Passing time

This past weekend was another Classic NYC affair--in which you do lots of random things that are amazing and that you wouldn't be able to do in any other city. I have a MOMA membership, so I went and saw the members-only preview of the de Kooning retrospective. It was much huger than I expected, spanning his work all the way from when he was 12 in the early 1900's all the way up till his death in the 1980s. It took up more than eight rooms and was absolutely gorgeous in breadth. I felt like we could really see the evolution of the artist. After that, I caught a train to Queens where I met up with an old friend and we had brunch. We sat in the outdoor patio area since it was probably one of the last times we'd be able to do so before fall really sets in. Later that day, I went on a date at Ten Bells, this great wine bar in the Lower East Side. It's really dark in there and the sommeliers are sort of snooty, but they have no problem pouring you taste after taste until you decide what's right. Saturday ended at Lolita, a bar not too far away.

Then, on Sunday, I did my usual routine of going to Cafe Ost to finish reading all my magazines, then getting my nails done and walking around town getting errands done. This was a walk to remember though: For one, I just sort of accidentally happened upon the Feast of San Gennaro in Little Italy, which is a huge scene of heart-attack food and Jersey accents. Then, as I was walking home along Bowery, I saw a familiar face walking towards me. He was tall and wore all black and had blond hair. The sun shone on his face and he smiled and I thought I'd die on the spot because now I recognized him: IT WAS ALEXANDER SKARSGARD ("Eric Northman" from True Blood), the hottest man currently alive! I am not one to regularly be starstruck, but this time, I had to literally stop walking and catch my breath and ask myself if this was really happening. His smile! His radiance! His strut! Usually, stars are not as hot as they appear on screen, but Skarsgard was at least ten times hotter in person. And here he was, just sort of casually walking down the street. It took the rest of the day for me to recover, at which point I decided it was time to take myself on a date to a movie. Being very romantic, I chose "Contagion" and had nightmares all night.

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I've been talking about dating and romance a lot on this blog lately, just because it's a part of my life, I guess. I've lately been thinking about how alone it makes me feel because my family doesn't understand it and I'm figuring out the "rules" on my own, but I read an article yesterday about sexual revolutions in past centuries and how each revolution has been able to occur because the current generation is egotistical enough to think they're doing something for the first time.

"The reason sex can be revolutionized again and again is that we're reluctant to believe our ancestors could have known and felt what we know and feel. Yet what has been will be again; what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the covers"

~Ariel Levy, "Novelty Acts" (NYer, 9/19/11) 

The main gist was that it's all been done before. We're not the first to feel the way we do. Past generations have probably dabbled even more than us. And, for some reason, that actually makes me feel less alone. Yes, people didn't "date" in Iran, but if my grandmother was murdered for some sexual dalliance, I have to think that there have been sexual adventurers for generations in my family past, and that I am not embarking on new territory but only furthering a tradition of longing that makes my blood mine.