So yesterday eve I met my friend Eric and his dashing boyfriend Shax and his sparkling, brilliant parents at the newly reopened Russian Tea Room, which is my new favorite place--very old school and glittery and dark with big red booths and very large gold birds everywhere that seem to swoop down onto the tables. And weird displays with pinecones as big as two hands and Christmas-ornament-covered chandeliers. And clocks! Big weird old-timey clocks that you want to stick in your pocket. Eric gew up going there, and I am very jealous. The magical place from my childhood was the Traildust Steakhouse in Dallas, with a salt-covered dance floor and a slide right in the middle of it and cut-off ties lining the walls. Which is slightly less glamorous. I now secretly resent Eric for putting on suit jackets and eating Chicken Kiev while I was doing the cotton-eyed joe; I mean, he's out of a Judy Blume book! I was so jealous reading about those New Yorkly kids hanging out in Central Park and being named after candy. And eating Chicken Kiev! Which is of course what I ordered. It was put back on the menu by popular request. You cut into it and all kinds of untoward liquids ooze onto your plate, not to mention your heart. And I do not have the linguistic repertoire to describe the loveliness of the Borscht, or the clear masculine diamond-y Russian Margarita I drank. I normally only like red wine or foofy drinks that come with umbrellas in them, but this drink I had a secret affair with and might possibly see again. Anyway, it was all very delightful, even HANDSOME. The kind of place that is handsome, like a regal older woman with her hair in a bun.

Tomorrow night I am going to meet Joi to see a reading of my friend's play about the creator of Superman, at the Public, and before that stop by to see Ms. Molly Crabapple read. Look!

Oh and my friend Eric got me tickets for Lou Reed's Berlin on Saturday night and I'm going with my old friend Pete, who was one of those way cool older guys in my town who gave me mix tapes when I was a teenager with the Clash and the Jam on them, so he's sort of the perfect person to go to this with. Berlin has been my favorite album, I think, since back then. Unfortunately, "back then" seems like a VERY VERY LONG TIME AGO.