An Evening in the West Village

You find yourself making your way down to the Village again. This time, to meet a friend of your good friend Randy in Seattle. The girl's name is Patti and you have never met her, but she returned your phone call and promptly invited you to dinner, which thrills you, because you were expecting to spend tonight alone.

Anyways, you get lost in the West Village streets bordering SoHo, and everywhere you see, there are people crossing streets, waiting in lines, entering and exiting bars and restaurants and tiny shops and some of them are chic and some of them are wearing sensible shoes, and some of them are wearing crazy stilettos, and you walk around in circles, 'cause it's a bit easy to lose your sense of direction down in the lower part of the Village, where it's not grid-like. It's a Saturday night and Jersey Boy is now, less than 20 hours later, an extremely funny anecdote you tell Patti when you meet her, and you make her laugh.

You put your name on the waiting list, and the two of you find each other immediately -- "I'll be wearing green glasses." "I'll be wearing all black." You hug like long-lost friends. She suggests a nearby bar while you wait for your table, and thrills you when she orders a pint of Sierra Nevada. You decide to stick with soft drinks.

An hour later, the two of you split a gluton-free pizza made of rice dough, with pesto and piled with feta, goat cheese, mozarella, zuchinni, sun-dried tomatoes.

The two of you share stories of Randy, of Seattle, of boys, and exchange contact info and again, it strikes you that this city feels so very much like a place where you could really belong.