hi, nice to meet you...awkward...

dates are so nervewracking.

AMW and HFM were visiting the City this weekend, which couldn't have worked out more perfectly, because i had a date on Saturday afternoon in the City so i could essentially kill 2 birds with 1 stone. yay!

it was a good omen when, on Friday night, there was absolutely no traffic on my way into the City via the Holland Tunnel. recently, my drives to Jersey City or towards the Holland Tunnel have been plagued with reedonkulously long traffic jams and stand-still traffic. but this time, it was smooth sailing the entire way and i arrived in Brooklyn within 45 minutes from when i started.

Friday night was a throwback to the days of yore aka the Golden Age in Brooklyn because we went to the local, Brazen Head, which was where we spent a lot of our BLS years. it was also a big wake-up call as we realized the Brazen was no longer "our" bar/local anymore. we didn't know any of the bartenders and barely knew any of the ppl in the bar. this of course excludes Kiddo and Coleslaw, who still knew about half the ppl there and 1 of the bartenders. particularly impressive for Coleslaw, considering she hasn't resided in Brooklyn since we graduated.

the next day was D-Day aka Date Day. i'm not sure the day started off on the right foot: immediately upon waking up, i was Ice-d. i did relish receiving my first Ice-ing ever, and from Coleslaw which makes it even better, but first thing in the morning? touche Coleslaw. the battle is on. surprisingly, lime-flavored Smirnoff doesn't taste completely awful.
despite my morning alcoholic beverage, i was productive pre-date. i got my haircut in Chinatown, went shopping with AMW and NC, and we caught brunch at Broken English, a new restaurant on Smith and Bergen. the place is a beautiful space and the brunch menu, while short and simple, didn't disappoint. AMW ordered the French Toast served with bananas and strawberries ($7), NC ordered the Egg Pasta with Black Peppercorn and Parmesan ($12), and i ordered the Eggs Benedict served with Prosciutto ($10). The Eggs Benedict was good, although it's served on country bread which is really hard to neatly cut through. by the 2nd piece i'd abandoned trying to eat it and just ate the egg and prosciutto. the prosciutto was also much thicker and saltier than the type i usually encounter (perhaps because there was so much more of it, it tasted saltier). i substituted french fries for homefries and those were perfect: shoe string crispy fries. i ate all of that. AMW's French Toast was received favorably since she couldn't stop picking at it even when she got full. i tried a bite and it was a little too mushy on the inside for me, but it wasn't overly sweet and i could see the appeal. i couldn't get myself to try NC's pasta because i was too full by then but she ate most of it so i assume it was good. the service was nothing great, but it wasn't awful either. they don't offer a brunch drinks menu although they have a fully-stocked bar; they do show you a wine list if you ask. i ordered a Bloody Mary and it was totally worth the $7. ok, maybe not totally worth it, but pretty darn close. it's served in a pint glass with a giant celery stick and is very spicy. if you like your Bloody Mary spicy, which i do, then this is the perfect place.

so after having imbibed my 2nd alcoholic drink of the day, i headed out towards my date. it was essentially a blind date and this was our first time meeting in person. nerve-wracking. however, the dating gods were kind in that he was cuter than i was expecting (and taller: 5'11) and much, much funnier. i guess it was a good sign when he picked Housing Works Bookstore Cafe as our neutral date location. the location proved:

1. he reads

2. is socially conscious

3. liberal

4. intelligent (implied from the fact that he reads)

i should keep this place in mind the next time i go out on a date. i was curious how the date would go since he picked a very get-out-of-jail-free safety time of 4:00 pm and a very neutral/non-commital meeting activity (coffee). i'm not sure if i should've been offended or grateful for his foresight. i chose the latter.

Housing Works Bookstore Cafe closes at 5:00 p.m. on the weekends (it's workers are volunteers so i can accept that). i took it as a good sign that he wanted to extend the date and we spent some more time walking around the neighborhood and chatting some more before he walked me to my subway and we said goodbye. with a handshake.

um, what?!

so............. i guess that date didn't go well. darn, and i think i could've really liked him.

matchmaker matchmaker make me a match...

Paul Giamatti walked by me on Boerum Place. what was really weird was that i had just been watching his movie Shoot 'Em Up on HBO the night before. and he couldn't have looked any more different from the character he played. o well, it was still a little thrill to see him. i guess it's one of the perks of living in NY. i was pretty surprised at myself for not turning into a simpering, shrieking idiot which is what i always think will happen when i see a celebrity. and it never does. weird.

BLS had a fundraising event at Ceol on Smith Street right before the weather started getting cold. what was even better was that ILS had their Mentor-Mentee event in Geraldo's right before with free beer. so of course we were all in Geraldo's maximizing the free beer before we headed out to the bar. we even got into a game of Kings, which is my favorite drinking card game. i like it because, unlike Asshole, it doesn't require too much thinking, but unlike Up the River Down the River, it doesn't require no thinking either. plus it's interactive and gets people really into the game since just about every turn involves getting somebody else involved. we don't play Kings too much tho, because everyone gets so turned off at the thought of learning the rules. here's what i've interpreted to be the simple, no nonsense, rules. of course there's way more complicated ones, but i'd stick to these when you're dealing with ppl with short attention spans who don't look convinced:
2 is for You
3 is for Me
4 is for Whores (yes, it's un-PC but it's an easy rhyme to remember)
5 is Social
6 is for Dicks
7 Heaven
8 Thumbmaster
9 Bust-a-Rhyme
10 Categories
J Never Have I Ever
Q Questions
K Kings Cup
A Waterfall

ok, i think that's pretty much the general gist of how we played. after the game, we finally headed over to Ceol which was reedonkulously packed with BLS kids but that's to be expected. it was a pretty random night, and since i had class the next day, i left at a respectable hour.

but not before i introduced Seven to JAK. as soon as i'd walked into the bar and i saw Six, i was informed that Seven was very interested in JAK and was dying for the introduction. so before i left the bar that night, i made the introduction and then left those 2 little hipsters to their own devices.

to go along with this lovey-dovey theme, i thought i'd post this video. it's a korean song by Humming Urban Stereo called Hawaiian Couple. the song's already really cute and catchy and the video's just as adorable. this keeps popping up on my iPod and i just can't help but bop around with it.

let's go Mets!

alright, i admit it. i'm not that much of a baseball fan. i find it miserably boring to watch on tv. however, somewhat ironically, i love watching baseball games live. and thanks to Coleslaw, i got to watch the Mets play against the Colorado Rockies.

before heading over to the game, Egg, She and i checked out Bastille Day on Smith Street. apparently it's been going on every year but i never knew. i also didn't know that the event centers around a petanque tournament. i'm not really sure about the game but it looks like bocce to me, except w/really heavy metal balls. the whole event really only takes place on about 3-4 blocks of Smith Street, but w/the nice weather and being able to drink outside and eat food put out by the surrounding restaurants is pretty nice. unfortunately, i could only stay an hour and i didn't eat or drink anything b/c i had to save my money for the stadium hotdogs and beer.

ahh...beers, hotdogs, popcorn and peanuts. all my favorites. if only they weren't so reedonkulously expensive!! we splurged on beer and hotdogs ( ok really, just 2 beers and 1 hotdog each). my tummy was still craving more unhealthy stadium food but i was tapped out. luckily for me, the guys sitting next to us had bought a bag of peanuts (for $8!!) and kept offering them to us. i'm not ashamed to say that i took it w/zeal. they were deliciously salty and yummy and went perfectly w/my beer.