Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Camp NY

Girls’ night is becoming more and more the standard and these days it feels like summer camp without the shorts. Loose hair instead of barrettes, juice boxes tossed for aperitifs, ants on a log have vanished and frisee salads appear as replacements.

I race out of the office instead of my parents’ kitchen, still with my bag whapping my side and my flip flops sliding around, to meet them downtown in a flickering West Village bistro, arriving late and excited and relieved as though Tuesday was Friday.

We drink too many glasses of wine and divide too few crab cakes at Paris Commune, contemplating New York and LA, reviewing weekend plans and downloading each other on the latest gossip, work and play. Shore houses, summer romances, tennis lessons, promotions; we all have something to share and envy here. And it prompts a Robert Altman conversation pace, everything overlapping, nothing resolved, as our glasses grow dry, the louder we exclaim, “Wait, what are you guys talking about?”

An adult in charge needs to shush us, but our waitress only encourages (probably so that she can reap the benefits of our overtipping to match our over-ordering). For us, the best of the summer week is at night, past our bedtimes, snapping phone photos and comparing sunglasses, making plans and taking initiatives, being aspirational because it’s who we are.

Everything has to be explained more than once, especially since she’s in for a visit, an ex-pat now part of that other city, so we can’t stop our questions. How’s the pool in the apartment? Is just it like Melrose Place? How much is there really the prevalence of smog/collagen/silicone/a thong-clad Lindsay Lohan? Is June gloom anywhere close to the humidity of here? Are all the men blond “directors” with mustaches and vans? We know it’s all a cliché, but don’t clichés start from some point of truth?

I’ve wanted to start a life on the west coast ever since 90210 aired, and we talk about what it might be like next year, if I end up making the move. But now I’ve become such a fan of the pulsating vibrancy of here, I’m not so sure. It’s camp in the city all of the time, and it’s getting pretty hard to leave, particularly since there is no bus to pick me up and tear me away from my friends and paltry paycheck that I spend simply to be with them while we’re still sort of young, and sort of glamorous…at least to us.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

come out to the west coast! we want you here.

new york is cool and everything but come on, we need you more!!

Anonymous said...

Quit tempting me! It's too good, it's too good!

And then I say, but I would learn how to surf so well in Hawaii...

Also as a sidenote, the sunglasses I was showing off are so REDICK. They're blue plastic two-toned fade aviators that offer no sun protection exactly like ones I think my dad may have owned in 1978.

I think I plan on wearing them with really short nylon shorts just like he did back in the day.

Adrienne said...

great post- it describes up those nights so well- I love girls nights in NYC.

Anonymous said...

Come on K-diggity, time to trade out those fancy high-heels and martinis for a rash-guard & a localy brewed beer! Stop fighting the fashion bonanza out there - we will all think you are super hip here on the WC if you wear something other then Rainbow sandals and a Paris Hilton pout!