Found Valentine

I found this Valentine card last year on 86th and Broadway. If it's yours, let me know and I'll mail it to the person I hope is now your wife.

Why did I pick this up? Found objects are very, very interesting. There is a story here. Fill in the blanks.

Why do I still have this a year later? No idea. Correspondence voyeur?

Upper West Side thoughts

Katz's leftovers - So the potato latke held up well for a mid-day treat. Unfortunately the broccoli one was too oniony and the sweet potato one turned into a too-sweet lump of starch. Ugh. By day 2, really more a weapon than an edible .

Had dinner with my UWS friends in the nineties. I love their apartment overlooking CP with trees and nature right out their spacious windows. In my tiny studio, I look out on the space between buildings and the trash collection zone. At least we recycle a lot.

I & J are great people, super eco-friendly BHLs like me. They have two adorable girls who remind me how much energy parents need. They also keep my maternal instincts in check, refreshing my opinion that it's better to rent than own; I'm too lazy and selfish to be a proper parent. During the course of a few hours, they played piano, colored and practiced handwriting skills, one started a personal best challenge for jump roping turning pink through the process. Lots of energy there. I need a nap.

On my walk home I'm confronted with tons of single Jewish singles heading into various bars, restaurants and establishment. Newly heartbroken me was swimming against a current of very youthful and rather attractive stream of singles. It was like salmon season, or would that be lox? I knew this was a Jewish neighborhood but little did I know that " Today the area between 85th Street and 100th Street is home to the largest community of young Modern Orthodox singles outside of Israel." if one believes everything written in Wikipedia. If that isn't a good reference, perhaps Unattached, a documentary, will suffice; I thought just being single was shunned in normal society, Jewish communities up the order of single-as-a-pariah magnitude ten-fold! And it's worse for the women! Yikes. Well, perhaps he's in that crowd ... and I sort of hope he finds his mate, and she gets fat and mean after pushing out all those kids :P Just kidding, sort of.

Fallen

I'm such a sucker for a gorgeous guy. I start dating, I'm all excited, which hasn't happened to me in years, and then he falls off the face of the earth. I decided after no returned email or phone calls to stop doing busy work around my place - laundry, unpacking, much-needed cleaning - and rollerbladed for the first time in YEARS.

Central Park was lovely today. Above is a great photo from a friend and while there is less green and more bare branches, there is still a lot of color. The wet leaves led to some tricky rollerblading. I only fell once on the steep downhill part of the loop up on the North section near Harlem. I tried to stop as I rolled over a $20. Two cyclist got it :( Used lots of muscles I thought were in good shape; I was wrong. Realized I need to gain some more muscle. I also realized there are too many damn people in Central Park! We need a bigger park.

I also realized that rollerblading still didn't make me forget about him. Lots of little broken hearted moments, but I know I've caused a few of those myself so none of us are blameless. Why do I get on this crazy thing called dating? Oh yeah, solo stuff sometimes sucks after awhile :p

Lyle Lovett and His Large Band

No intro band needed. Promptly at 7:30 Lyle took the stage and started with just one other person. The music and play grew from there. The Beacon is a great showplace but it was a bit too large for Lyle and his large band of about 15 other artists. Lots of seats up in the top balcony where I was were empty :( Guess NYCers just don't appreciate great song masters. Choke The Chicken was a crowd pleaser. I enjoyed the bluegrass. I got a few classics like If I Had A Boat and Lights of LA County along with several new songs and a few I hadn't heard him perform. Sadly the sound guys fucked up. Lots of feedback and Lyle had to stop for quite awhile in hopes they'd fix it but I don't think they ever got it right. Overall a short but good evening with some very talented musicians.

The perfect day really. I passed my Building Analyst written test in the morning and celebrated after the concert with R. What a fantastic evening! One of my best days ever :)

Happy

I'm happy! Love the way I feel at this moment. Wish I could hold onto it for those troubled days where I forget how good it feels to be this happy.

Ex-Diss and Friend Bliss

Holy shit! An ex-boyfriend just tried to ignore me off as he walked to Penn Station. I just got back on the LIRR from Long Beach and was walking to the subway with my friend. I look up to see Tom walking straight towards me, eyes lock, recognition on both parts. He keeps on walking, right by me. I reactively break my conversation with Carol to say, "Hey that's Tom." to no one in particular and he hears this. He turns his head, not breaking his stride, to stumblingly say, "Got to catch a train." and he keeps on walking. I've just been hit by an ignore-excuse-and-run drive-by diss!

Afghan Yum and Run

Carol, Lisa and I went to Khyber Pass, an Afghan restaurant in St. Mark's. Comfy setting with maroon tapestries and pillows overflowing. We sat at a table, not the window floor seats. Teh place was rather empty around 8pm when we arrived. The waitress was helpful when asked for suggestions but nicely left us to our own with no annoying hovering or pressure to order.

Enjoyed a lovely selection of treats. Started with more of a dessert. The Boulanee Kadu consisted of fried pillows of sweet potato filling dusted with a sugar spritz. The yogurt dip helped smooth and calm the sweetness.

Carol has the Bouranee Badenjan, a nicely grilled eggplant with mint yogurt and spices. The edges of the eggplant were charred with a good flavor while the insides were soft yet not too mushy. The seasonings with their earthy accents didn't overwhelm the eggplant and its texture. The mint yogurt made this dish the standout for me as it brought the milky sour punch to the otherwise standard rounded, heavier flavors of typical eggplant recipes.

I had the Quorma Sabzee with lamb. It was good but the flavors didn't really distinguish. Instead of giving the dish a layered, exploratory experience of all the flavors, the taste was the same for each bit varying only the texture - meat flakes of lamb, soft spinach clumps, standard sauce. Perhaps the spinach could have been fresher. It as if it had been cooked or sat just a bit too long and all the flavors marinated into one note. But it was still a good one flavor.

Lisa has the Lubia Palow, a vegetarian entree of kidney beans in a tomato-based sauce with onions and spices. It worked nicely with brown rice given its more autumnal savory nature. Beans were perfect, no smushy-soft or hard ones. The sauce was spicy good.

Then the hookah pipes and teenage trash drove us out. There was one trampy 13 year old who came, a girlfriend and two boys in tow. She was a little Brittany wannabe dressing so whorish is seemed campy. I first mistook her micro-mini hot pink jean skirt for short shorts until she tried to ben and maneuver into the platform floor seating table in the front bay window. Well at least the view of her thong brings her up a notch from Lindsay. Her over-the-shoulder black tube top, wrapped around her neck into the boob-hugging main section, was soon wriggled off her neck and shoulder to reveal more flesh but strangely reducing the hooker appeal. Looking around the place at 10ish gives the impression that it is just a hookah place. Too much whore, hookah, and haze for me.

First Impressions

The $30 Salad
my ruthless dating faux pas

I just went on my first online date since moving to New York City. I really hate dating but can't find a way to avoid it if singlehood is not my preferred future. So I met this guy for 'coffee' which is always a safe first meet - if he's wacko, you can leave quickly. Met in the UWS faux French cafe, French Roast. Conversation was flowing but bordered on the boring side - talking about model trains and umbrellas. He complained about gold diggers, how he loved Germany but couldn't live there because he could never pass the language test. He works for some patio furniture store. He was nice enough so I had a light dinner. I ordered a salad and tea, he had beer and chicken. Check came and he wanted to split the bill. Had he been a friend, I wouldn't mind this - with friends the cost even out over time, back and forth. In this case my $10 meal turned into $20. I wasn't going to see him again so I just paid. I don't date for free meals but it is sort of nice if the date doesn't make you subsidize his drink and meal. Is that too much to ask?