Love don't live here anymore

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Auf wiedersehen, Project Runway

No sooner had the Time-Warner cable guy left today than my hand was on the remote flipping channels. Like a spirit from beyond guiding the planchette on a Ouija board, I went straight to Bravo to watch the Project Runway marathon, including the 2-hour season finale. Never mind that we were in the middle of unpacking.

I was surprised at how hooked I'd been on watching this fashion soap opera unfold, considering how clueless I am at judging good fashion. Eric and Sheri got me hooked on the show from the start. Luis pooh-poohed it during the season, but yesterday he sat and watched the whole marathon, biting his nails like me. Seeing self-absorbed, egotistical, backstabbing designers claw their way to a spot at Fashion Week in New York was both a great escape from and far more stressful than moving. Watching each episode, I remembered why I was glad each person got bumped off. "Oh, that's right--she's a conniving bitch." "I remember now--he's talentless."

I was disappointed that Boy George successor Austin didn't make it to the final three and that Wendy did. She won the Grammy's challenge, but she was inconsistent as a designer, as evidenced by her final runway collection. She seemed to be the Omarosa of the group. Luis was gunning for Kara because of the shoe incident, but I thought her designs were polished and beautiful. We both hoped that the eccentric and wacky Jay from rural Pennsylvania would win. He did. Luis and I both thought Robert was hot. Kevin was cute too. I thought it was interesting that on the Web site his age is listed as 44, but on screen it was 37.

That Debbie Allen sure had it right: Got big dreams...want fame. Well, fame costs, and right here's where you start paying...with sweat!"

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The green, green glass of home

"My mom had these glasses when I was growing up in Bed-Stuy," Aaron said, his eyes lighting up as he held up one of my Grecian shot glasses. "We lived in right down the street from the factory on Pacific Street where they made them. We had the juice glasses. She used to buy them one at a time."

Aaron was one of the two movers who came to pack us up on Monday. He was jovial, despite having to spend 4 hours packing up our kitchen. He spent about 2 of those hours packing up just my Russel Wright china collection. "Wow!" he remarked to Luis, "I've never seen so many collections!"

"Don't get me started," said Luis.

In 1988 I moved into a house in Arlington, VA, with an ex-boyfriend and a roommate. The previous occupants had left a dishwasher, a clock, and three Grecian glass tumblers. I knew nothing about the glasses, but I thought they were campy and unusual. The gold-rimmed glasses were colored a matte Wedgwood green and depicted various "Grecian-inspired" scenes, like a woman holding her toga together with one arm akimbo while a man pointed his big staff at her. "Look at my big staff," he seemed to be saying, while the woman was thinking, "You call that a big staff?"



The glasses collected dust in the cupboard until I moved to my next apartment, in 1990. On a trip to New York I was startled to see a tumbler like the ones I had at an antiques store, tucked away in a corner, with a price tag of a dollar. I had never seen these odd glasses anywhere else, and I thought for sure I had found the long-lost fourth tumbler of the only set in the world. I bought the glass, which was in excellent shape, and brought it home to be with its vitreous brethren.

I forgot about the glasses until I spotted an ice bucket with the same pattern at an antiques mall in Pennsylvania. It cost $5. That same day, a few miles down the road, I found a set of six shot glasses in a wire holder for $8. Over the next 2 years I bought rocks glasses in Ohio, juice glasses in California, a pristine 20-piece set of barware in Illinois. I never saw the same pieces twice. I had a theory that the glass factory that made the pieces had put them all up for adoption at the same time and they had all gone to different foster homes. I was the social worker who was on a quest to bring them all together in one great big happy home.

I started seeing similar patterns and pieces in Wedgwood blue and started collecting them too. The blue pieces soon outnumbered the green ones.

By the late 1990s I had amassed a collection of almost 100 pieces of the glassware, and I still didn't know much about them. I'd heard or read that they were made by Anchor Hocking or Libbey, two of the most popular U.S. glassware makers, but I could never verify the information. I kept buying pieces for fun, and I never paid more than $10 for a single item. Then, while looking on eBay a few years ago, I found out that all of the glasses were made by Jeannette Glass, of Jeannette, PA, which made glassware from 1888 to 1983. The blue and green Grecian glasses were made in the 1950s and 1960s. At last the mystery was solved!

Unfortunately, I had already sold a lot of the glassware on eBay and had done pretty well. A lot of the pieces for which I paid under $10 now sell for $15 to $20 and up. I still have a few pieces left, including the shot glasses.

I didn't have the heart to tell Aaron that I'd bought those shot glasses for next to nothing, or that they weren't really made on Pacific Street in Brooklyn. He seemed to cherish the memory too much to rewrite it.

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Ten Things We Didn't Take To Our New Place

1. Chipped Foghorn Leghorn cookie jar
   
2. Half-full bottle of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce
   
3. Autographed ("To Scott") photo of Harvey Fierstein
   
4. Pay stubs from part-time job in college (circa 1983)
   
5. Extra DirecTV satellite dish
   
6. Toxic moldy bread found behind cookbooks
   
7. Dogeared copy of Marilu Henner's autobiography By All Means Keep On Moving
   
8. Cat carrier for cat we never had
   
9. Jeans I will never fit into again
   
10. Two-thirds of our belongings
    

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Hit it, boys!

"These two guys came into the office today looking for an apartment," Judy said. "They were a cute couple. One looked like Angel from Rent." My face was blank. "You have seen Rent, haven't you?"

It used to be that shame about being gay was limited to the very notion of being gay. How will I explain to the people in my life that I like being with other men? What if people won't like me? What if they hurt me, or disown me, or kill me? Gay pride is all about being comfortable with who you are. Now, it seems, not being gay enough is the thing to be ashamed of.

People I know routinely ask for advice on clothing, interior decorating, flower arranging, musical theater. "Wait. You have to tell me how I look in this shirt," a straight male friend said a few months ago. Excuse me, you metrosexual, you're talking to someone who only last year bought his first pair of Diesel jeans, and that was after considerable goading by other friends. You're talking to a guy who's had Gilligan's Island furniture and thought that a desk made of two columns of flue blocks topped by a wooden door was a stroke of genius. And no, I haven't seen Rent.

It's frustrating that as far as gay people have come we're still boxed, like a fabulous Tiffany vase, into the stereotype. Popular shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Designer Guys (or Designer Gays, as Luis and I call it), while entertaining, make it seem as though all gay men are genetically bursting with impeccable fashion sense, witty quips, and hip style. Talk about raised (or, depending on how you look at it, lowered) expectations.

A boxing message board I stumbled on had a litany of opinions about why there are no gay boxers. The messages (typos included) range from ignorant ("it's not in gay's nature to fight, let alone smack one's face or get whacked in return. boxing is too brutal for their feminine side") to smug ("because they find that all the heterosexual boxers give the performance of thier careers knowing that thier against a guy who may fancy them") to macho ("if I ever saw a straight boxer getting slammed by a cakeboy I would definitely feel a little embarrassment for that fighter") to amusing ("cuz people are too scared of boxers to ask them"). No stereotyping here.

For my next fight I'll give the people what they want. I'll enter the ring to the song "One" from A Chorus Line. I'll wear slimming black and white, flat-front, Prada satin trunks and black high-top Italian leather boxing shoes (because the belt and the shoes have to match). I'll ask that the cornermen place matching mahogany stools in the corners with little parquet end tables next to them to achieve symmetry, functionality, and textural contrast. Before the fight I'll help my opponent pick out his boxing attire so that we don't clash in the ring.

People will be able to see then that boxing really is gay. After all, as the old joke goes, it's the only sport where two men fight over a purse and a belt.

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I've never been to ME

Photos

When Luis asked me if I wanted to go to Portland, Maine, for a few days, images of us in a snowy fishing village, sitting by the fire sipping General Foods International Coffee in oversized woolen sweaters came to mind. I'm always surprised by how my preconceived notions of a place rarely coincide with its reality--for instance, how unprepared I was to see TGI Friday's with valet parking in Jakarta.

In our 7 years together, Luis and I have never celebrated Valentine's Day. We both find it forced. If you really need to have a Hallmark-inspired day to remind each other how much in love you are, well, then, good for you--if you like that sort of thing.

In the midst of the Sturm und Drang of moving, we decided we needed a break. Living in New York can (and often does) suck the very life out of me. For the past 6 weeks our friend Jenn has been appearing in a professional production of Larry Shue's The Foreigner at the Portland Stage Company. This is the last week of the show, so we decided to drop everything and go. We left Monday morning around 11:00 a.m. On the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway we called Jenn to tell her we were on our way. The 320-mile trip normally takes about 6 hours, she said, so she'd see us around 5:30. At 4:00 we called Jenn to tell her we were 5 minutes away from her hotel. She was flabbergasted. "Oh my God!" she said. "I'm about 20 minutes away. I didn't think you guys would be here so soon."

"Well," I said, "I'm driving with Goggles Paisano, so what'd you expect?"

Portland was nothing like I imagined. For one thing, it was warm, in the mid-40s. "It reminds me of Brooklyn," Jenn said, though the resemblance wasn't apparent to me at first. "Portland is to Boston as Brooklyn is to Manhattan--very neighborhoody, local merchants, quiet." This was true. Portland has a Park Slope feel to it, without the pervasive stroller culture. It's an organic, no preservatives added, hormone-free zone.

Jenn was staying at the Eastland Park Hotel, facing the theater. Her room was in an older part of the hotel and reeked of stale cigarette smoke. "It's like that scene in Titanic where all the Irish people are in steerage and cling to each other as the tidal wave sweeps over them," she said.

Portland is a coastal town, surrounded by water, with lots of fishing and boating. Dozens of little islands dot the seascape. We drove along the Eastern Promenade water around sunset, ribbons of orange, pink, and violet streaking the horizon.

We had cocktails in the bar at the top of the hotel, which overlooks the city, before heading to dinner at Blue Spoon, a simple, homey restaurant that reminds me very much of Park Slope. I ate some tasty local oysters and a seafood stew. While we were at the restaurant it began to snow. So much for warm weather.

We drove around the city as the snow became heavier. The streets were deserted; the tranquility was refreshing. Jenn kept gushing that Portland would be a great little city to live in. She's not alone: Portland has been ranked one of the 10 most livable places in the United States, and the number one place to raise children. Even though Downeasters have a live-and-let-live mentality, we didn't see ourselves pulling up stakes and moving there. It seems like a pretty pleasant place. Luis could get a job as a corrections officer, which would up his gay appeal, and I could become a job placement counselor.

Yesterday we had breakfast at Becky's Diner, a local eatery frequented by fishermen. The oatmeal was especially delicious. Was it some special, steel-rolled, hand-picked, manually hulled local grain? So I asked the waitress, who pulled out a canister of Ralston (as in the pet food company) Quick Oats. "I don't know why it's so good, but lots of people comment on it," she said.

The snow from the previous night had been washed away by rain overnight. We were blessed with a 50-degree sunny day for our travels up coastal Route 1 to the towns of Brunswick, Bath, and Wiscasset. We stopped at an antiques mall near Brunswick, where I bought Luis a cute Victorian desk that's more to scale in our new apartment. Bath, which sits on the Kennebec River, still had fairly high snowbanks from a recent fall. The antique shops there were a bit of a bust. Wiscasset was more charming. The sign at its entrance says "Maine's Prettiest Village." "I'll be the judge of that," said Jenn.

As we sat eating lobster rolls, looking out at the Sheepscot River, it was hard to disagree with the sign's claim. Huge but simple clapboard houses outline the river's banks like a Norman Rockwell scene. Life is decidedly simpler here, I thought. Sometimes Luis and I wonder where the next phase of our lives will take us. As a place to grow old, Maine might not be so bad, but we're not really the outdoorsy type. I don't envision myself ice fishing or wearing plaid flannel any time soon.

Wherever I go I like to buy local specialties, things I can't get in New York (but can't you get anything in New York?). At a gourmet store called Treats I asked the counterperson if there was such a thing as Maine wine and, if so, could she recommend one. The wines she sold were made not from grapes but from other fruits such as pears, apples, blackberries, and Maine wild blueberries. I bought a bottle of blueberry wine, which sounds potentially gross but I'll give it a shot. I later bought a dozen bottles of Maine microbrews, including Geary's and Allagash, at the fabulous Portland Public Market.

Jenn's show started at 7:30. This is the third production I've seen her in, and as always, she was excellent and the show was funny. When we met her afterwards, she was incensed. "That was the WORST audience ever!" she said. "There was some teenager sitting in the front row who had been dragged there by his parents, and he sat the entire time with his arms folded glaring at us."

"We laughed a lot," I said apologetically. "But we were sitting near a lot of bitter lesbians, so we can't be held responsible for them," Luis said. We had drinks and food at Sebago Brewing Company (I had a Frye's Leap IPA on tap, which was OK) and watched the end of the Westminster Dog Show. Watching the canines being led around, I was glad I'd decided to take off my leash in the middle of all the madness and run free.

Today at Portland Architectural Salvage we bought a wonderful old medicine chest made of semipetrified wood. The chest and the Victorian desk will be the first new pieces we've bought for the new apartment.

We made it back to NY in 5 hours. Time flies when you're on the road. Before Monday I'd been to Paradise (PA), but I'd never been to ME. As a remembrance, I brought a little bit of ME back home to Brooklyn.

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Runs with scisssors and slackers

A reader writes in to Dave Barry.

I was packing my 10 year old son's backpack and I came across his homework. The assignment was to take the spelling list and write sentences for each word. Here is the list. I swear, I am not making this up.

-- Nikki Nelson-Hicks

[List by Daniel]
Sorry - I feel sorry for the bird that is about to get hit by that truck.
Duty - I feel it is my duty to fight squirrels.
Fiery - They are hitting me with their fiery acorns.
Ugly - Those birds are pretty ugly up in that in tree.
Empty & Hungry - Odd, the fridge is completely empty and I am hungry.
Turkey - Man, some turkey would be nice right now.
Envy - I am getting envy from the guy that doesn't have to do this.
Lazy - I am too lazy to get up and turn on the tv so I use the remote.
Honey - Honey is disgusting, bees throw it up and then we put it in a jar and eat it.
Lonely - Life is very lonely without videogames.
Hockey - Hockey is the only game that lets you break bones without getting sued.
Marry - Marry...what sentence has the word marry in it?
Valley - I will throw this off in a valley and into a river when I am done with it.
Fifty - On the fiftyth day of Christmas, my teacher gave me this lame assignment.
Medley - Medley, what the crap does medley mean?
Ready - Get ready for stuff to happen--big, big stuff.
Movie - Can't think of a sentence for movie either.
Monkey - Monkeys...who doesn't like monkeys?
Imaginary - I hope this stupid assignment is imaginary.
Mercy - When I take over the world, I will show no mercy.

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Keep moving

Our weekend was fairly productive, if you call moving four carloads of stuff from one apartment to another productive. Movers are coming next Monday to pack up all of our remaining things, and Tuesday they'll move us to our new apartment, which is about 10 blocks away. The new place is e exactly a third of the size of our current place, so we'll be taking only what fits and putting the rest in storage.

We'll no longer have the luxuries: the gym, the guest room, the second bathroom, and the utility closet. Anything that doubles as storage will come with us. Most of our neighbors have moved; those of us who remain have the same conversation: We can't believe we're finally moving and that we'll never see our places again. Many of us secretly hope, like a governor's stay of execution, that the whole arena project will go away and somehow we'll be able to stay. Maybe they'll let us rent a few more months, maybe we can buy our apartments back. Maybe we're just deluded. Despite our new, exciting opportunities, we waver between denial and bargaining.

We dismantled our our 8-foot-high armoire into 8 flat sections and took them over in the car to the new place. When reassembled, the armoire is Godzilla-like in the living room. The ceilings are high, but they're 4 feet lower than ours, so the armoire looks a bit out of scale. There's nothing wrong with the apartment. It's a typical size for a New York brownstone. Heck, until I was 16 I shared a bedroom with my two brothers in an even smaller apartment. It's just that having our luxurious space has raised our expectations.

Luis jokes that we'll be saying things like, "It's my turn to sit!" and "You can't come over till someone leaves." The new apartment is temporary until we determine how long the building we're buying will take to rezone and renovate. Living in the new place has more advantages than drawbacks: We'll be staying in a neighborhood we like, with friends, near our favorite restaurants, near a subway, near our new building. And we'll be saving money. As my mother taught me, never forget where you came from because you never know if you'll end up back there again.

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Comfort food groups

Friday night

The brussels sprouts with shaved parmesan and walnuts is, hands-down, my favorite appetizer at Franny's, Prospect Heights' newest addition to the revitalization of Flatbush Avenue. Recently (and deservedly) voted "Best Pizza in New York," Franny's has become one of Eric's top two restaurants in Brooklyn (the other is Blue Ribbon). While waiting at the bar for a table, Jay was eyeing a pretty, bespectacled server. "What ethnicity do you think she is?" he asked me. "I don't know," I said. "She looks like a mix, but she definitely has Mediterranean features. Maybe Greek?" "She is sooooo cute," Jay drawled, his eyes starting to glaze over. When Jay swoons, his Atlanta accent becomes more pronounced. This particular night he was nursing a hangover, so that may have accounted for his more-than-usual dreamy state.



Eric and Sheri showed up, and when we were seated, the girl he'd been eyeing turned out to be our server. Up close she was even prettier--smooth olive skin, big full lips, and deep green eyes framed by black glasses. She seemed bright and had a nice voice. Jay had every opportunity to engage her, but instead it was Eric and I who chatted her up. By the end of the meal, Jay still hadn't said much to her. "Dude," Eric said, "this is your chance." "Yeah," I said, "you should have asked her what on the menu she likes."

Jay and I shared two pizzas: a rich four-cheese pie and a tomato and cheese pie with garlic sausage. Although I'll always have a soft spot for typical corner New York pizza, the subtlety of flavor and thin, crispy crust of Franny's pizza also has ample room in my comfort food repertoire.

While ordering dessert, we heard a familiar "Hi!" It was Judith and Felix and their friends Iva and Bill. They had just come from the movies and were having a late dinner. It was Iva and Bill's first time at Franny's.

Dessert was a scoop each of chocolate sorbet and fior di latte sorbet, recommended by the cute waitress, and an anise panna cotta. To the casual observer, it looked like Eric and I were trying to hit on her, but really we were trying to draw Jay in so she'd talk to him. But Jay just sat quietly and didn't say much.

"I guess there's no way I could leave my phone number at this point," he said.

"No," I said. "That would just be creepy. But you could come back another night and chat her up and hope that she remembers you."

Saturday morning

Luis and I have spent many Saturday mornings at Purity Diner in Park Slope. The diner's relocation to its current site coincided with our relocation to Brooklyn. When Luis lived in DC and came to visit me on weekends we'd go there at midnight and have burgers. Saturday mornings we'd have pancakes, which we both think are the best. After Luis started working on Saturdays we stopped going regularly. This Saturday we went for old-times' sake, for the comfort of pancakes.

The pancakes were still amazingly good. Since making poor choices at Purity, such as Eggs Benedict, which were virtually luminescent, I've stuck with pancakes for breakfast and a burger for lunch. I've learned not to get fancy at diners. Some meat dishes have been questionable, but no menu item is more fittingly named than Pastrami Nightmare, a layer of melted cheese creeping over a heap of bright red corned beef.

On our Saturday trips to Purity we'd always see the same gay couple at another booth--a white boy and his Latino boyfriend who were much younger and much cuter than us. We never said anything to them, but we made eye contact and nodded when we passed them. Sometimes we'd be out and about and see them and couldn't place where we knew them from because they were out of context.

"I wonder what happened to those guys," I said.

"And somewhere those guys are going, 'I wonder what happened to those guys we used to see at Purity,'" said Luis.

Saturday night

"Put on some more Dino," the jewlery-bedecked man said to his big-coiffured blonde wife, pointing to the jukebox by the door.

"Yeah, yeah," she said, waving her hand dismissively and downing a scotch on the rocks as strains of Engelbert Humperdinck's "After The Loving" filtered through the room.

When smoking was allowed in New York City restaurants, I'll bet you'd need a sharp knife to cut the smoke at Monte's Venetian Room. Monte's is a Brooklyn institution on Carroll Street between 3rd Avenue and Nevins Street, in what real estate agents now call Gowanus. Billing itself as the oldest restaurant in Brooklyn ("Since 1906," the sign proudly reads), Monte's is a throwback to the Brooklyn I grew up in. The clientele seemed to be largely suburbanites who come back to the old neighborhood to relive their halcyon days in Brooklyn.

Eric and Sheri and Luis and I thought we'd stick out like a multi-ethnic sore thumb, but across from us sat an entire Asian family who looked like regulars. Our waitress, Kathy, was probably a member of the Monte family. She was clearly American but clipped her Italian like many New Yorkers do: mutsarel for mozzarella, bro-zhoot for prosciutto, and our personal bugaboo, galamah for calamari. We wanted to order a bottle of wine, but Kathy told us there was no stock, only house wine.

I had an excellent bowl of pasta fagioli, or pasta fa-zool, as New Yorkers call it. Aside from the baked clams, the other appetizers were not so good. The calamari was floury and rubbery. The mozzarella in carozza, which normally looks like bread sticks stuffed with cheese, instead looked like, as Kathy called it, Italian French toast. It was soggy and oily.

Our entrees were gigantic, enough for two people each--or one, judging from the size of other patrons. The restaurant has a cozy feel--red leather banquettes and dark wood tables. Murals of Venice span the walls, echoing the romance and beauty of the nearby Gowanus Canal. I could picture gondoliers stroking their way down the canal, past two-headed luminescent fish and the corpses of cement-shod wiseguys of yesteryear.

We expected Monte's to be all of this, so we weren't disappointed. While finishing dinner, Iva and Bill, whom coincidentally we'd seen at Franny's the previous night, came over to tell us they were taking out Monte's cheesecake, which we hear is good. We wanted to take some home, too, but we were all felt somewhat discomfortable from overeating.

We'll go back to Monte's. The key is to eat basic and not overorder. I figured that out from one of Monte's philosophical tenets, which is proudly displayed on their menu: "We don't have fancy French names on our menu, so you don't need an interpreter to figure out what to eat." Never mind that all the menu items are in Italian.

Sunday morning

I've never taken a cooking class before. Everything I learned was from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and How To Cook Everything. I wouldn't say I'm a great cook, but I know my way around a kitchen. For years Kitty and I have been talking about taking a class together. Last month, as a surprise, Luis signed him and me up, along with Kitty and Tim and Walter and Gregg, for a class at the Institute of Culinary Education called "Comfort Foods."

Fifteen of us sat around a large stainless steel prep table while our instructor, Richard, ran through each of the 10 recipes we'd be making in the next 4 hours. I'd neglected to have breakfast or even caffeine, so I was a little grumpy for 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning. The class, it turned out, was not so much instructional as hands-on. We'd split into two teams, and each team would make every item on the recipe list, time permitting.

While explaining the ingredients for Split Pea Soup, Richard pulled out a rutabaga, a spherical white and purple root vegetable with a waxy coating, to show the class. In supermarkets I'd seen rutabagas advertised as turnips and vice versa, and although I knew they were different I didn't know whether the difference was semantic or structural. So I asked Richard what the difference was.

"The difference is huge!" he said, looking at me as if I'd said I never heard of Elvis. "One is Eastern European and sweet, and the other is Asian and bitter." That was enough of an explanation for me, and I should have stopped, but instead I said, "Well, I grew up in Brooklyn, and all my mother ever made were turnips, so I never had rutabagas." Richard's eyes grew wide. "Well, if you grew up anywhere in the New York metropolitan area, you can get rutabagas anywhere...even at Associated," he said, looking at me, as though Associated were a store for hobos. I wanted to haul off and punch him, but instead I just turned red and sarcastically said, "Thanks so much."

"I hate this guy," Luis whispered to me.

"You?" I said.

After familiarizing ourselves with the recipes, which included Chicken Shepherd's Pie, Standing Rib Roast with Bread Stuffing, Root Vegetable Stew, Creamed Spinach, Whipped Feta Potatoes, Macaroni and Cheese, Silky Chocolate Pie, we set to work cooking. I worked first on the Silky Chocolate Pie, melting the chocolate, cream, and sugar in a double boiler until smooth. A teenage girl on the other team, who looked like a Far Side character, already had a gooey chocolate glop in her saucepan. She called over several other people to help her, but the mixture kept getting thicker and goopier.

I didn't stick around to see whether they straightened things out. The pace became slightly frenetic. As I folded the whipped cream into the chocolate mixture, Richard came by to observe. "Beat it, beat it harder and faster," he said. "Ooh, baby," I said, mock suggestively. "Family show," he said, walking away and fake smiling at me as I narrowed my eyes.

Each team had to figure out how to divide up labor without descending into an episode of I Love Lucy. Gregg and Kitty were light years ahead in prepping. Luis was relegated to making the creamed spinach, which turned out fabulous. The other team burned theirs.



I mostly ended up prepping, pulling thyme leaves from their stems, chopping root vegetables, and checking for doneness. At times I felt like I wasn't doing much, or that I was on an episode of Beat The Clock. Much of the time was spent trying to figure out who had done what so far and where things were.

By the end of the class I didn't hate Richard so much. I felt bad for him for trying to be Bobby Flay. The class was better suited to advanced cooks, which I would say I am not. I may take a class to learn how to take a cooking class.

Miraculously, all the food was ready by 1:00. We all moved into an adjoining room, elegantly set with white linens, silver, and crystal, and ate our preparations. Everything was delicious, and Richard complimented everyone on their skills. Once the split pea soup passed my lips, I immediately knew the difference between a rutabaga and a turnip, and that was comforting to me.

Sunday night

Walking into Sea Thai Bistro, in Williamsburg, is like stepping onto an Asian version of the set of Barbarella. I half-expected to see Jane Fonda, in miniskirt and go-go boots, rocking in the plastic bubble swing near the door. In the center of the restaurant is a reflecting pool with a seated Buddha.



We picked up Judith in Park Slope and Glenn and Derrick in East Crapass, as we not-so-affectionately call East Williamsburg and headed to the hipster doofusville section of Williamsburg. Since it was Super Bowl Sunday and Sea is not a sports bar, getting a table, normally difficult, was a breeze.

Given the campiness of the decor, I expected the dishes to be similarly wacky, but they were conservatively Thai in comparison. The dumplings were soft and delicate, and the shrimp hotpot was tasty and satisfying.

Even the bathrooms were kitschy: tall, cylindrical, industrial pods reminiscent of the Orgasmatron in Woody Allen's Sleeper. After a weekend of comfort food consumption, I felt vindicated by the scene in Sleeper in which two scientists thaw out Woody Allen's Miles Monroe after a 200-year deep freeze and puzzle over a list of items he sold at his health-food store in Greenwich Village:

Dr. Melik: ... wheat germ, organic honey and ... tiger's milk.
Dr. Aragon: Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.
Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge?
Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Those were thought to be unhealthy... precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
Dr. Melik: Incredible!

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NYPD blow

I hit a cop tonight, but he hit me first.

Emery is a boxing trainer at the New York Athletic Club. His nickname is "The Mad Hungarian." We're the same age. Emery fought in the Golden Gloves when he was younger, and now he just boxes for fun.

As I was headed to the locker room, Emery asked me if I wanted to spar with one of his guys, an NYPD cop named Russell. I wanted to see the guy first before committing. Sometimes a trainer will throw you in with a guy "to move around with," and next thing you know you're getting the crap beat out of you.

It's been a few weeks since I've sparred, so I was glad to shuck the rust. I watched Russell spar with Emery and decided we'd be a good match. Russell's about my height, a few pounds lighter than me, and about 10 years younger. He's got a shaved head and a nice, compact body.

Russell had just won his first novice bout in the New York Golden Gloves. He was at Trinity to get some work in before his next bout.

The bell rang, we touched gloves, and Russell threw the first jab. It was one of the few jabs he threw the whole session. He likes to mix it up on the inside, which I like better than boxing. For years I thought I was a boxer, a fighter who punches at long range, until I worked with a trainer who told me that my shorter arms were better suited to a puncher. "Styles make a good fight," Emery said when I told him I was a southpaw.

Russell was moving around with me for most of the first round. I kept landing shots to his midsection, and he was moving to his right too much. Against a southpaw, an orthodox fighter should be trying to move to his left. Because lefties and righties are trying to move in different directions, it's the guy who gets his lead foot on the outside of his opponent's lead foot that dictates the action. Russell was good at timing his punches so that our jabs didn't collide.

In the second round, Russell opened up a little more. He landed two excellent uppercuts to my solar plexus. The second one hurt. I countered with a right hook to the head. I could tell he hadn't seen it coming. Emery said that Russell had fought a southpaw in the Gloves and won, so I wasn't his first. He had good angles, and I moved well with him. I felt relaxed and focused. I was throwing good combinations and pushing the action. Russell landed a hard left jab to my right eye, and I realized that I couldn't see. My lens had been yanked out. Time out. The lens was on the canvas. I understood then how a fighter like Sugar Ray Leonard could get a detached retina. A punch can sometimes land faster than you can blink.

I finished the round with one lens. At least the lens came out of my stronger eye. I've tried boxing without my lenses, but I don't see as well. It's another reason why I don't spar so much--I just really can't see well unassisted. I want to get Lasik surgery this year, but that means I probably won't be able to box for almost a year.

I was starting to run out of gas in the third round, mostly because Russell was landing more as I struggled to see. I know I should have quit at the end of the second, but as many fighters will tell you, once you get into the groove it's hard to stop, like eating a one-pound bag of M&Ms. I still managed to land some good body shots, and we had some great exchanges before tying up and pounding each other on the inside, when the bell rang.

"Great job!" Emery said. It felt good fighting someone who actually knows what he's doing. Sparring with newbies is good because you have to stay on your toes. They don't have the control that an experienced fighter has. Russell knows how to handle himself in the ring, and that made it enjoyable for me.

That's what I love about boxing. How else could I legitimately take out my aggression on an officer of the law without getting arrested?

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Ex-impression

Luis and I were up at Eric and Sheri's for our usual nightcap, which typically consists of Things We Shouldn't Eat Before Bedtime (Milano cookies, ice cream, pie) and/or Things We Shouldn't Drink Before Bed (coffee, tea, several bottles of wine), and some witty banter. Luis said that he had planned to have had lunch with his first ex, Greg, who lives in Manhattan, but the day got busy and Luis had to reschedule for the following day.

"Greg said, 'Damn, and I was wearing a cute outfit, too!'" Luis said.

"Excellent!" Sheri said.

"So you've heard of this?" I said to Sheri. "Getting all dolled up to see your ex?"

Sheri looked at me askance. "What planet are you from? Of course you want to look nice!"

I confessed that I was new to this idea.

"You want them to think you're doing just fine without them," Eric said.

"And you want them to look at you and go, 'Damn!"

It sounded plausible, but the concept sounded foreign to me. After amicably breaking up with my exes, I just ended up living with them as friends.

Maybe I'm really a lesbian.

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