring in the other. Thumb stroking their iPods, flipping through Spin, waiting for the movie to start.

New York City, everyone alone together.

Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Bigger and Better NOW

It's no secret that New Yorkers are always looking for a better job, bigger apartment and a better, (ah-hem) bigger boyfriend. In the same likeness, New York men are always looking for a better job, a bigger apartment and more girlfriends. So, the question begs, how will we ever settle? Is it possible to settle? And if so, for how long?

In a time when jobs are looked at as 'work' not careers, sub-leases are ever so popular and terms like 'relationships' and 'girlfriend/boyfriend' are not so popular, my generation is in debt. We are living in today, we can have it now, we can have it all. That's good...right? All those cliches sound lovely: "Live in the moment," "The world is your oyster (I still don't get that one)," and, my ever-favorite toast on a first date "To tonight." I'm thinking: to tonight what a$$hole? It's going to take a little more than a falafel..I don't care if it's the best Kabob house in the Village. So yes, we rack up quite a chit on our credit, if we hit the limit, we can open another, they're just waiting for us in our mailbox. But soon, this must all catch up.

So that's the posed problem. I now have a solution. I figure I'll go along with it until they start to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge. Never been a beater, I'm more of a joiner. Time to go shopping for a new apartment with my cute broker...just hope my next job can compensate.
Blog, a Safe Haven

I want to re-learn how to blog.

For a while now, I've tried to practice posting words that I can look back on and not want to immediately hit 'delete post.' I'm now re-learning that attempting to write with permanence is not the way. It's not productive, it's not bold and it's not honest. And since, productivity, boldness and even honesty are acknowledged weaknesses, perhaps the first place to work on it is in the privacy of a public journal.

I can't regain the past moments, feelings, frustrations, smiles, and tears that I so wish I had memo'd but I can start now...again. And not only with more immediacy but with more candidness. The other aspect of blogging I tried to be aware of was anonymity. I'm now realizing that privacy is one thing but I've got a tendency to put that at such high regard, my words become extremely encryptic, preventing me from even recalling who/what I was referring to.

The irony of all this is that I've worked hard to keep my blog discrete, to keep it an unascertained safe haven, and to my favor, it doesn't even appear on Google until the 23rd page. So, why be so scared? No one reads it and if they did then maybe it's a productive start to bold honesty.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Beat you...and me

Some people break their own hearts so that the other person can't beat them to it.