It’s 9:00 and I’m starving. Eating in is out–the champagne, expired milk, vodka, scotch and random orange in the fridge, unfortunately, are not the ingredients for a balanced meal. And a combination of even a two of the ingredients will most definitely lead to a night out that I’m not in the mood for yet.
So now, it’s 9:02 and my tummy is rumbling. The idea of ordering in is painful. Without my cable working and the absence of plates and silverware combined with my paranoia of another mice invasion, tells me to go hungry until the morning. But like last week, I’ll find myself waking up at 4 and 5 and 5:30, 5:45 until my alarm goes off at 6 to go to the gym.
I’ve never been shy about going out by myself. It’s actually something I’ve grown quite fond of. The days of traveling alone to countries with meager accommodations made throwing myself out there part of my DNA. But as a single girl in New York, this sometimes gets old. Always in search of new places or my hidden gem that will welcome me with open arms every time I walk in the door with an ambience not as corny as Cheers, with a lot more decent single men and girls san-jealousy, I’ve learned is IMPOSSIBLE.
But week after week, I find myself in the same situation. Hungry with no where to go. The typical evening goes like this… I wander around to new corners of my hood in hopes of finding my gem, watch happy couples and friends through windows sharing wine and smiles, check out menus posted by the door, walk a few more blocks, circle, sing to myself, trip over a crack in the sidewalk and end up in front of the first place I considered. After realizing that “there is nothing to eat” in a city with more restaurants and cuisines to satisfy 10 of me, I return home hungry with a pack of beef jerky and an apple. On nights when jerky won’t satisfy, I find myself in the company of other “parties of one” that happen to be 3 times my senior, divorced and alcoholics.
I want to love my table for one. That’s what being single is all about… calling all the shots. My friends love to absorb the details flying off my tongue the morning after a “noche uno”. What they don’t know, and perhaps my apt at storytelling hides, is that more often than not, I’m always wishing someone was with me on my table for one nights. Someone to come between me and the lonely man at the bar who thinks he can show off his rusty I’ve-been-out-of-the-game-longer-than-you’ve-been-alive act. I’m never impressed, but never less than polite.
I don’t want to be polite. I don’t want to go hungry. I want to laugh and scream in the street with a smile that pulls me from side to side stopping traffic and competing with the moon… a blinding euphoria that kills the bitchiest Jewish girl at the corner table trying to shush me.
Since I am in the prime of my “noches unos” I will continue to laugh and dance in the street. The guys working across the street at Rosso have grown to love it. Maybe tonight I’ll get an applause.
