New York snapshots

— Snow driving down the avenues, already accumulating, a wild night, a stormy night. This stuff wasn’t dissolving when it hit the sidewalk. The wind was high. Beautiful. In an annoying kind of way. Everything looks different in the city during a big snowstorm.

— Last night, I met up with two dear friends – Kate and Guy – who were in from Chicago for an audition. We convened at a random bar on 6th Avenue. We drank vodka gimlets, laughed until we cried, and watched the snow stream by outside. Haven’t seen either of them since Kate got married … and yet it was like no time at all had gone by. No catch-up stuff needed, we just launch right into the jokes, and the real stuff.

— They had already had 2 vodka gimlets by the time I was able to arrive. I decided to try to “catch up”, which is pretty much always an unwise policy.

— We sat on high stools, and we soaked up each other’s company. It’s RARE that people will really understand the humor in the sombrero chronicles … really rare … but these two, who were not there when the sombrero moments occurred, get it completely, and make me tell the story pretty much every time I see them. They will prompt me: “Do ‘Mexico – the flower of Europe.'” “Mexico … the flower of Europe.” That’s really all one needs to say.

— Gimlets. Gimlets sucked down as the blizzard raged.

— We reminisced about our AWESOME day together, the three of us, a couple years ago – when we went to see Private Lives on Broadway with Alan Rickman and Lindsay Duncan (which, honestly, I have got to say – is some of the best stage acting I’ve ever seen in my life). It was beyond exhilarating – the production was a revelation. I had to go back and re-read the play, because it seemed to me I had never really HEARD the damn thing before. GREAT production. Alan Rickman is awesome on screen, but you have not lived until you’ve seen him live. Anyway, we reminisced about that day. How amazing it was, and then how – as the three of us left the matinee to go get a cocktail, we took about 2 steps, and then the heel on one of my platform sandals snapped, or crushed, or SOMEthing – Whatever it was, my heel spontaneously destroyed itself and I WIPED OUT on the sidewalk. Literally. This was a massive fall, my arms flying about, my legs splayed crookedly … I had on a cute little skirt, and a cute little top … I was all giddy from the production, and then BOOM. I went down in SUCH a big way. My knees were bloody, and I completely scraped all of the skin off of my hands trying to break my fall. This is what I remember. Then we went to the Film Center Cafe (I walked barefoot, through the theatre district), and drank many martinis, and talked about the show, and laughed our asses off.

— About 2 gimlets into my evening last night, I regaled Kate with an embarrassingly passionate defense of the movie Annie (no, not the FIRST one, but the one done for TV – with Audra McDonnell and Victor Garber and Alan Cumming, etc.) I LOVE it. And Kate had never seen it, and I talked about it so passionately that at one point actual tears came to my eyes. Guy pretty much laughed in my face, HOWEVER he backed me up. “It is really good, Kate – you need to see it.” At one point, I suddenly could hear the tone of my voice, and said, flatly, “Listen to me. I am talking about this so seriously.”

— When I showed up, they were pretty looped. Guy did a little scat-singing thing right on my face within 5 minutes of my arrival, so that should give you some idea.

— Guy left, to go back to the hotel. Kate and I stayed. And then, in a flash, I realized that I had, indeed, “caught up”. I had sucked down my gimlets, and all of a sudden – it felt like a switch being flipped – I realized I was LOOPED. I lost all my powers of articulation. There were to be no more passionate Annie monologues. All I could do was murmur stuff inarticulately to Kate, and then say, “Y’know what I’m sayin’??” Uhm … no, Sheila. No one knows what you’re saying. I managed to say, “I am so trashed! This is awful!” Kate said, “I know! We were too. We had two gimlets, and suddenly it hit us – woaahhhhhh….”

— We then ordered burgers and quickly drank 5 glasses of water a piece. We ate the burgers. They were the most delicious things we had ever tasted in our lives. We became completely normal and 100% sober following. The gimlet crisis had been handled.

— We talked. She’s one of my dearest friends.

— Meanwhile, by the time we left the bar, the snow had pretty much coated the sidewalks. Nobody was out. The cabs careened by, the snow kept coming down.

— We headed to Times Square, and met up with a couple other friends, in a cozy little French place, where we had olives, bread, and this pot de creme stuff that was beyond good. It felt like human beings could NOT have made that pot de creme. It came directly from the gods.

— When we left the French bistro place, it was 11:30 at night, and the storm was raging. The streets were a mess, slushy, slippery, empty, and drifts were already forming. The snow drove across the city, it was beautiful.

The whole night was beautiful.