Some People Think It's Funny (But It's Really Hot and Runny)

Don't you hate it when you're trying to leave a lame party and people try to talk you into staying? I mean, you know, if there's hot guys roaming around, good booze and someone interesting to talk to, I'll probably stick around. But if I grace you with my presence for a beer or three, be a pal and let me leave when I need to leave. None of this, "You're being such a pussy!" or "Seriously, more people were supposed to show up!"

Last night I arrived at a party for my friend Eric just as another mutual friend of ours was leaving, around 9:30. This is the guy who is usually found chasing people around with full shot glasses at 4 a.m. -- a time after which most reasonable folk are already passed out in an alley somewhere. I was surprised to see he was leaving so early.

"Oh, hey, why are you leaving?" I asked.

"Diarrhea." he said.*

Not much of a rebuttal for that, unless you're carrying a bottle of Immodium in your purse. Well played, my friend. Well played.**

*This was probably a lie. I think he was avoiding an ex.
**Follow-up: Today I had lunch with a friend of mine who indulged my craving for a blue cheese burger. I relayed the above story to him, and he chuckled, adding, "I just tell people I'm going home to masturbate." I guess that works, too.

New York Scores Another Naive Newcomer

Seven years ago, I moved to New York City from Arkansas. My boyfriend followed shortly thereafter. We were blissful, excited to explore the unknown together. We strolled hand in hand around the Village. We peered over our new city from the top of the Empire State building. We poked fun of psychotic dog freaks at the Westminster show. A mere five months later, of course, he informed me that he could no longer resist his innate urge to screw other men, and he left me. I sobbed hysterically all the way home on the subway, and nary a stranger offered me a hankie or inquired as to whether I was in danger of hyperventillating (which I was). This relative anonymity can be part of what makes the city so great. But I didn't think so at the time. Nowadays, of course, I'd probably run into someone I know on the subway anyway, and they'd have the kindness to take me me home and loan me a Percocet, or at least to happy hour for a few dozen shots of tequila.

Fast forward to 2005, and it appears I (or at least my spot-on hosting skillz) have convinced yet another unsuspecting young fellow to try the Big Apple on for size. My friend Pete, who wrote this glowing review of the city, visited a few weeks ago from Salt Lake, and in a flash of brilliance (stupidity? naivete?) has decided to dump his condo, car, and cat, and move east.

Pete loved my brilliant friends. He loved the ubiquitous bacon, egg and cheese. He even seemed to love waiting in an ungodly long line at the recently-dissed Freeman's with the other pretty idiots for an overpriced plate of heirloom tomatoes.

Poor Pete. It's not fair he arrived on the one weekend of the year when all the stars were aligned. I mean, for God's sake, the second time my brother came to visit, he witnessed a junkie committing armed robbery at the dry cleaner's across the street from my loft. Pete, on the other hand, thinks he's in for a nonstop buffet of tasty dirty-water dogs and a consistent female-male ratio of 3.2 to 1 (although, to be fair, the latter he can probably count on).

I cringe to think of the day when Pete will step into a two-foot puddle of grimey February slush and have to walk around with it in his sock all day. How about those months where you don't venture outside the boroughs for 16 weekends running and swear you'd sell a kidney to see a blade of grass? How he'll regret his decision when a trannie aggressively tries to bum a smoke from him in Chelsea, or his seat-mate on the subway has just coated the inside of his pants with a fresh layer of poo.

I'm glad my friend had fun, and he's in for an adventure. But, Pete, don't hold me responsible when the inevitable pain and suffering begin -- and watch out, the last one turned gay.

It's All a Mystery

I've been listening to the Flaming Lips a lot lately.

Their music is powerful and etheral and, to me, feels hopeful and despairing at the same time. Kind of dreamy-happy-achey. For reasons I won't get into, that seems to match my mood of late (or maybe always?) pretty closely. I think "Fight Test" has about 346 plays on my iTunes. I've been working my way through their albums trying to make up for the fact that up until a few months ago I was one of those people whose knowledge of the Lips didn't extend far beyond "She Don't Use Jelly," from my early days in college. I was really missing out.

Last week it came across my radar that they would be playing at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York on Sunday and Monday, and I knew I had to seize the moment. Luckily I convinced a recently mopey friend to drop 50 bucks on Craiglist-obtained tickets, under the auspices that it would give him something to look forward to.

I was probably overly excited for the Flaming Lips show, given that it had been so built up in my mind.
Like most things you get excited about -- a new job, a new person, your favorite sports team, a restaurant with great review -- that excitement makes you trepidatious. With excitement comes the potential to be let down, for whatever you're buzzing about to fall short of your hopes, to endure disappointment for the three hundred thousandth soul-crushing time. It's why I try to set my expectations bar low. But I couldn't help reveling in the anticipation a little bit. Every once in awhile I indulge myself and allow my hopes to rise.

Arriving at Hammerstein, I winced at the aural assault of the opening act, some noise-band performance-art travesty named Deerhoof. Wishing to the heavens that I had thought to bring earplugs, we cringed as the lead singer, a little Japanese lady in ponytails, hopped around on stage singing "Bunny bunny bunny bunny BUNNY BUNNY BUNNY" while making one-fingered ears behind her own head. I wished only that she would 1) fall over and 2) shut up. I curtailed my high hopes. If the Flaming Lips had chosen *this* for their opener, I thought, how good could they be live?

The answer: very, very good, verging on the sublime. Somehow they managed to sound better live than they do on studio albums (something that's all too infrequent, I find) and the show part of the show was... stunning. To recount it would sound cheesey and tacky, but let me assure you that it was beautiful. Wayne Coyne began the show walking over the crowd in a clear man-sized gerbil ball, supported by the raised and loving hands of his screaming audience. Once the music started, balloons the size of Volkswagens were unleashed on the crowd (all of whom had been given laser pointers). These glowing orbs floated around in the air, kept aloft by the jumping, dancing audience. Confetti cannons showered the audience in happy explosions of ribbons. The vibe was nothing short of a joyful, euphoric love-fest. The music moved everyone.

If you have a chance to see the Flaming Lips, go.

Are You Ready for Some Football? Apparently, No.

My dad imparted me with some valuable life skills over the years. He taught me how to change a flat tire so I never have to pull that "Woe is me, someone heeeeelp me" thing on the side of the road, where you place a limp wrist on your forehead, slump against the hood of your car, and wait for you knight in shining Camaro to show up. He taught me how to make mashed potatoes. He even took violin lessons with me early on. We learned "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," as a very out-of-tune team, much to the confusion of any mating cats nearby.

Then there were the things my dad knew how to do that he didn't teach me. He never taught me how to put up drywall or do electrical wiring. He never taught me how to ice fish. He never managed to beat organic chemistry into my brain. And, I'll be damned if he taught me about football.

Every year about this time, I rue my lack of knowledge about football. All my male friends are going on about their fantasy teams. As fall starts to chill the air, I long for those days of collegiate camraderie, sitting around drinking beer and watching football, but knowing zero about the sport that inspires that togetherness leaves me wanting. Where's my part in this revelry? I feel as though I'm missing out on some national, and very American, phenomenon.

How is it that I know nothing of football? One of my friends is the web's most celebrated sports blogger. My father is probably the biggest fan of the Nebraska Cornhuskers you'd ever meet -- he dedicated an entire FLOOR of his house (to his credit, the basement) to memorabilia. I attended Nebraska during THREE championship seasons, and even went to games. (See? I made an effort!) My ex-boyfriend had season tickets to the Jets, and I'd faithfully attend. I WAS A FOOTBALL CHEERLEADER. If only you could see the pictures -- big hair, short skirt, toothy grin, the works. The problem was I could barely figure out when it was appropriate to say, "First and ten, do it again, go, fight, win!"

After 30 odd years on this earth, is it too late to catch up? Is there a reason to? Would football somehow capture my imagination if I had greater knowledge of the game?

I was talking to an acquaintance about this a few weeks ago. He's very intellectual, and very much not an athlete. He assured me that football is utterly fascinating and the more you learn about it, the more intriguing it becomes.

If he's right, how does one even learn about football, besides playing it? Do I need to sit down with someone and have them explain every play? Wouldn't unraveling football for a foxy redhead make you Feel Like a Man? Someone help me out here!

Climbing

I've been climbing a lot, trying to get back in shape after a summer spent doing more hiking and camping and other activities. Since my favorite climbing partner moved away, it's been harder for me to get outside, and that situation is worse now that my car blew up. Nevertheless, I have been making a real effort to get into the gym, do my routes, get my endurance back, and regain my ability to do tougher leads. I've been working lately on a big overhanging 5.10+ lead with a long roof at the gym, something that at times I'm able to do without too much trouble but that at other times gives me heart palpitations.

When I am climbing several times a week, it's not uncommon for me to have dreams at night that I am climbing. Sometimes bad things happen on these dreams like I look down and realize I forgot to tie my figure 8 and if I can't hang on, I will fall and die. Other times great things happen, like I am able to easily climb things that in real life are hard for me -- those are fun dreams to have. Sometimes I dream about a route that I have been working out and I can see where my hands and feet are supposed to go to make the climb doable and I feel very free and happy. One of my climber friends said she thinks this is the mind's way of working out "muscle memory," which helps you make the same moves more easily the more times you do the climb. I tend to agree.

This video of Dan Osman free climbing an easy 5.7 at lighting quick speed kind of reminds me of my dreams, and there's a part at the end where he makes a big no-hands, no-feet leap for a ledge that definitely quickens the pace of the heart despite the climb's easy grade. (Link via kottke.) I don't climb quickly in my dreams, but I do climb that easily. I guess in some ways I feel like this video is a peek inside my head when I have climbing dreams.

Favorite Humorous Writings

I remember the first time I read my favorite piece of humorous writing of all time, entitled "I Shit My Pants in the South of France," by Jonathan Ames. The piece is about just what it says it's about -- it's an autobiographical tale Ames wrote about living as an exchange student in France. One night, walking home drunk from the bars, he accepted a tuna-fish sandwich a bum thrust at him with a dirty, outstretched hand, and ate it. Minutes later, as the rotten tuna hit bottom, things kind of exploded. You can read it for yourself in his short story collection called "What's Not to Love?"

The point is, I distinctly remember the day I read it, sitting on my old red couch in my loft apartment in the candy factory, because I ended up laughing so hard I think I actually fell off the couch. Tears were streaming down my face and I don't know why exactly it tickled my funnybone so much then, since in later readings I have found it but mildly amusing. The first thing I did was call my then-boyfriend on the phone and read it to him between sobs of laughter, and HE ended up laughing his ass off too, although I don't know whether it was because of the material or because I was acting like such a hysterical loon.

Anyway, I read something that caused similar convulsions of rapturous laughter a few weeks ago in the New Yorker. The Shouts and Murmurs piece was called "The Ambien Cookbook" by Paul Simms. Now, I have more experience with Ambien than I do with soiling myself among the vineyards of France, so maybe that's why it struck me as so funny. If you've ever taken Ambien and woken up the next morning asking yourself, "What just HAPPENED? Why does my teddy bear have my panties on his head? And how did I get home WITH NO SHOES ON??" then this article is for you. Go read it. And to Paul Simms: I salute you, sir.

Me No Understand Weird Social Cues

A couple weeks ago I got an email from one of the girls who is an associate editor for one of the magazines I help out with research and fact checking. We've always had a nice rapport -- she's cool, is very pretty in an indie-rock kinda way and I've always thought that had we met under different circumstances, we'd likely be friends. We like to commiserate about other people in the office who drive us nuts. And I think we share a common disdain for the bleach-blonde perky women's magazine staffers who share our floor and subsequently hog the bathroom. Ugh.

Anyway, the email said that she had moved to a new office, that I should come check it out, and that she had a present for me. Earlier this year I had admired some figurines she had on her desk from this web site. She really has amassed quite a collection of them since then. As we were chatting, she said, "Well, I just wanted you to have this," and handed me the little statue of a purple monster holding a bird, the very same one I had said I liked. I was touched, but kind of confused. I'm not used to acquaintances from work giving me gifts, especially when we've never even done anything outside the office together, gone out for a congenial drink together or whatever. That said, I thought it was really sweet. Maybe I SHOULD ask her out for a drink. However, I'm less polished in my quest for the acquisition of new female friends than I am of new male friends. Obviously, I have problems.

But then things started getting weirder. Last week, another coworker -- this one much higher up in the company -- dropped into my office. Tall and blond, we met last year when he stopped by to talk to me about a piece I was working on. He looked a bit taken aback that day, as though he expected to find a warty troll with thick glasses and instead found, well, not a warty troll with thick glasses. We started chatting, ended up going out for drinks, and thus began an aggressive flirting campaign on his part. This guy was not my direct supervisor, but is definitely my superior at the company. Of course, that didn't stop me from flirting back. I wasn't sure what to think about it since I KNEW he had a girlfriend (although I just assumed he had a fidelity problem). But it never went farther than that, so I figured it was just harmless flirting. Later girlfriend became his fiancee, and is now his wife. Because he is married, and I believe in the societal and religious sacredness of marriage, I have tried to shut down the aggressive flirting campaign through equal parts disdain and iciness, to varied success. But nevertheless, we did form something of a friendship during that time so I still speak to him every so often.

ANYWAY, last week he came to my office and thrust a brown paper bag at me. Inside was a copy of the book "Sex Tips for a Straight Woman from a Gay Man." On the cover was a sexy, noir-ish painting of a busty redhead. Skimming the chapters, I notice advice on improving your blowjob style and diagrams on proper 69 technique. His personal inscription: "You probably know all this already, but maybe there are a few new ideas."

OK. Was he trying to tell me he decided to switch teams? That he's still hoping to get me in the sack? That he'd love to be sued?

I'm still not sure, but I am wary of what I can only expect will come next: My boss giving me a penis-shaped cake for my birthday. Those will be some fun candles to blow out.

Timberlake, Two Times

A confession:

As a grown woman who fills her days with intellectual professional pursuits, adrenalizing avocations, and the company of entertaining and caring friends, I've never had much time for celebrity crushes (at least since sixth grade, when I took pity on and pledged my allegiance to Danny Wood, the member of New Kids on the Block most resembling a chimpanzee). To be frank, they kind of disgust me. Don't people have more important things to fantasize about other than how someday someone far richer, more attractive, and probably way more self-involved than they are will want to run away with them to Biarritz? Do we need this much escapism? Quit reading People and go write a letter to your grandmother or something. Make yourself useful.

So I was surprised and embarassed at myself a few weeks ago when at the gym, putting in something like my 57th minute on the treadmill, to catch Justin Timberlake's "Sexy Back" video. What happened to that curlyheaded, side-kicking dancer in boyband baggypants from the NSYNC days? Here was a closely-shorn hottie ripping a single, prim strand of pearls off someone's neck before forcefully, uh, "taking her" on a hotel bed. HOTTTTTTTT.

A few days later I was climbing with my friend Kristen, who owns her own PR company and reps a lot of REALLY BIG NAMES in music and film. She knows the music business inside and out and I told her I had a confession to make.

"Um. I saw this video the other day? Sexy Back? Um. I thought it was totally hot. I went home and downloaded both of Justin Timberlake's albums. I'm so ashamed."

"Nooooo...that's going to be THE song! It is hot. You're not alone," she assured me.

I felt a little better, but I knew the situation was out of control when today, back on the treadmill, MTV aired a special called "Justin: The Moments." All Timberlake clips from 1998 on, including videos and interviews. Woo-hoo! And THEN, VH1 (on the next screen) played Sexy Back AND "Rock Your Body." My BPMs were noticeably rising. I needed to get a grip before I found myself following him on tour in a Winnebago van or something.

LUCKILY, the clips of Justin in between each segment proved to be so charm-less and uninteresting that it went a long way to quenching my Timberlake tremblings. Charm is, for better or worse -- usually worse -- something I inevitably fall for (and who doesn't?). And he had zip.

My advice to you, Justin, is to spend less time working on your weak beatbox and spend more time working on the charm. Or your tour will have to do without me and my Winnebago.

Towers

My friend Lockhart at Curbed has a beautiful picture of the Twin Towers.

The Sept. 11 Post

*I've been informed by a reader that the links below do not work for people who don't have a subscription to wsj.com. If you'd like to read them, you can use the temporary username/password wsjie01. Offer good for a limited time only!*

I'm not sure why, amid all the media coverage, moments of silence and memorial services already going on that I feel the need to do a Sept. 11 post, except that, well, as a journalist (or former journalist at least) I think that witnessing the whole miserable thing go down has some merit on its own -- which of course has nothing to do with me personally, just that I was there to observe and report. Also, when I looked outside my window this morning and saw that the day -- clear, blue skies, gorgeous -- is so much like that day it was just hard to ignore.

Collective memory is one thing and it's still being shaped regarding Sept. 11, but individual memories are powerful and should not be forever tucked away; each one brings something additional to how we interpret events. I was but a bystander and I didn't lose any loved ones that day, so I know this account pales next to those of people involved in rescue, stuck in the towers, or family members of the deceased. But in the interest of preservation of these particular memories, here is what happened to me on Sept. 11.

Five years ago, I exited the A train at Chambers Street and walked up the ramp, through the turnstiles, and into the World Trade Center around 8:30, about fifteen minutes before the first plane hit. My job at the Wall Street Journal in those days was to write the pre-opening markets story for the web site, and my desk was near a window facing the towers, which were across the street. Just minutes after I sat down, the first plane hit. This is what happened in our office afterward.

You can read my full account, which I wrote for the WSJ, here.

In short, my job that day (after we realized that there was no way the stock market was going to open) was to go out and count the number of people who were jumping out of the towers to escape the fires within. I watched each person fall, and counted. Of course, after a time there were so many that it was pointless to count. I couldn't keep up, and eventually they evacuated the area and I went to call my editors. These are the images that stick with me the most, moreso than seeing or hearing the planes hit or watching the towers fall. Nightmares dogged me forever and while falling from great heights is a common theme in other people's nightmares, it's a VERY common theme in mine. I think the individuality of watching each death had something to do with it.

Everyone dies alone, but I feel somewhat comforted that someone was there to watch and mourn these people's individual deaths before the towers fell.

Five years later things still feel forever altered by that day -- we're in a war that stems (albeit wrongly, as far as I can tell) from that day, every time I go to the airport I'm reminded of it, and it's never far out of the news in New York City. I wonder if, or when, it's all going to end. It seems like it never will.

What I can be thankful for is that as a result of that day I made lifelong friendships, born out of horrible circumstances as they were. We cried, we laughed in our despair, and man, did we ever drink a lot of scotch.

Excuse me for being so maudlin, and we may now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Last Night's Party

Last night my dear friend Will had a party to celebrate the one-year anniversary of his insanely popular and oh-so-addictive sports blog, Deadspin.

There was an open bar. A good 72% of my friends were there. Will had even promised me a veritable buffet of straight, brainy men. Of course, I didn't believe him -- a room full of straight, smart dudes who don't make your eyeballs twitch violently is something I believed existed only as a mirage exists in the desert . You think you see it off in the distance, but once you get up close, it shimmers away. Take a close look and they're ALWAYS gay, dumb as a box of hammers or the kind of dudes who wouldn't know how to do simple electrical wiring or drive a car with automatic transmission. Unacceptable.

So imagine my surprise when I arrived to find an excellent boy-girl ratio and not one but MANY hot manly types. Will doesn't lie.

And that's why I look so happy.

Hyper-Light Jump

While the title above may sound like the key choreography sequence in a new-wave ultra-modern ballet production, in fact it is something that the characters on Battlestar Galactica have to do every time they want to escape shipsful of evil-robot Cylons. They do a countdown, press a little button, and all of a sudden their ENTIRE FLEET of ships goes BZZZZZIIIP! and disappears into an unknown universe, never to be seen again. My roommate is a sci-fi junkie so sometimes I just pick up on this stuff.

Now what does this have to do with this blog, you might ask? Well, let's just say that recently this blog had to do a "Hyper-Light Jump" of its own from my former URL -- which shall go unnamed to protect the innocent (and paranoid) -- thanks to a super unfortunate event I like to call "OH SH*T MY MOM FOUND MY BLOG."

My mom didn't much like finding this blog, and the story of how she did is too long to get into.

Let's just say that any illusions my dear mother once had that my days in New York were spent thinking about bouquets of peonies and puppy dogs, sitting at home and shining the lock on my chastity belt, were shattered in one ugly click. My parents are hard-core Baptists. While my experience with that particular church was mostly one of shove-it-down-your-throat-don't-ask-questions rules and what seemed to me blatant hypocrisy, they stand by its teachings. And I wasn't living them. Never mind that I think I lead a good and moral life and, as an adult, have developed my own strong ideas about religion, morality, apologetics, and what's important. At issue here was that my mother saw that I was "not living the way they brought me up to live." Not to mention "airing dirty family laundry in public." (Ha! Public! If only she knew how little traffic I got!)

I love my family, I do. But we're very different. As a concession to her and my family, whose upstanding name I have allegedly sullied with my (obviously embellished) tales of promiscuity, profanity and "realness," I moved the URL and took down any pictures that could positively ID me -- and therefore other, innocent, members of my family. Mom assured me that if I did keep them up, it would undoubtedly lead to 1) my own murder by cyberstalker turned real-life stalker and 2) the kidnapping of my niece (never mind that my brother has his own blog where he posts pictures of the child, but whatever).

Apparently Mom and I aren't talking yet; I think she's still trying to get the image of me lustily ravaging hordes of Jewish men out of her head.

Here's to hoping she doesn't find this blog, that I don't have to create a nom-de-plume (Taffy McJewLover?) or, even worse, an alter ego. And here's to hoping, fellow bloggers, that the same fate never befalls you (or if it does, that your parents are Unitarians). "Had to Move" refers not only to my need to leave my old URL, but also my need to not live in the place where I grew up, a place where you had to pretend all the time that everything was perfect. How nice in New York that you can just be who you are -- even if you're a mess.

Puppet Sex & Prunes

Yesterday I called my friend B. to make plans for the evening. I was very excited to go out, considering that I spent all of last weekend sequestered in my apartment, diligently pecking away at a 6,000-word assignment I have due in a couple weeks for the WSJ (and which I'm procrastinating on now by writing this post). Super un-fun, given the subject matter, with which I will not bore you.

But anyway, I was ready to go out, and actually *do* something -- none of this pints at the local pub thing. So B. picked up tickets for fantastic orchestra seats to go see Avenue Q.

Normally when I see Broadway shows, it's with visiting friends or family who without fail want to see things like "Phantom of the Opera" or "The Lion King." I never get to pick. Occasionally, I'm pleasantly surprised. I sort of dreaded going to see "Movin' Out" when two friends visited from South Dakota awhile back -- their choice. The music was decent, if predictable, but the show, choreographed by Twyla Tharp, turned out to be breathtaking because of the modern dance. But that was an exception. Usually, if I"m on Broadway, I'm groaning and wincing through a subpar performance of something like "Annie Get Your Gun," which I saw when Cheryl Ladd was singing the part of Annie. Ethyl Merman she ain't, but I guess as a fellow South Dakota native it was nice to see a hometown girl up there on stage. If only she wouldn't have been warbling so...

It's no secret that the Tony-award-winning Avenue Q is a slightly subversive show. It was a little less controversial or shocking than I thought it might be, given the reviews, but the naughty Sesame Street feel is totally lovable and while belly laughs were few, there was a steady undercurrent of chuckling. The puppet sex scene -- where naked human and a moster puppets go at it, graphically -- was pretty over the top. Don't bring anyone younger than 17 to the show unless you want your kids to sit through 5-minute songs about beating off to Internet porn. I'm no theatre critic so I'll leave it at that, but the clever writing and the inventive puppeteering are definitely reasons to catch the show. It was a nice break from the glitzy pomp and caramelized sugary-ness of normal Broadway productions -- but really, that's much of what Broadway is about. This felt like a hip, downtown Off Broadway show, but with better singing and choreography.

Anyway, afterward we needed something to eat. I had planned to do some research on this at home but I ran out of time as my hair appointment ran long -- had to get beautiful for fall, my favorite season. It was a cold, rainy, windy night and we wanted something cozy. B. hasn't lived here that long so his knowledge of restaurants is still a bit limited, so it was up to me to think of something. Freeman's Alley was the first thing that came to mind, with its hunting lodge feel and rustic food.

Normally I don't like eating at restaurants that have received as much word-of-mouth hype as Freeman's has. Everyone thinks they're the only ones in on the "secret," but by now every bridge and tunneler from Wayne to Westchester to Wantaugh has probably heard of this place, and appropriately, it's packed every time I go there. As we walked down the wet, dark alley toward the candlelit front doors, huddling under B.'s umbrella, I saw a big group of people smoking outside and knew we were in for a long wait.

But, for once, fate smiled on us -- or at least the host did. Despite the large groups of people milling about around the host stand and idling underneath the fang-bearing taxidermied wild hogs on the walls, when I asked him how long the wait for two would be, he said "Only a few moments now."

"I think he thinks you're pretty," B. said, conspirationally. "Why else would we be getting a table?"
"He probably thinks YOU'RE cute," I told B. "Besides, LOOK at all the beautiful women in this room!"
"I don't see any pretty girls," B. said.
"What about that brunette? The one by the wall?" I asked.
"Ugh. Her NOSE is too big. Look at that HONKER!" B. replied.

Seriously, though. Everyone in that place looked stunning. I don't know if it was the lighting or the night or what, but this definitely was NOT a B&T crowd (probably the holiday and the rain kept them away) and everyone was kind of...glowing. I kind of wished it would have been a party instead of a restaurant so I could have met some of these magically perfect people; it was literally like sliding into a pool of gorgeousness.

Soon it was time to order. I had told B. about my favorite offering at Freeman's: Devils on Horseback, which are prunes stuffed with Stilton and wrapped in fried bacon, served warm. Savory, salty, sweet and chewy, these things are amazing. B. was skeptical of the prunes but once he ate one, he announced that he was inclined to order about 19 more plates. They are that good. One can never have enough smelly Silton. One of my FAVORITE dishes anywhere in New York is the Stilton fritters served with cranberry relish at the Telephone Bar on 2nd Avenue -- it's a Christmas tradition every year for me to go there with friends after a Christmas Eve service. Keeping this in mind, we also ordered a cheese plate of Stilton with blackberries, fried almonds, and a lovely bread. I had a very nice glass of Riesling.

For the main course, I had a striped bass served with a summer salad of fresh lettuces and tiny baby snap peas. I'm not sure what they used to season this, but it was magically delicious. The fish was cooked perfectly with a bit of a crunchy char on the outside and moist and silky on the inside; the lettuces provided a nice bitter edge. Heavenly. B. had the whole grilled trout with lemon, thyme and garlic. He didn't like his very much. I tasted it and it was a little bit dry and underseasoned. Plus, it came a la carte so there were no sides to fall back on. I kind of wish he had had the steak, which I've had there before and found delicious.

For dessert, we had a bowl of grilled peaches with fresh whipped cream. ORDER THIS. I'm sure it's seasonal so get it while you can. It came with some kind of nutty liquer sitting inside the little "bowls" of the peaches, which were intensely sweet and just a bit stringy (in a good way). We were both amazed that something that simple could be that good.

Freeman's would be an amazing date restaurant, assuming you can show up and not wait an hour. It is super romantic without being frilly or over the top. It's warm and dark, but not in an overly suggestive way -- in fact, it feels vaguely sinister with all those dead taxidermied animals everywhere. It's not even that expensive (we spent about $90 on two glasses of wine, two apps, two mains and dessert, plus tip). The crowd is good looking and not overly loud. Of course, I was NOT on a date, but that's ok, because B. is one of my favorite dining companions. And to his credit, he did a valiant job as a "date stand-in," complimenting my new hair and saying it looked "Just like Madonna's!" I guess this is the highest compliment one can hope for from a long-time Madonna fan.

I just hope he meant Madonna hair circa "Hung Up," and not Madonna hair circa "Desperately Seeking Susan."