saturday night out

I spend the day at home feeling lousy.  I try to cancel theater tickets for tonight but can’t.  The show is sold out for the rest of its short run.  I clean up, put some color on, look at a brightened version of me and feel marginally better.

I meet Zelia at a great pizza place in the East Village called Numero 28.  We each order individual-sized pizzas; I get one covered with cherry tomatoes and oozing mozzarella.  We both look at our meals and say, “That’s a lot of pizza.  I’ll never finish it.”  But shamefully we do, and even split a dessert of just-made tiramisu.

It’s a weather-perfect night, in the 50’s.  After dinner we have some time and walk around the East Village.  It’s easy to fall in love with New York many times over.  Its many charming neighborhoods have their own personalities and distinct flavors.  If I had to choose one word to describe the East Village I think it would be fringe.  Everything here feels a little bit left of center.

The play we see is Belleville by Amy Herzog (a new, young playwright).  It’s 100 minutes with no intermission and it captivates us from word one.  I quickly forget my bothersome cold as I watch a young American couple chillingly disintegrate in their Paris apartment.