Friday, July 29, 2005
One day I’ll grow up and be a beautiful girl
Pounded espresso, proofing content for the lit mag, then caught the 1 train to Times Square. Met Kelly at Town Hall for the Antony and the Johnsons concert, where I prodded Norman into buying a $3.50 bottle of water, met a guy who did Susan Sontag’s funeral make-up, stared at tranny cleavage and cute boys in full-sleeve tattoos, spotted John Doe from X smoking a cig on the sidewalk, and tried to play it cool as Debbie Harry passed within a few inches of me. She looked at me a second longer than necessary; either she totally wanted me or she wanted our seats, which were, admittedly, better than hers.
When the lights came back up Kelly leaned over. “What did you think?” he said.
“I’m not ready to talk about it,” I replied, rather dramatically. I slipped back into the 42nd Street mob under pulsing, spinning, brilliant lights, cutting through tourists crowded around sidewalk vendors selling fake tattoos and bad prints of Mariah, Audrey, and Scarface. I caught, from the corner of my eye, a man following my twisting path, his quick pace matching mine till I hit a stoplight and he came up beside me, a portly man stuffed in a dress shirt, clutching a Broadway program.
“We’re the only ones walking fast,” he said. We stood two feet into the intersection, heads turned east towards the headlights streaming by. “New York…” he said, pulling at his collar, “used to be fast.”
