Saturday Night Fever

Since my triumphant return from the Hamptons, I haven't done much on the weekends due to my abject poverty and the need to settle into city life firmly.

Yesterday I drove out to NJ to get Judy's tires rotated, had lunch with my mom and her husband at Rt. 23 Buffet--don't even ask--, stopped for a timed 1-hour date in JC, and parked in front of Lolita on the LES for LitQuake with Z and the Levar Channel minion (and his photographer wife) he bosses. I missed the actual reading due to my pitstop in Newport but made up for it by imbibing enough $3 G&Ts to catch up to the slow-drinking crew.

We ambled over to Congee Village for dinner--the wait gave us a chance to drink a few Lychee Martinis and sit on lacquered, hand-shaped seats carved out of tree stumps. Over a steaming table of Soup dumplings, Singapore Mei Fun, Chicken in black bean sauce, Shrimp with Salt & Garlic, and Mushroom Tofu-ness we learned about the couple's Music Club (I was invited to join given my brilliant music category: songs with girls names). The way the club works is that each month a category is chosen (i.e. break-up, president names, cheese, etc.) and each member sends the curator (this couple) their song which is burned on a CD and distributed to all members of the club. Cool, right?

Then we walked up 1st Ave. to International Bar. The wife brought down their brown, 25lb, Boston Terrier--Jack--Z and I pet, cooed at, and generally fawned over him. Dogs in bars on Saturday nights: another reason I love the East Village. We called it an early night at 1am but the evening was terrific.

Met new people, checked out new food all the while eating good food and drinking cheap, yummy drinks. I really really needed it.