Free-Floating Hostility

Thursday, August 18, 2005


Hostylefax: Make new Friends, but Keep the Old

I spent most of the day today with girlfriends of auld lang syne. I don't communicate with Debbi or Tiesha all that often, but when we get together it never matters, and we always have a terrific time.

Debbi and Tiesha could not resemble each other less, spiritually I mean. Physically it's a pretty big spread, too, though they're both short and gorgeous. Debbi is another friend from my nerd-camp days, one of the few living souls who remembers Slut Day. It is a great pity that I didn't have a blog back then because we could have posted such great stuff, including Debbi's homemade religion, Judyism. She is now a quasi-frum newlywed (I asked her how long she'd been keeping kosher and she said she started the absolute minute she got married and not a second earlier, going to a tref-y restaurant with her family the night before the wedding). She opted to clerk for a criminal court judge rather than a law firm while she waited to hear how she did on the New Jersey bar exam because she had this "shiny brand new husband" and she wanted a chance to play with him a little. We had lunch at a pizza/Chinese joint in Herald Square. Initially we couldn't find it, but we adopted Debbi's patented follow-the-payos method and enjoyed a leisurely meal while reminiscing about the old gang and our new in-laws.

Tiesha on the other hand is the only person I know who's actually experiencing the lifestyle depicted in Sex and the City. Modesty forbids my relaying the question we debated in tonight's episode, but she has a Mr. Big, of whom I take at least as dim a view as I did of the one on TV. Tiesha went to Brearley with me, so she Understands. We ate at a Cuban restaurant downtown, and as she was running late--only twenty minutes, though, which is better than she's done since my wedding--I waited at the bar, mojito in one hand, epidemiology text in the other. The bartender stared, but Tiesha stared worse. As the evening progressed the bongos got too loud and we went outside for a stroll. Next door to the restaurant was a Chess store with all kinds of novelty sets in the window and games going on inside. I wanted to take a picture of the game being played between a guy wearing a do rag and a guy wearing a yarmulke (I really do love New York) but my camera batteries weren't up to the task.

As I age I seem to jive with proportionately fewer and fewer women, socially speaking. That makes me extra grateful for the girls that were there for my first awkward years, and whom I can count on to see me through the awkward years yet to come.

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