Panic! At the Deli

Dear girl I have a date with tonight,

I just realized you might be a vegetarian. This ruins everything. Though I have no problem with a girl who doesn’t eat meat… actually, yeah, I do have some problems with that. It’s one thing if you keep kosher or something but I don’t know if I could date a girl who can’t eat steak. Also hot dogs; sometimes I am so into hot dogs, like the street meat kind you get outside of TenJune. It would be fun to buy you one at 4 am after we stumble out of whatever house party or benefit party or gallery after party we were at, and we could eat them together and watch the sunrise and stare at Ashlee Simpson as she wanders around lost from Bungalow. That happened one night, and she came up to me and asked me if unicorns were guys or girls and my friend John took her picture with his cell phone. True story. Poor form on Ashlee’s party but true story.

There’s also Pop Burger, or White Castle in Williamsburg, or Katz’ on the LES, and if you can’t eat at any of those places you probably will not be any fun.

Especially since this is what I’ve got planned for the first date: steak hunting. This is one of my favorite activities in New York actually; you take a map and you throw a dart at it. Then you look at the neighborhood it lands on and pick a restaurant in the area. Call and make sure they have steak – funky grilled Japanese strip steak (Bond Street Sushi in Soho) or tequila soaked steak (Chiarascurria in Hell’s Kitchen) – that’s fine, it just has to be real steak. Then you go, and you rate it on a scale of 1-10 , and here’s the rule: since it’s my game, if it’s crappy steak, then I’ll buy you a bottle of champagne wherever we are to apologize. And if it’s really good steak, then you have to kiss me. And those are the rules. Especially since, if you down an entire bottle of champagne and you still don’t want to kiss me, then it’s definitely not meant to be.

So.

Don’t be a vegetarian, okay? Because you’re very good at conversation and very gorgeous even when you’re in sweats – yeah, I did see you in sweats, that one time at the marina when you didn’t think anyone was watching and you were learning how to fly-fish – and I sort of have a good feeling about you. Which may be erased if tofu is involved.

Today's List

putting some of my art up soon, promise.

Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her

Last night, Sophia asked if I’d ever been through a bad breakup. I responded by beating her at pool (Sorry Sophia. You’re really bad. We’ve gotta get you help). But I thought a lot on the walk home and Soph, just for you – only for you would I do this, okay? – let me tell you about my last bad breakup.

It happened in the Guggenheim’s young artist night.

We’d been dating for eight months, which equaled two semesters, which equaled forever. I even remembered her birthday.

We’re walking around looking at the art, and in my head I’m like, okay, I’m a better artist than this, when do I get to show in the Guggenheim? Then I get to this series of photos. They’re gorgeous black and whites of a naked girl, laid out in slivers on the wall. If you step back and look at them, you get the whole picture.

And the whole picture was, uh, my girlfriend.

I look down at the name and it’s this guy who directed her in a music video once, while she was at the New School. I look down at the date and it’s two months ago.

“Uh, babe, why are you naked in this guy’s pictures?”

And the look on her face said it all, because it was this big “oh-nothing’s-wrong” smile, like she knew what was coming. It comes out that they’ve been sneaking out behind my back for months. Which I should have known. Like she was really taking an Intro to Chinese class every Thursday night. Intro to Chinese? She can barely speak English!

So Sophia, we broke up in the Guggenheim. Basically in front of the guy who was sleeping with her when she was sleeping with me. Oh, and Jason Schwartzman was there and he saw the whole thing. And there I was in the Guggenheim with my ex girlfriend and Rushmore, and she goes, “Are you sure you want to break up? I’m a piece of art now.”

And I said, “No honey, you’re just a piece of work.”

A Certain Romance

So you know that part in Almost Famous when the kid turns to Kate Hudson and he goes, “just when and where does this real world exist?”

That’s exactly how I feel right now and here’s why: dating. Or you know what, let’s go with non-dating. Because that’s what we’re doing here in New York in our “oh wow, you’re still so young” ‘20s.

At [take out boarding school so you can’t track me down] you were either like, married, or you were hooking up inside the photo lab at night and the next day, it was no talking. At [take out college so you can’t track me down] it was the same, except with less vodka and more conversation. Why are Ivy girls always so conversational?

A tangent. Anyway.

Now it’s like, I’m old. If I dated a high school girl, I’d get arrested. If I dated a college girl, I’d get roped into long conversations about my feelings, probably, because again, they’re all into "talking". But it seems like everyone in this city is either in a hardcore, Eternal Sunshine relationship… or they’re hooking up behind the ice machine at La Esquina and then underneath some ottoman in their living room. Or if they’re really wasted and I haven’t planned the evening well, they’re hooking up in my living room. Poor form, my friends; poor form.

So now that I’m back from vacation, I’m thinking of something impossible: actually dating. Not just one girl cause then you get the married vibe; especially if the photogs catch you and then you’re a Thing, and there’s nothing worse than a Thing. But I can’t date too many girls because, to be honest, I will forget one of her names. Probably as I’m taking her clothes off. Not cool. So let’s start with two. Let’s date two girls and figure out if there’s a happy balance between krazy glued together and misbehaving underneath my ottoman. Although, to be fair, that can happen too and it will all be okay.

Or, you know, even better.

With that in mind, here is today’s list:

IN

Tan lines
Studio 60
The Kills
Aspen
Calling out girls by name
The blonde

OUT
Pickup lines
Lost
The Killers
The Spotted Pig
Calling out girls by hair color
The brunette (at least, for today)

Also I’m supposed to write something about the TV thing. I guess, uh, it’s all true. Except, you know, the parts where I look a jerk - or worse, like a suburbanite.

"And you can tell Rolling Stone magazine that my last words were..."

Testing.

Testing.

Jenny, is this how I'm supposed to do it? Hit me back, this whole blog thing is not so much my deal.

--S.