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Sat, February 18

Wild Night

After leaving the Apple store in Soho, all riled up from an encounter with the dumbest "Genius" to work there, we needed a drink. J, Tom and I headed to the Mercer. Tom is getting over a painful breakup, and was describing the process of getting rid of stuff that he used to share with his girlfriend in their apartment. "This is why you should never move in with someone unless you're engaged." I looked at him quizzically. He points to J. "Yeah. The Juice (nickname for J) should really get on top of that before you guys move in together." Uhhhhhmm.....Aren't guy friends supposed to discourage one another from making any major forward moves in their relationships?

J "can only take so much" of the Mercer, so we said goodbye to Tom after one drink and went to Ciprianis. I've only passed by Ciprianis wide eyed and yearning to walk inside but knowing I couldn't even afford a coke there, or listened to M's stories of the times she accompanied an actress friend of hers on her dates with older, rich gentlemen. So though I feigned a casual demeanor when entering the famous eatery, I was really feeling like, "Hey! I'm in Ciprianis!" I looked for all the "glamorous" people. Hm. None really to speak of. Lots of handsome older men traveling in packs without women. Assholes I'm sure.

J ordered "a bellini and bread sticks for the lady." I have a thing for bread sticks. I got one of those fabulous bellinis and get this--they refilled it whenever I wasn't looking! Eventually we decided to forgo the wait and head to...

Babbo. I guess if you go late enough, its not too hard to get a table without reservations. We waited by the bar for maybe fifteen minutes or less. Two separate people asked me if I "could move just a little back please." This has never happened to me before. What, did I smell or something? Please. I wanted to say, "Excuse you--you are sitting at the BAR not a table. Please expect to have less elbow room, you Turd." But instead I just shyly moved a few steps back.

Our perfect table in the corner by the window made up for The Haters. J shut my menu and said he'd take care of the ordering. I love this--love not having to decide on what I'm going to eat. Especially when everything looks interesting and exciting. That's why restaurants where the chef decides what I'm going to eat are my fave. In this case, it was J, who decided that we eat the following: One pound of lobster and spaghetti, pasta orechiette with sausage and broccoli rabe, sweet breads ("the best General Tso's ever"), and the biggest most succulent steak I think I've ever tasted. Even the server was like, "That's a LOT of food." It didn't bother J. He wanted us to taste as much as possible. We nibbled on the steaks, by the time they came to our table (and now I'm fretting because steaks from Babbo are sitting, ignored in my fridge.)

Two desserts later (a warm pignoli nut cake with creme fraiche ice cream on the side and a chocolate and pistachio creation), we cabbed it home and passed out instantly in our food comas.

I swore off food when I woke up with a hangover and stomach ache. Never eating again, I thought. Yeah. That was hours and hours ago. Gearing up for home made pizza now :)

J and I went to the Turkish baths to detox. Not sure if we were so successful since the baths looked a little less sanitary than usual. And usually, they're pretty nasty. I noticed two girls getting the platza treatment--flogged by leaves in the dry steam room. The floggers are really good at persuading naive women at taking their tops off. "It's OK, it's OK," they coax as the girls reluctantly say goodbye to their bikini tops and fold their arms across their chests, thinking the flogger will take painstaking efforts to keep the girls' goodies hidden behind a towel. No such luck. "Relax, it's OK," the floggers say, holding the girls arms over their heads as they hit the leaves on the girls' upper bodies. Embarassed giggles fill the room. I guess the good thing is, it doesn't seem that the other bathers care to look at the often half naked women. Still, it is funny what is acceptible in normal every day life, and how people suspend those rules and insecurities when surrounded by intense heat and heavy Russian accents, in a dark cavernous steam rooms.

Saw Shannon around two at Pain Quotidien. Can't believe how long it had been since we'd seen each other! We caught up and ran all over Soho. We had a blast reading the nasty captions in Toys in Babeland and buying things we didn't need: cheap earrings in a surplus jewlery store, gold eyeliner, and a bronzer (Sephora brand--pretty affordable and looks great).

Ok, going to post pics from Em's Bachelorette!

Posted by lexzog at February 18, 2006 08:22 PM

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