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B & H Dairy
Friday, August 3 2001
I just found out that in addition to the $1.50 that random banks have been charging me to use their ATM machines, Bank of America has the nerve to charge me an additional $2.00 for each of these transactions. Could pissing me off, charging me more to get my money than banks I don't know, really be part of their business model? Well, soon enough they won't be my problem. Giving lie to their overly-ambitious name they have no branches in this town, so I'm moving all my money to some local New York City bank.
Does anyone have one they'd like to recommend?
A massive deployment to that "punk rock website" went well today and I was out of the office a little after 6:00pm Eastern Daylight Time. (It's sell-out punk rock of course, but that's punk rock enough for me these days, and besides, I treat this particular punk rock much like a grill cook at McDonald's treats an all-beef patty.) Gretchen had come up to my office and was reading a book in the Green Room while I tidied up some loose ends and put files live.
When I was all done with my tasks, Gretchen and I went to the birthday party of Kelley, one of her childhood friends whom she randomly ran across a few months ago at La Guardia airport. The party was being held during happy hour at a nightclub called Hush only a block away.
As if in unjustified sadistic exclusionary anticipation, the doorway to Hush was met on either side by two fat red velvet ropes. But no one was guarding them and there were no losers being rejected while ropes were parted for celebrities and beautiful people. We walked right in and blinked our eyes to adjust to the light. There was almost no illumination inside except for a few pinkish-purple track lights high up in the exposed black pipework webbing of the ceiling, supported as it was by several massive combination Ionic-Corinthian columns featuring unusually compressed capital decoration.
Kelley is a tall girl with an impressive gap between her front teeth. Back in the day when Gretchen was attending a private middleschool called Town & Country in the DC suburbs, her small social group was a rainbow of multicultural inclusion, with Gretchen being the token Jew and Kelley being one of several who could trace their ancestry back to African slaves.
Many at this party were from Kelley's former employer, the Oxygen network (an online portal catering to the needs of women). Like many employed by dotcoms, of course, Kelley was recently laid off, though she is still chummy with her old colleagues. For example, a fairly large group of techies from the Oxygen Information Systems group were off being reclusive in one of Hush's several curtained side rooms.
Somehow I got to talking to Winston, who was down from Boston on business related to the biotech firm where he works. Winston was very outgoing and social and soon enough I'd told him the whole story about how Gretchen and I had met, become estranged, and got back together. Meanwhile some big oafishly glad-handing intoxicated gentleman was at the bar buying Gretchen a drink. She introduced me to him minutes later as her fiancé and he kept right on talking, unflinching, "Fiancé, eh? And here I was trying to pick her up. She sure does have a nice ass though!" He proceed to buy us all shots of Southern Comfort, insisting that we actually do them as shots.
Later I wolfed down a plate of free happy hour pasta while talking to others who were merely picking at theirs.
Next Gretchen took me to her favorite restaurant in the whole world, the B & H Dairy in the East Village. I was surprised to find that it wasn't any more glamorous than a simple inexpensive lunch counter stretching back narrowly from the street. Though the employees were entirely Hispanic, the menu was entirely kosher dairy, with things like matzo ball soup and borsch. I ordered the whitefish sandwich (kosher parve, strangely enough) and found it was served cold. Somewhat amusing, there was no mayonnaise in the sandwich because, (as Gretchen told me the other day) real Jews don't eat mayonnaise. There's even a scene the Woody Allen movie Hannah and her Sisters where Woody, in the course of becoming a Christian, obtains a crucifix, a loaf of Wonder Bread® and a jar of mayonnaise.
Since we were in her neighborhood we called Jami of whatever-whenever.net and arranged to meet at the Holiday Cocktail Lounge. When we got there, the place was packed with people and the air was mostly unbreathable. Gretchen and I went into the women's room to fuck but it was too small and nasty for me to get into the mood. When I walked out there was a line of girls standing there, some of whom scolded me semi-jokingly, "hey, you're not a lady."
We waited out in front until Jami showed up and then walked a few blocks to some Irish pub where we could sit outside. Gretchen and I were sort of exhausted by the day and weren't in top form, with Gretchen half-heartedly doing her usual "deadpan joking" - which only served to confuse Jami. In general it's probably best just to be sincere with a girl until you get to know her. Later in the conversation Gretchen was alarmed (in the way necessary to maintain a constant furrowing of her brow) to learn that Jami didn't feel comfortable talking directly with her straight male friends about the nasty details of sex.
Gretchen wanted to take a cab home, but I considered this "too bourgie" and insisted we take the subway.
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