Globes

Welcome to Night 2 Operation KB Spends Quality Time Alone to Get Used to What it Feels Like Entertaining and Loving Herself Again. After a whirlwind of a weekend, actually beginning Thursday night with some of the most divine women imaginable at my favorite bar The Globe (Suhana, my Persian Indian princess, Sarah, with her gorgeous Irish accent and her adorable "brilliant!" exclamations, and Russian Olga with her ability to see right into your soul with those kind dark eyes) I'm taking a few days off to meditate on who I am and who I'm becoming. How much do I love the diversity of my new friends? Ah. It's most definitely like taking a walk through interesting cultures, yet at the same time, we're all New Yorkers just getting by, so we're inexplicably linked via that. Ha, what I offer is my Midwestern good heart, but that's okay too - my girls embrace it. I owe a lot to Suhana. I met her for the first time months ago, back when I was basically just stepping foot out into the wild as a solo creature. We hit it off - she's so smart, into poetry, photography, human nature and philosophizing. She's eloquent, she's clever, she's beautiful. Anyway, she disappeared for a few weeks from The Globe and I guess I sort of assumed she quit? Then one afternoon, a really steamy gross summer one where sweat was rising from the pavement, I was on my walk from Penn Station to the apartment having just returned from visiting Aubree and Brian on Long Island, and it was so disgusting that I decided to pop into The Globe to cool down. And there was Suhana! It's slow in there on Sundays until around 5, and this was earlier in the afternoon, so we started catching up and she informed me she had been to San Francisco (home), Greece and Turkey over the past weeks. Ever since that afternoon, we've been close, and getting closer all the time. All along, all this time I've been aching for girlfriends but I didn't really know it. Anyway, I've been somewhat of a nervous wreck about introducing Suha and Kim. They're both brilliant (thanks, Irish friends!) but somewhat on opposite ends of the spectrum. Turns out, one night about a week ago or so, Kim and I stumbled into The Globe for a "last drink" (right) after some fun out on the town earlier, and Suha was there! They loved each other! Oh, how happy am I! It was a great night, wherein Eamon (one of the Irish brother owners) hung out with us and a couple of guys hung out too (one who later texted Kim, "Hey, it's John that walked away. Meet me outside for a smoke." He's permanently John that walked away now. Ha.) And Kim and Suha loved each other, oh!*Friday night, this past, I met up with Adam and Julie at Hop Devil for happy hour beers - all draft beer, half off, which means delicious beers at approximately $3.25 a pint! A steal! All the way til 8 o'clock! They had plans to meet Niki for improv comedy, and I had promised my new friend Erica I'd meet up with her and her brother Alex...Kim had sent me a text of her locale, so I dropped Adam and Julie off at this incredible tiny German sausage/beer spot for eats and jumped in a cab to go to The Mason Jar, a cutesy bar in the 30's between Park and Madison. At The Mason Jar already were Kim, Joanna, Will, Mike, Bento, two of Bento's friends and Erica and Alex. What a very fun night. Ack, I love these people! Joanna sends me into stitches as does Kim...Erica had a lot of fun, as well, and we wound up at Rattle N Hum a little while later, which I also love. Around Rattle N Hum time, a guy I met once before and have somewhat of a story about from back when showed up, Sam. I call him Boston Sam because he is native to Boston (though, without the wacked [awesome but wacked] Boston accent.) There was an immediate weird thick tension that traveled across the wires but we're all adults here, let bygones be bygones, right? Hmm, not so the case, really...anyway, it was good to see him and in the morning he took me to brunch. He's a traveler, widely traveled, travels constantly for business as well as for pleasure, so he's not around enough to make anything matter or last long. It's just...the funny thing is, after the first meeting, we didn't communicate for weeks, and one random day, I was exiting via one of the egresses at 23rd and Park Ave South that I really never, ever use to meet Kim at a place we'd never been before, and there were tons of people in the station but I actually saw Sam. We made fleeting eye contact and recognition sort of happened but it was uncertain. When I met Kim we were chatting and at some point I recalled it and I said, Oh! Kim, is there a chance I would have run into Sam in the 23rd Ave station?? And she was like, YES, he works RIGHT THERE! So the next morning I texted Sam, Did I see you at the 23rd Ave station last night? And he texted back, Haha, I thought that was you. Amazing, small town, ingenious, I love it here. Ok, so Boston Sam is a brain (hard to come by here) and I could go on, but I imagine we'll just continue on with random, Oh Hey encounters, and I'm moving on with life. He leaves for Ecuador very soon to visit friends and really, that's okay. Brunch was nice, though. Sober conversation. Smart exchange.*So the intensity with which I'm adoring Suhana and Kim is fairly insurmountable. Suha is soon to host a girl party for us: me, Sarah, Kim, Olga, and we're going to smash trash talk boys and drink wine and eat food Suha prepares and sing praises to being amazing women. Saturday night found me with Kim once again, and Sunday, we met at The Globe around 2 in the afternoon to play with Suha some more. Valentino (Chris Valentino, good friend of ours) met us there and things got outright unmentionable but it was all in amazing fun. After having so much face time with so many beautiful friends, I elected to take off Monday and Tuesday this week. Just relax...enjoy KB. Tomorrow night I'm seeing Kristin Hersh again, this time at Joe's Pub with 2 other authors and a musician. Life's good and getting better, some days worse because I'm lonesome but I also highly value who I am right now. Thursday night is Roommate Dinner Night here at the Palace and Friday will wind up surely being Happy Hour night. Saturday Kim invited me to Long Island...her parents are in town and will be cooking up legendary Vietnamese cuisine for Kim and friends and me. Plans are being made, social life is spreading its wings and flying. I love my new friends so much. They all deserve giant bear hugs from Life and the Universe for helping me get through.