Extremely Perishable

I forgot to tell all about my meeting with Denzel Washington.

Those are the only 2 words I need to say, right? And now I've got your attention.

I'll admit, maybe it wasn't really a meeting. It was however a moment, during which Oscar winning Denzel Washington looked me in the eye and spoke to me and me alone. He said, "I don't understand a word they're saying." Then he smiled and signed my playbill for Julius Caesar. He was talkin bout a group of women. (Yes, black women...don't make me say it again.) Who were screaming and throwing papers at him, OVER HIS CAR, for him to sign. O...and I also gotta add - he got an eyeful of some woman's chest that day.

Will Sadler of Shawshank fame was there too. But who gives a shit really? He only played the title role of Caesar. And it's not like he's a fucking amazing actor who's been acting for over 25 years or anything.

Nah.

Let's just cut to the chase:

I met a guy, at Coldstone on Astor Place, who just knocked me the fuck out. I mean...damn. When you've resigned yourself to the fact that no boys are gonna meet your standards and suddenly some kid appears and he's everything you thought you'd never get your hands on...

I love how he had no idea what dirty thoughts were going on inside my head. (And there were plenty.)

He works there and he apologized to me for not being cheerful because he hadn't had more than 6 hours sleep in the past 2 days. And there I was...just looking at him. And looking. And looking. I asked him a bunch of questions - trying to get him to crack a smile, but he didn't. There's time to work on that though - especially as I now know which days and shifts he works! O no...I'm definitely not past stalking this one. Do you know how specific I am when it comes to men?

When it comes to hot boys...fuck 'em. There's nothing special about them. Most of them are ignorant and disrespectful and have no real grasp of what women are looking for. But this guy...

This guy had a cool personality. He was very real, didn't try to front, didn't talk to me like I was some video ho. None of the stuff these boys usually spit at me.

He happened to be hot on top of that. The physical aspect of this kid is merely the icing on the cake.

And I really really really want a peice of that cake.

Ima get it too.

Give me time to work on it.

Spring Break was much needed. I went away for a few days and then came back to New Yawk - because you know I missed the gray skies and the piss-like rain.

Spring, they call it.

I'm not feelin this. I want an end to this gross, dribbling part of the season. I want it soon. I hope it's as short as this post.

Bare with me now please - because, as I write this, I am walking the thin line between being tipsy and awkwardly frank, weirdly passionate and completely uncouth.

But I just used the word "uncouth" so I think it's gonna be okay.

This is what happens when you, lowly undergrad, attend a prestigious lecture and sample more than three glasses of wine at the post-show reception. The guest lecturer in question? Pete Hamill. Yeah...like...Pete Hamill, Pete Hamill. It's okay if you don't know him. But you should. Especially if you're a New Yorker.

So it's like this: I'm standing in this fantastic space holding my notebook and second glass of wine (white, pinot grigio, I'm guessing about $7) and I'm marveling at the impossibly small hor' doeuvres. A peice of toast - one inch by one inch in dimension with a tiny dot of "tomatoes" on it: the so-called bruschetta. I am not liking this. Nevertheless, I am waiting around and finally I see that Hamill has entered, He begins to sign his $20 books. Of course I bought a damn book. How could I resist it, being an aspiring writer and all. Plus I read A Drinking Life last summer. The guy was fresh in my head and owns words in such a way that every one of them, skillfully tripping onto his page, should be placed among his personal possessions...for an age.

I stepped up to the neat table and the man greeted me. I had been fretting about the idea that he would smell wine on my breath (he wrote a memoir about how alcohol almost ruined his life) and invalidate me but I soon realised that he hardly cared.

Still coherent and intelligent enough to form complex ideas, was I.

Haha...anyway - It was amazing.

He signed the book and spoke to me of the promise, romance and truth in his New York and when I asked him about how he reconciled the good with the bad, he was very honest and tried not to build a thesis statement. Unhappily for him, when a guy is that good with words and, more importantly, that good at applying the intense emotions, training and experience that lie behind them...you're gonna come away with a sparkling quotation that seems as if it will change your world.

Hamill left me with the confident knowledge of why New York City is so great. New York represents purpose or, at the very least, the hope upon hope that we can one day attain it.

I can't try to pretend that it means much to anyone else. But I wish that you could've been there with me, to have that experience.