key2thecity, key2myheart

Correction

2010-09-13T20:49:00.000-07:00

Just received update, via text message, that Gabe's eyes are, in fact Hazel.

The End of the Beginning

2010-09-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

In this lovely video of Paul discussing the key, he states "you have to give something to get something from the artwork." This has been, mostly, a blog about love. About relationships and excitement, of disappointment and trying not to dwell. I've covered love of the city, love of yourself, love of the confusion. But what of the art?

Paul later states, "the artwork is a virus that infiltrates" well, isn't that the same of love? In turn,when you walk into a modern art museum there are more often than not moments of "huh. I think I get it. I think I like it. But do I? Do I really know?" I've certainly been there with the loves in my life. And what of the inaccessibility of so much art, how the more hidden it is the more it's sought after, do we not go after the most withholding of men? If someone gave me a key to the city or, as Paul says, "threw it off the back of an ice cream truck" would it work as well for me, would it hold the same power and magic? Does love that's come without the slightest of effort mean as much to the receiver herself?

On Sunday, September 5th, 2010 at approximately 5:30pm I ventured with the project's most wonderful find Tom to the Whitney Museum of art and turned the last key into the last lock, uncovering a 3D model of plans for the Whitney's latest extension in Chelsea, near where I live. I was sick and Tom was kind, even in my cranky cold-induced moments, and we discussed life plans, growing up, and, what else, love. We later dined on grownup Ramen noodles in the East Village (another of Tom's first) and when we hugged (I had a 100 plus degree fever at this point) my belly button glowed warm with his connection and it was the first time that I truly felt this really may turn into something. Something beyond a project or a key, but a living breathing work of relational art, all on its own.

The project still felt unfinished, however, even after the 24th lock was turned and even though Tom provided a wonderful companion and holds, I believe, promise, it was not an end that adequately reflected my entire summer. So, on Monday September 6th, 2010, I put on most favorite vintage fairytale shipwreck like dress and head to where it all began, Bryant Park.

Before the park I go on a dinner date, just me myself and I, and the hard-flipping folks at the not-so-secret Burger Joint, (a wooden paneled, graffitied hole in the wall hidden behind lavish curtains in the upscale Le Parker Meridien) didn't bat an eye when I ordered the works with fries in blue silk. I sat across from a cute guy but instead whipped out a book and when Tom texted me I smiled, but kept my attention focused on myself.

Walking to Bryant Park I noted every person walking by and tried to guess the impact they could play on my life. I took stock of every door and wondered what may lay behind its threshold. I've always been on the lookout for extraordinary moments in every day life, a leaf imprinted in concrete or the way a child wraps her hand around her mother's pinkie finger, but after key to the city every door front has the ability to bring you to a new world, every person the possibility to make a connection. Even if it’s just empty beer cans and dead fish, a split second romance on a subway platform or a three week love affair. It’s about living, truly living, every moment of your life, noticing the small details, getting lost in the treasures of opportunity and risk, that makes our lives, our loves, and ourselves, all the more interesting to be a part of. I’d never be a passive observer in my own life again.

Finally, after half an hour of sitting, I built up the courage to walk up to the little lock box and get ready to turn the switch and shine the light that evaded me three months prior. The excitment to the moment which I was missing in my dayquil induced haze the day before is here and the key literally feels heavier in my hand, as if it knows it's to be used for the very last time. I crouch down onto my knees and my eyes dart for the lock and....

It's broken. The lock was broken. Someone, some person who came before me, had snapped their lock into the key hole rendering each follower dumbstruck at the inability to render it fixed. I pried at the broken piece of metal, attempted using a bobby pin like Nancy Drew, willed it to slip out with my mind, nothing works. Finally, staring up at the unlit light, I stood and turned to walk away. As I did a young woman approached me, surrounded by three friends. Aren't you that girl with the blog? She asks, and I laugh saying I am. Her and her friends inform me they came to the last site similarly disappointed that the last lock didn't work but they decided to make a night of it any way and were enjoying hot cocoa perfectly temperatured for the new fall weather. Finally, as I turned to go, the first girl stopped me and asked, "wait, how will this end? Don't you need a date for your blog?" "or at least a functional key site?" questioned one of her friends.

       I paused and looked around at the glow of the garden, remembered the taste of my burger and how liberating it felt to eat it alone with a book, and the quiet beauty on a night with myself and answered

       No, tonight this was enough.

       And, finally, it was.

         When I first got to Bryant Park, I watched the unfolding of evening Monday-labor day life beneath the floodlights illuminating the space. I saw couples with children, lovers from Europe, teenage hipsters falling for the first time and realize that, all of it, all that emotion and gooey eyes and romance, that is what I want.....eventually, and only when it's worth giving up all the fireworks that come with being by myself. Some of the adventures with men this summer have been fantastic belly-rolling journeys full of mishaps and sparks, others have been more work to make something out of what most likely will last no longer than an afternoon. But I am the common denominator. The moments of wonder must, in the end, come through my own eyes and my own heart, because truly, I have the ability to make my own magic, with or without a key, a map, or a man.

And it only took me 24 dates to figure it out.

Always,

L.A.

The Twenty Third Date

2010-09-11T08:24:00.000-07:00

Happy gorgeous, sun shiny, just the right amount of cool fall day to you all. I hope you have a wonderful adventure planned today, out in the city or town that you call home. Just one week ago I ventured off to my second to last date with Gabe to Corona Queens.

The Time: Saturday, September 4th, 4:00pm
The Place: Louis Armstrong House Museum, 34-56th 107th St, Queens
The Guy: Gabe, 26, who I had been on my first date with one year prior and decided there wasn't a love connection as we walked along the highline, second time's the charm?
What Creative Time Says: Humble spaces are part of the story, even if they are not part of the official tour.

I love meeting men in every single way possible in NYC. I'll try speed dating, asking out a cute guy in a coffee shop, singles events and in central park. I once flew to Kansas to meet a guy I had been chatting with for months online (sorry parents, but it's true, I'm still alive though!) It comes as no surprise then, that I relish Time Out New York's singles issue every year it makes it's way to my doorstep, and devour its pages and people open and willing enough to put themselves on a market with such a high circulation.

Enter Gabe. A, then 25, tall curly haired guy with fantastic blue eyes. His profile, if I remember, somehow mentioned both his proclivity towards cucumbers and social justice. Obviously, I emailed him right away and we soon found ourselves walking along the building-treetops of the highline in Chelsea. Though our view of the world was spot on, I just didn't feel the love that night and we parted ways.

But when Gabe instant messaged me about law school ( he just started at my alma mater), and sneakily asked me how he should approach a professor about asking out this girl with a key, well, my stomach did that excited momentary burst it does when something gets changed up in life, and I gave him some very useful pointers.

Fast forward to last saturday and me running down the streets of Coronoa, flip flops flapping, back pack bouncing, calling Gabe's name as I recognized his well-over six foot tall frame heading down the road. Though I had approached today with some hesitation, immediately when he said hello, (me standing on tip toes, Gabe crouching down), I felt it again, that slight moment where you body is trying to tell you something like give it a real shot. Given my recent thoughts on "the leap" and "trust me", I tried my best to knock down some of my walls and give into the day(te). We rounded the corner and came upon the unassuming brick building that was once the house of a great jazz master legend.

Kudos here to everyone involved in the Armstrong House Museum for creating an entirely welcoming, fun, and friendly environment. Our tour guide Will was the perfect blend of funny and quirky, real life neighbors whose lives were folded into that of history walked by, and stepping into the house is a complete time warp where you feel you're stepping into gradma's living room and Louis wife Lucille will soon step out with cookies. The house rules were layed out in the friendliest of manners and so, even though I was bummed
no pictures were allowed, the whole tour was filled with such thanksgiving turkey inspired warmth I couldn't have minded for more than a minute. Spiced with audio recordings of Louis' laughter-speckled words, I wanted nothing more at the end of the tour than to give the musician a hug worth breaking world records.

After the tour Gabe and I ventured through the gardens, took pictures in front of the space soon to house an even larger museum, and headed across the street for a Dominican restaurant which was really more like someone's kitchen with tables pulled up, and dined upon sweet smothered plantains, bursting with flavor yellow rice, and juicy, tender, blackened grilled chicken (well, I did, Gabe is a vegetarian). The ladies running the place were clearly enamored with my blue-eyed giant friend when he busted out his Spanish and they called him Papi through the entirety of our meal.

I was beginning to get to like this Papi as well. Clearly extremely intelligent (even the tour guide said his questions were "very good" in first grade inspired feedback which made you want some too, sadly my questions did not receive the same accolades, Gabe was the star student of the day) and pursuing a career in international justice and inequality up-ending, we certainly had a lot to talk about. I was just talking about this with my friend Sally but, as much as people tell you to look away from someone's occupation because "it's not who they are it's what they do," I believe there is something to be said in how you choose to contribute to the world with your human capital. Granted, not everyone has the same ability or the same choices available to them in life but, more often than not, the people I am seeing do and I forget how nice it is to be with someone whose efforts are towards righting the wrongs of the worlds full force. As we weaved through the streets of Coronoa, from thrift stores to vibrant shops, passing children with icees and parents with back to school fliers and spanish spanish spanish everywhere, our conversation kept the most friendly of beats and I found myself looking often up (way up!) into his eyes. Corona Queens is ALIVE with color and sites and sounds and even though I was battling a cold, I felt like skipping next to Gabe.

As we walked past Mosques and Evangelical centers, we eventually settled into a park and watched a rag-tag baseball team reminiscent of The Sandlot and discussed, what else, relationships. Gabe enjoyed questioning me about the whole process and watching me squirm as he asked me to dissect it, and he talked about his own relationships and dating partners from the past year. We talked alot about honesty and the necessity to ensure your partner knows exactly where you're at. Is this for fun or are you looking for something more long term? Are you dating around or sticking with one? Are you even in a place, right now, where you can let someone into your life in a meaningful way? I'm not saying that a third date requires an e-harmony like survey on your life right now, but so much hurt and confusion comes from the lack of that honesty and ability to put yourself out there. I remember talking to Alex of date number six soon after our date on the GWB, and all I wanted him to tell me was he wasn't interested in seeing me because then I could give up and let go for sure. Like the Armstrong museum versus Gracie Mansion, in the former the rules-setting was done with such warmth and care, and prepared me for what was ahead, so I didn't feel so dismayed when things didn't go exactly my way, even if it took more care for the museum to structure it that way, it made all the difference in how I felt about the site. Gabe, at least, seemed completely comfortable being himself, and being open and honest with himself, with others.

Later on, when discussing what we're both into, Gabe mentions he doesn't really like cute (why he asked me out for a date given this knowledge I have no idea) and I almost stuff the animal paw printed hoodie I bought at a new designer market back into my bag but then I realized that in order to find someone who loves you for who you are, you need to be who you are and put it all out there. Honestly and rules and hangups and all. I pulled the sweater back over my head, and headed off with Gabe through the dusk-glowing streets of Coronoa, Queens.

Honestly,

L.A.

The Twenty-Second Date

2010-09-07T22:34:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I've got couples on the brain. My own past, my friend's futures, life today has seem punctuated by couples and relationships and twosomes. This summer has been one of such change in the makeup of my companion's singledom. Babies have been born and created, marriages proposed and accepted, people move to and move from. And here lies L.A., always floating and turning in space, like a tiny ballerina in a black tutu in some New York City snowglobe.

Part of what I've enjoyed about New York this summer has been the idea of venturing to all these spots,all these little enclaves of life, as part of a couple. Life somehow seems more excited and recognized when you can point out to someone else, "oh that, right there! see that?!" All my dates have bruised upper arms from my constant flailing about at the wonders of life, getting excited over the placement of a toothpick, the shine from a packet of butter, or even the way a key is able to open a lock.

Thus, you can imagine in part my disappointment when I found myself without a partner to share the joy of opening lock number twenty-two as karma had finally kicked me in the butt and added all those late minutes I've blogged about and pasted them onto a series of subway mishaps making date number 22, who shall henceforth be known as "Don", approximately one hour late to our date and thirty minutes beyond the closing time of PostNet box number 136 in the Bronx.

The Time: Friday, September 3rd, 7 32pm
The Guy: "Don" who I was introduced to at a friend's party the week prior
The Place: 557 Grand Concourse, suite 3, Da Bronx
What Creative Time Says: Check the mail, it's your mailing address too.

So, here I was, all 5'2" exploring the Bronx with nothing but a pair of flip flops and a few case files. Don let me know he'd be running late, (blast the MTA and their unlimited metrocard inflations!) so I decided that, rather than risk it, I'd open this puppy up before the clock struck eight. After wrongly wandering into the actual post office across the street, looking ever regal in its always pip-pip-cheerio-fashion, the attendant kindly pointed me across the street to a glowing neon red sign reading "Postnet". Well, that makes sense.

I have to say that, as I crossed the street, I wanted to linger in between the yellow painted lines to look at the sunset superimposed upon all that neon. The reflections of pink and orange in the shining billboards and twinkling lights of McDonalds and car donation ads, well, it was actually kind of beautiful, like its own uptown tribute to dusk. My photos are at the end of this post.

But time was ticking down and a post office box needed to be open. Once inside, the only one in the store, I cautiously opened the small box and rushing out like the bread out of I Love Lucy's oven exploded scraps of all sizes and shapes of letters from around New York. Notes on receipts and matchboxes, postcards and trinkets, folded up cranes and even bubble gum wrappers, this little capsule had it all, the hearts and the minds of hundreds of new yorkers with a key.

While sitting and going through the notes, looking, I am sure, forlorn in my little corner of the Bronx, one of the three workers at the store came up to me and we got to chatting about life and love in NY. C.J., the charmer of the crew, said he'd be my date until the real one showed up (though, having cars, they could not believe a subway could actually run so late, believe me fellas, it has and it did and it will again!) and we celebrated someones birthday surreptitiously behind the counter as they closed up shop.

Finally, as I watched the new light show the advertisements of the way upper east side were putting on, I saw Don waving from across the street. As we couldn't find a nearby place to eat (my coworker who lives up there started laughing when I asked if she could recommend anything in the area) we took C.J.'s suggestion and hopped on to the two train to Harlem and the smothered goodness found in a little shop known as Amy Ruth's.

Pulling up to the spare, slightly yellowed window overlooking a dining room laden with full looking customers. I watched waiters pull out plate after plate of fried chicken and mac and cheese, smothered pork chops and collared greens. My mouth watered with anticipation and I couldn't even stop to photograph the most slammin 70's style barbershop in the universe across the street.

So Don and I headed inside and ordered everything that we thought would possibly fit in our bellies, meaning waffles, fried chicken, collard greens, catfish, cheesy grits and fried okra. And I'll be damned if I didn't wish for awhile that my stomach could have expanded right there on the spot in a freaky pit-stop surgery the exact opposite of gastric bypass. Literally, I think I used about six packets of butter and ate enough fried pieces to wrap myself up in the flaky crusts but it's all good. Nothing a quick walk around central park, ghostly midnight hour and all, and jamming briefly, (ok maybe mostly inside our heads) with the boomboxes and barrel tops lining our way through Harlem.

For those of you who haven't walked through this particular area, let me tell you that it, perhaps more than any other neighborhood in NYC, is just alive. With people and languages, shouts and music, kids on mountain bikes and older couples walking hand in cane-holding hand. The beat of this party of the city is just always thumping, even if it's at lower decibels, something just moves you, body mind and soul when you're there. It's an incredible place to walk through at night. The haunting lanterns of an empty central park topped off the evening quite picturesquely, like globe lit breadcrumbs guiding our way to the lumbering subway that would bring us home.

I remembered that C.J., earlier in the evening, had noted to me that not a lot of people actually came and chatted with the people working in the store. I wondered if this had to do with the nature of the project, with the focus on the site rather than the people, your own key gives you your own access and apart from the sites with tours, you don't really need to rely on anyone else. It could also, however, be due to the inherent nature of groups and partners and, well, relationships. When you're in one, or with one, may it be two friends or a date or a lifelong partner, you don't necessarily look for those other interactions quite so much. Sometimes I even feel this way with my friends in new (or old) partnerships, that our friendship somehow becomes not quite so shiny once they have that love in their life. I'm not sure if it's that they need a friend less, or they are just so into the admiration and excitement of love, but it definitely is there and I often feel it.

The date was fun with Don but, I've got to say, it was kind of nice having the first bit to myself, so my eyes were wide open to see everything possible around me. And the fried chicken and waffles tasted just as yummy as I sat and ate them alone on my stoop the next morning,

But, you know, if that cute guy who just walked his dog by as I sit writing this on my stoop happens to come back and ask me out to dinner in the village, who would I be to turn him down?

Enjoying it, either way,

L.A.

The Fall

2010-09-06T20:16:00.000-07:00

Happy day-after-labor-day all! And let me give you this official welcome to the fall. Time for leaf-viewing and pumpkin roasting, the halloween parade through sixth ave, light jacket weather that makes you want to catch the farther-away subway just so you can enjoy a few extra moments outdoors, hot cider and pecans and snuggling in with sweaters and slippers. What is there not to love?

My key to the city adventure officially ended tonight but my adventure will continue on, thanks to the wonders of the Internet and this blog, for at least one more week as I get up all the posts from this weekend (not even a 100 degree fever could keep me from finishing the project, nosiree!) As far as dates go I have a clunker, a surprise, a blast from the past, I may even learn something by number 25 (specially added by yours truly).

So I hope you'll stick with me as I finish out this week. I'd love love love to hear what you have to say about the adventures, the love, your own stories of summer romance, and just anything else in the world! (I know you're all out there, google analytics doesn't lie!) Blogging is odd in that it's often so one sided but one of the best things from this project has been hearing the words of encouragement, advice, and thoughts, from all of you. Sadly this project won't last forever, even in a digital sense.

But, until that time comes, we've got a ways to go, hope to see you at the finish line!

xo,

L.A.

The Twenty First Date

2010-09-05T13:24:00.000-07:00

So I'm behind on posting and most likely won't get all the dates up before the end of the project, ie Labor Day, ie tomorrow!, and coming down with a cold the weekend it all ends has not been helping BUT rest assured the project will be completed and posts will be coming....at some point. In the meantime let's finish off our marathon day-date from last Wednesday shall we?

The Time: Wednesday, September 1st, 3:45pm
The Place: The Office of New York City Council Member Daniel Dromm, 25th District, 37-32 75th Street, Queens
The Guy: Tom! (Hope you guys aren't sick of him because I certainly am not!)
What Creative Time Says:Public symbols and elected officials are different kinds of representation.

By this point in quite possibly the most ambitious marathon date of all time, Tom and I were more than a little tired, haggard, and, most importantly, hungry! (case in point? This exchange after Tom takes my picture: Me: "Ugh, I look sweaty and horrible!" Tom: "You don't look sweaty!" Gee, thanks Tom... ;)) But thanks to the cold air of an overly AC'd V train, we were ready and eager to hit the ground running in Jackson Heights, Queens.

As soon as I stepped off the subway and the underground yet brightly lit tunnels brought me to a side corner shop, shoes and beads squashed in every possible corner as if they were stopping sprouting leaks, I knew we were in a place fit for adventure. New York is amazing this way, every street you walk down,every corner you turn leads to an entirely different street culture, food culture, world culture and people culture. Immediately our eyes are filled with Arabic and Hindi, the sharp smell of spices wafts through the air, black haired children grasp onto the wrists of hemp-tattooed mothers, and clinking jewels trailing behind deep purple saris guide us through the walk ways. You can, in fact, visit almost every country in the world right here in Queens, China in Flushing, Greece in Astoria, even Ireland in Woodside. In fact the seven train, for this very reason, has been dubbed "The International Express." In Queens your ears can pick up new languages like lost coins on the street and you can walk from one avenue to another, taking bites like seashells from all the new tastes to try, your wallet, and belly, still satisfyingly full at the end. Who needs a passport when you have an unlimited metrocard?

It's not just Queens of course, as every street in New York brings out its own inner world of life and love, from the different games children play to the way in which their parents watch (or don't) over them. From the produce sold in markets to who has the rule of the sidewalk streets (Vendors or Strollers? Artists or Arsons? Produce or Pot?). People are so silly sometimes, don't they see this diversity, this range, this breathtaking freedom to chose who to be and when to be it, is what makes our city, and country, so achingly beautiful? New York, new york, I love you I love you I love you.

Oh? And Tom? He was fairing pretty well himself. You'd think after five or six hours with someone you'd run out of topics to discuss but with Tom it kept on rolling, like a salt water taffy pull continually stretching and turning to make the truly perfect texture. Our chatter wasn't non-stop, it involved pauses and breaks, which usually means you feel comfortable enough with the other person to be alright with the silence, but it was full and alive and familiar and, by the end, I wanted to hold his hand down that multicolored street.

So we first wound our way to the esteemed council man's office. When taking a quick peek inside the workspace itself a proud banner fighting for gay rights displayed itself above the hard-working head of a summer intern made me satisfied that this politician was worthy of the honor of a key to the city site right outside his front door. Unlocking the plexi glass display case, tucked behind the American flag, lay an entire little village of objects and notes, eagerly waving hello to Tom and I as we dug right in. The words of the people are below:

Tom and I wrote secret notes that we wouldn't let eachother see and as I lay concealed behind that flag, the red glow creating the most wonderful fort-like feeling, I wondered if it wasn't the perfect spot for our first kiss, but, alas, we returned the notes, locked up the box and headed on our way to find the most delicious delights a conglomeration of countries could deliver!

Can I admit something shameful? I've never visited Jackson Heights! It's perhaps one of the most written about areas of Queens for its food, its street culture, its vibrancy and life, and yet, I've never been! Shame on myself! Luckily I came to this date armed with three, count em three, issues of Time Out New York featuring Queens, Cheap Eats, and Ethnic Foods, so I'd know where to hit among the clatter and bang that overtakes such an intersection of the world. We selected Tibetan cuisine, as Tom had never before tried the food of yak-country (which was all I ate when I was there a few years ago), so we walked into the brightest florescent packed Merit Kabab Palace and headed to the back counter of Tashi Delek Momo, which serves up a combination of Chinese delights with a Tibetan twist. Even the rallying students would have to approve.

Of course we couldn't settle on just one noodle dish from just one of the shops in the cafeteria like dining room, so we ordered veggie Chow Mein, and fried chicken dumplings, and a whole host of fried treats from the Bangladeshi restaurant in the counter to the left, and Mango Lassis (Tom never had Lassi before either!) and some salty miso soup, AND, to top it off, the strangest pink-gel drink I have ever before had in my life, on the house!

The fried treats were delicious (and it was fascinating to watch the workers quickly pack up boxes for Ramadan Fasters to take home for sundown supper) and the dumplings fried to perfection but the standout item of the meal was most certainly those noodles. As promised they were fluffy and light, sauced but not too oiley, springy and perfect. Served with a bright array of fresh vegetables (orange carrots, purple onions, green scallions, Monet himself couldn't have created a better pallet!), my mouth wanted more, and more, and more until I was achingly stuffed. Tom too seem pleased with his first Tibetan food adventure.

But we couldn't sit around for too long, oh no! There was much to be explored, aquariums and beauty parlors, pillow shops and salsa music blasting from the street. We walked and wandered until, exhausted from the day, we finally decided to head back home. On our subway ride, me clutching my new $6 pillow purchased from the funniest Queens guys around, I realized that I actually was really liking Tom, that the fun wouldn't have been the same without him, and that he possibly kinda liked me too. So, of course, like the mature girl I am, I dissolved into giggles and couldn't stop laughing, or make eye contact with the most likely very confused marathon-Tom. Before disembarking at Penn Station, I invited him to visit the very last key site with me this weekend and, to my delight, he accepted.

Can't get a much better day than that!

Full and satisfied, and proud to be a part of this city and this adventure,

L.A.

The Twentieth Date or, Trust Me

2010-09-02T21:33:00.000-07:00

Gracie Mansion is, quote, "a house of the people." Or at least that's what we're told Mayor Bloomberg would like it to be during the time he is head of our (5bourough) state and allows Gracie mansion to be stomped upon by visitor's footsteps day in and day out rather than those of his own family. Well, it's a house of the people if you are a person who has arranged a tour on a particular wednesday, in advance, without a stroller, who will not take pictures or lean on the furniture. Yes my friends, it was The Met all over again and though I have the Key to the City, I do not, unfortunately have the prep necessary to impress the feisty tourguides at this historic spot. Alas, we trudge on into the battle against so many rules imposed upon us and enter, date twenty.

The Time: Wednesday, Sept. 1st, 1:01pm (Only one minute late after talking worker's rights in the Bronx = victory!)
The Place: Gracie Mansion, East End Ave and 88th St., Manhattan
The Guy: Marathon-Tom
What Creative Time Says: Any of us could live here if we had a majority (and the power to write the rules. Ok, I added that part, all third-term jokes are now out of my system, almost ;))

Sprinting from our recent jaunt in the Bronx (the key to the city wins again! one of us cries as we peer the train, sunlight glinting off its would-be wet back, come around the corner like a whistletop depression era vehicle up in the Bronx just 17 minutes before our guided tour began), Tom and I exited on the Upper East Side and sprinted the five or so avenues until we, sweaty and very unrefined, made our way to the house of our leader. We were rather brusquely checked in by a woman preppier than a Laura Ashley ad campaign, led through a set of metal detectors, and made our way to the tour where a very sweet looking older woman was gathering us around. I began excited to learn something, perhaps a bit of history, perhaps a bit of intrigue, and to find out whether or not mayors can live without AC (turns out, they can't, everything has been updated to cooled air perfection.)

That is until I was whirled around into a spinny top of rules, unable to find my pin point of reference to keep myself from turning. I swear I was a five year old kid again trying not to giggle in church, scratchy tights and squeezing mary janes and all.

"No Photos." They said as I turned on my camera
"No touching the furniture." They barked to two tiny little girls who, once anxious looking with key inspired determination, simply turned off, their faces back to the masked performance children are too practiced at giving to seemingly well-meaning adults.
"Ascent the staircase one at a time." "No walking on the grass." "No venturing on the porch." "No dawdling or looking on your own."

No. Just, no. There were interesting things about the tour of course, I learned why chandeliers have so many dripping spheres of glass (to make the small flames more vibrant!). You could tell the women leading the tour had such a love and reverence for history and I, in turn, loved the hand painted, victorian inspired wrapping wall paper in the dining room. It was a delight to imagine we were being bugged and recorded, watched by a sweaty CIA man in a van parked down by the river (was that just me? oh, well, my imagination is very active) and, get this, I was introduced to the actual key to the city, as in, the one pictured on the top of this blog! For a place engaging in a public art project (and trust me, I love that Bloomberg got so behind this piece, guess third time's the charm, ba-dum CHING!), they certainly didn't embrace the whole freedom, secret, empowered, sneaky, explorative ideals that the project, to me, seemed to encapsulate.

Why couldn't they just trust us? What, with the key we'd run all over Gracie Mansion, flipping over sofa's, carving our names into the prized steinway piano? Just the image of well-meaning new yorkers, willing to wait hours in line in times square for a key, then reserve a spot on a tour, in advance, then brave the upper east side, go through a name check and a full scale security clearance, somehow causing so much damage to the Gracie Mansion (not a museum mind you, but a place actual living humans often occupy and, gasp, hold events in) amuses me to no end. Jerry Seinfeld does this hilarious piece about spring loaded faucets that comes to mind:

So, I go to the bathroom in the airport. What is the story on the sinks in airport bathrooms
That they will not give us a twist-it-on twist-it-off, human-style faucet? Is that too risky for the general population? Too dangerous? What is it they think we would do with a faucet?
Turn them all on full, run out into the parking lot, laughing, pushing each other into the bushes?
"Come on, the water's on, let's go!" "I turned it on full blast." "You idiot! We're businessmen, we're gonna miss our plane." "Who cares! Water!" That's how they think we're gonna act.

Granted, I have laughed and pushed plenty of people into the bushes during these key sites, but I've had the deceny of leaving the mayor's home before doing so. But seriously, what on earth is there not to trust, or, if you go into a relationship assuming there is no trust, can it ever fully exist? I broke the rules with my ninja camera skills at Gracie Mansion because there were so many rules placed upon me, I was already told that I was a trouble maker and they knew it so they were going to do everything in their power to stop it, sounds like a challenge to me! I did the same to my poor mother whose head I am sure has extra grey hairs because of the stunts I would pull pretending I was a "bad kid" because she already assumed I'd be acting like one (picture a small bag filled with sugar and me planting sets of baby sitting earned twenty dollar bills in my room as a scenerio).

This can, of course, all be applied to love. I was on my "fourth" date with Tom after all, and things were starting to get pretty serious, nod nod wink wink, mostly to the delight of the ladies outside my tour who wanted to know all about how we met and the project and how it was going (one even wished Tom luck as we parted.)

I have certainly had my ups and downs with trust and love over the years and, can I be honest, there is no way in heck I'd allow someone to enter my home-self with abandon and run on through. Ok maybe if they waited online and passed a checkpoint and made a reservation and called it art, maybe then they'd be allowed in, but certainly it has to be cautious right? Maybe I would only allow for him to enter single file while holding a handrail with my eyes pasted on the back of my head. Granted, past experiences have left me mostly unscarred. I've had the occasional "kissed another girl on summer vacation" devastation when I was sixteen but, in general, most who have handled my heart have done so with at least some care, so where do all the eggshells come from? Does Gracie Mansion have some horrible vandal in its past hallowed halls, or were the guards implemented long before a sharpie marker was drawn?

I don't know, or, I have guesses but I can't know for sure and with those inklings its hard to know what is the best way to proceed. I know I really love hanging out with Tom but when he asked me certain questions as we sat sipping smoothies overlooking Roosevelt island and the many, many, shirtless men who frequent the upper east side on random weekday afternoons, I just froze up. Luckily, of course, I recovered with my amazing leaf-turned-frog-belly horticulture skills. But for a moment there it got a little scary.

Would the art work better if we were allowed to run amok? Does love run more free when we are completely open with all barriers removed? I know you need to make space to allow life to come in, doors closing and windows opening and all that jazz, but can your space still be protected? Can it still be your own? And, if you're not ready to let the wind come rushing through your being like a wooden board house with its doors blown off the hinges in the middle of a hurricane, should you really be putting yourself out there? If you want to impose so many rules upon a visit, so many barriers and "no's" and "don't do's" and "can'ts" should your really be inviting 10,000 strangers to walk through your home?

Four sites left and a boatload of questions to be answered,

Thinking,

L.A.

The Eighteenth (and Nineteenth!) Dates

2010-09-01T21:44:00.000-07:00

So there are four key to the city sites only open Monday through Friday from 9am - 5pm. Four sites totally inaccessible to those of us who hold "normal" work schedules. So what's a girl to do? She has to hit them all in one day, one magical day gifted by Key to the City. And there you have it, the reason why I had the most marathon day of dating in the universe.

Now, I would never go on a date with more than one guy in the same night. "Fun" be gone, I just think it's pretty sleazy. Luckily, Tom from Saturday's adventure doesn't start nursing school until Sept. 2nd and we really kind of hit it off so he agreed to partake in this crazy three borough adventure. I'll briefly fill you in on the first two because there's more to be said about sites three and four (or twenty and twenty-one, depending on how you look at it.) Rest assured there's good stuff, and ponderings about art and the ability to make it interactive, coming up!

The Time: Wednesday, Sept 1st, 11:05am
The Place(s): P.S. 73, 1020 Anderson Ave and The Bronx County Courthouse, 851 Grand Concourse, The Bronx
The Guy: The wonderful Tom from date 15!
What Creative Time Says: The P stands for "public" and "Be Patient: security and freedom of access have to coexist."

When meeting Tom this morning my stomach felt, well, strange. I quickly checked over everything I had eaten the night before (Japanese Ramen and Edamame with my public interest butt kicking friend Alison) and this morning (almond croissant from chocolate bar, mmmm) and found nothing. Then, when I saw Tom across the street waving by yankee stadium, it jolted through me, like a combination karate kick slash roller coaster and then, just as fast, returned to a light flutter.

Were these butterflies? No way, I thought, no chance. But when I gave Tom a hug and felt a warm and familiar chicken soup type feeling, well then, perhaps they were there, and that was kind of nice. I'm actually super-exhausted at the end of today and I must get some sleep after last night's debacle so I'll sum up some key (haha, oh god I'm my grandfather) moments and let you see the rest in pictures.

--> I heart schools. Tom went to a schoolhouse built in the 19th century which automatically makes him cooler than me. I would have spent hours writing pretend stories of past student-souls who had sat at my desk rather than pay attention to geometry or the like. So jealous of Tom and his must-have-existed ghost-girl crushes.

--> Both these sites comprise of boxes where fellow key holders have left notes. I love thinking of all the lives this project has touched and what they must have thought when turning the same key. Thoughts replicate through my mind, do they get the stomach flip? The ah-ha moment? Is it all ho-hum to them by this point or do they share my wonder in the moment the key lock hold?

--> Is there any better feeling in the world than back to school time? New backpacks and pencils, new friends in your class, new materials to learn, the excitement was as tangible as a soft angel cake in those hallowed halls of first graders gingerly holding their mother's hands. As if to say, I still want you here but I'm ready now.

--> Tom is very inflexible in body, I am very inflexible in planning and spirit (but trying to get better!) Do couples work best in yin and yang? Or do people work better with mirror images of themselves? Curious.

--> No photos allowed in the Bronx Courthouse? No problem, I am the stealthiest camera ninja of all time (see tomorrow's date for further proof of this fact.) The key brings you to the marriage bureau, a concept I am still not sure if I can get behind (marriage and bureau's, separate and together.)

--> Worker's rights advocates outside the courthouse make my heart skip a bit. We almost are too late for our next site because we're discussing the benefit's of unions and why most exploited worker's are immigrants.

--> Sometimes, I love that I am 26 and a lawyer and still doing wonderful silly things like having dates with the key to the city. Other times, I can't believe that I am 26 and a lawyer and still doing wonderful silly things like having dates on the key to the city. But I've decided it's so necessary to have these projects. To own your life as it is, yours, and to live it as you chose, decorate it as you like. Especially in my line of work which has the tendency to pull you down into the darkest depths of humanity at times, I need to remember what it is to smile, and dance, and live scribbled notes inside plexi glass boxes, unlocked with a key.

Til tomorrow,

L.A.

The Seventeenth Date!

2010-08-31T21:55:00.000-07:00

So. It's a fairly nice night out and I have a fairly nice stoop so I decided, as I am want to do, to write this post while sitting outside overlooking my street in the west village, NYC. I have a glass of water (because it's still August after all, even if for a few more hours), my laptop, and my phone all balanced in my hands as I pull my door shut with my right foot (thank you yoga) before tip toeing outside (I live in a townhouse of a wonderful family I used to nanny for, thus the tip toeing.)

Can anyone guess yet what is wrong with this picture? I have contact with the outside world (phone), hydration (water) and the impetus upon which to write this blog (laptop). What else is missing right?

My keys.

Shit.

So, yes, I am writing this on my stoop, locked out of my apartment, unsure what on earth I will do this evening to get a good night's sleep. I can't very well wake up my landlords, they have three children after all, but I just don't know if the mosquito-laden front porch of my home will do it for me tonight. Hmmm. And don't think I miss the irony in all this. I, unofficial key girl of New York, LOCK myself out of my apartment, without my KEYS. There are just too many levels to explore here.

Well, until that's all figured out, let's got on with the writing shall we? Without further adieu let me rush in the quirky, the nutty, the perhaps most surprising of all, date number 17!

The Time: Monday, August 30th, 6:02pm
The Place: Joe Holzka Community Garden, Castleton Ave and Baker St, Staten Island
The Guy: Dan, 26, another set up from my faithful friends, this time the delightful Patty Eames.
What Creative Time Says: This public gazebo was once a private casino.

About four weeks ago Patty and Chris, quite possibly the cutest couple of the century, came to visit New York. Over milkshakes I told tales of my summer of love (well, perhaps my love of summer) and the quest and challenge I was facing. Immediately, the two turned towards one another. "Dan?" they said. After scrolling through facebook pictures and learning he was a foodie in advertising with a sense of adventure, well, what more possibly needs to be said?

So here I was, Monday afternoon, leaning up against the ferry terminal wall reading my latest acquisition (Then We Came to The End, very funny.), unable to believe that I was actually getting nostalgic for my final key venture to the fifth borough. Staten Island, how I do apologize for not giving you a chance earlier along!
The ride was, as always, tourist filled and beautiful and there really may be no better feeling in the world then sea breeze brushing around you, even if it is from the Hudson river. Dan and I are such huge talkers (we actually missed two ferries because we weren't paying adequate attention, thank goodness it was rush hour) that I imagine we sounded like two children's footsteps chasing a new kitten around an attic to a bystander down below (or just the German tourists to our left.) Upon disembarking we ran to the S46 and spent the next twenty minutes craning our necks out the window in hopes of spotting the proper exit point. Dan asked, "don't they announce the stops on a bus?" No Dan, no they do not, that would be far too practical for our oft-confused MTA system.

The Joe Holzka Community Garden (and a big thank you here for including so many gardens on this tour, they are the epicenter of community and growth and big city delight and surprise) was tended by the adorable Kathy who allowed us free reign to smell, touch, and even taste the delights around the garden. Certainly the biggest I've visited, it hosted plants from all over the world (Kathy taught us how to tell what country of origin the planters were from based off the layout of their plots.) The colors were hidden and gorgeous, like I-Spy's in nature, play sardines until you stumbled upon their bursts of reds, pinks, and yellows.

What a delightful way to spend a monday eve. Better yet was entering the adorable gazebo, outfitted with chairs and a mysterious box labeled "Take One." Inside? A whole army of tiny origami projects, many made by Kathy herself. Dan and I attempted to create our own objects before succumbing to the origami taboos of crumpling and tearing, snapped a few photos, and made our way to dinner.

Oh right,dinner. You see, "winging it", which has worked in my past and which I had also hoped for that night, is not exactly the best idea for a monday evening in the middle of Staten Island. Kathy "maybe" knew where a bus "might be" and directed us to Forest Hills Ave where the Staten, which sounded promising, was located. So Dan and I waited on the most western-archetype deserted street in NY for a bus to bring us to the corner of McDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken land and the two of us, determined to find the best cuisine SI had to offer, trudged along the strip-mall like road. Where were we, Tennessee? Oh, and it turns out the Staten is a buffet mart, only open for lunch, from 12- 2 30pm. Whoops.

I was about to give up and hightail it to Baskin Robbins (hey, I'd never been to a Dunkin Deli before, that would be new!) when across the way, under a haze of florescent kegs and mugs, a green awning read "Best Burgers in Staten Island." Done.

Duffy's, where we decided to land was, in four words, old school scrumptiously perfect. The waiters were locals (we got into a great debate about the island's best pizza because, you know, now I'm an expert) the burger special was blue cheese, the bloody mary's were six bucks and the sweet potato fries were the best I have ever eaten. Seriously it was like a crunchy juicy skin containing the most wonderfully pureed sweet potatoes in the world. I had died and gone to bar food heaven.

Dan and I decided to walk back, discussing the best in Pixar movies, his job in advertising, and what on earth the random knots of teenagers circling the island came from. We passed sparkly organic cleaners, dozens of bagel shops, and the strangest townhouse turned burrito hut this side of the Mississippi. Finally when we could walk no more (we ran out of street lights!) we boarded the bus and headed back to our little isle of Manhattan.

On the return trip, there was, I swear to goodness, the most beautiful moon I have ever seen in my life. Full yet halved, so close and yet so orange, it was haunting and beautiful and perfect in the moment. I, of course, took approximately 1000 pictures, Dan was kind enough to let me do so.

The key to the city came to me in my hour of need, bringing me a snappy burger and the most perfect of sweet potato fries just when I had almost given up all hope. Which is where I was with this whole apartment thing when who should so happen to answer my facebook cry for locked-out help but, I kid you not, our dear friend Tim, of the original Staten Island adventure.

This truly is a magical little key. Now only if it would open the door to my apartment.....

Locked Out, but with quite the view,

L.A.

The Sixteenth Date

2010-08-30T22:50:00.000-07:00

Do you ever put your ipod on shuffle and then get mad that it doesn't understand exactly what song you'd like to hear? Frustrated by tune after tune of audiobook or that CD a guy made you in High School, you just want to get to the good stuff, the gels with where you are in time? You can either be upset or, you can reframe it, as I have decided to do so, by deciding well, at least this means all the really great ones are on the way. And that is officially how I am going to think about dating from now on! With that being said I am totally psyched by this last string of dates, so lovingly chosen by my friends to support me in my hour of need, and what wonderful companions they have helped me find for this crazy adventure of mine. After spending 15 hours in a car in upstate New York with my friend Kyle for research, I finally weaseled out the information about his very charming friend Brian, in town for three months to film an upcoming documentary. Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you date 16.

The Time: Sunday, August 29th, 12:05 pm
The Date: Brian,6'4", filmmaker, bloody mary hater
The Place: Trinity Church, 74 Trinity Place, Manhattan
What Creative Time Says: To be buried in the city is to become part of the city. (sing it sister).

You know a date is going to rock when you exchange texts all morning pushing back the meeting time. Thanks to a bottle of red wine and the fact that Jared works a few blocks from my house, was having girl troubles, and gets off his shift at 1am I did not quite receive the nine hours of sleep I was planning on in order to ensure I was bright eyed and bushy for a morning date. Thankfully, Brian was right there with me and we agreed to step into the sunshine Manhattan-early at noon. We searched the corpse-like wall street area with its no man land of no-work sundays, and finally found stone street, the strangest little mecca of italy meets boston meets the 19th century I have ever seen. Tables are packed so that you can pick food off your neighbor's plate and the cobblestone ground cannot even be seen, but we were outside, our surly hostess found us a seat, and Brian hilariously mountain climbed over the benches to reach a nice landing point. I was good to go.

Brunch was delicious, thank you Smorgas Chef, and Brian had me laughing throughout my Jarlsberg eggs and chive whipped mashed potatoes. It's tricky knowing with these set ups if the guy is actually interested in going on a date with me or if he's more into the whole blog exposure, but I am sure they must feel the same way about me and what's fair is fair. Besides, Brian's obsession with Paul the Octopus made for a skippingly delightful breakfast topic when one is working very hard at staying awake. Even if he did compare me to Julia Allison. Bastard.

With a very full belly and my cheeks hurting from laughing I brought Brian to the elevated acre, one of my favorite spots in an area I don't much love, the financial district. Whoa the website makes this place look like an outdoor disco club but in reality, it's quite beautiful, with native plants and pensive couples and groups of men practicing their parkouring skills. Yep, you read me right, every Saturday and Sunday at 1 30pm a group of men in their 20's gets together to practice doing the grapevine and making high high highkicks so they can jump over the 2.5 foot stairs located around the turf grass. I love parkouring but my goodness if we NewYorkers aren't good at turning everything fun into a talent in need of perfection. I was content to lie on my blanket (I never leave my apartment on a summer weekend without packing at least one book and a giant tapestry blanket from China) and try and figure out just what the heck these guys are doing in the section of the city where the sky peaks out in quilt-like fashion and each building stands imposingly as a high school security guard on a pot bust.

Now was, of course, a perfect time for Brian to show me his top secret ninja documentary which I cannot reveal on this site for fear of it being leaked. Seriously (in part). Here is also where I begin to fall a little for Brian. You see world, there is this thing called the creative magnet and when utilized properly it can be the most wonderful catalyst for tripping over your words and becoming nervous around someone whom you have only just met. It's what makes me stammer like a schoolgirl when meeting obviously gay broadway stars and has me falling in love with every other performer at the Nuyorican Cafe or UCBT. The creative magnet is an attractive lifeforce wielded by those very talented at adding art and inspiration and life into our sometimes gray world. I know I've focused a lot on the dating here but, as important to me is the art, heck, I'd be clamoring over Paul Ramirez Jonas if the guy wasn't married as he is, inarguably, the greatest relational aesthesian of our time. To be fair, this is not always a good thing, the search of the creative magnet, and the misplays it creates, have lead me down some pretty dark paths (think rats crawling on your feet in a theater space in Manhattan, literally!), and I, who hates being liked for what I put out there rather than who I am, should understand the dangers this can bring. But creation of art, additions to the world, making people smile or cry or think or spin, is incredibly important to me, and I can't help but recognize and celebrate that in another person. So, clearly, when Brian showed me the trailer to his movie which may be telling one of the stories that most makes me want to hopscotch that I have encountered in awhile, well, let's just say my tongue was a little more tied at the end of the four minute twenty five second trailer (but who's counting?)

Luckily, I pulled myself together and we made it to Trinity by the 3pm deadline, laughing over Brian's stories all the way. I swear this guy collects characters in his life like burs in a meadow and I loved stepping for a few hours into his world. Baring down the tourist traps of high waving American flags, just steps from the most inflammatory argument in our present time, rocking out on Mr. Softie and catching snapshots of Lady Liberty herself, we led ourselves into the back gates of Trinity only to discover the promised gate was wide open for all to explore (how indecent!) Saddened (ok, that was just me) we walked through the weathered tombs, listened to Brian's This-American-Life like collection of voicemails on his phone (seriously, he should start a podcast "The Answer(ing) Machine" is what I would title it), and then, fittingly, were locked into the park at closing time. Though Brian could have easily stepped over the 5' gate, he was kind enough to signal the guard so that I was not locked in. Thank you my dear.

Now, many have complained about Trinity's lack of a lock (clearly whoever connected with the project was incredibly quick to change her mind regarding the exclusivity of the place) and, frankly, there are a lot of whiners out there about many of the key sites that don't provide some sort of "special" prize at the end. Yes, I was as sad as the next at the inability to unlock my own world but should certain places be turned into the standard hotel, available only to those of us lucky to stumble upon the key? I like the far thrown places, the community gardens and boxes on buses, because just getting there is half the battle and the key is a wonderful reward but Trinity Church 'aint no secret friends. Sometimes you just have to let go and be grateful for the experience, regardless of the package it arrived in.

So I left Brian in the heated fog of the 14th street subway station, eager for more of his stories, more of his art, and more of, just generally, him (though maybe after a nice shower, a nap, and some AC this time, since when did July return to NYC?). For the first time in a while, however, I genuinely had no clue if he felt the same, which, let's be honest, usually means they do not. But the really nice thing about these creative types is that their art lives on. And that I got to go home, make myself some lemonade iced tea, and watch his rocking trailer, realizing, perhaps for the first time, that the art is separate from the person. Regardless of how he felt, I was laughing and smiling and dancing on my toes all the same.

And I hope that for the men of this project, if I'm on your cutting room floor or left behind on the paint pallet, if the gate is locked open or the key just won't turn, that the same will hold true: regardless of how I've gotten here, it's been a wonderful place to end up.

With cheeks that burn from smiles,

L.A.

Don't try this at home

2010-08-30T21:32:00.000-07:00

Before I plunge into date 16, let me say this: I would rather be Sarah Haskins than Julia Allison any day. I want to enjoy life, yes, but I'm not here looking for some perfect specimen whom I can pick apart with a piece of dental floss. I want to love the moments but laugh at the bad and not assume this is all some project that has to do with me just stumbling upon someone "right." I read another dating blog at the suggestion of a friend and wanted to vomit with its gendering, its simplicity, its lack of anything real. Weirdly enough, it half kills me to think of this as a dating blog itself. I don't want to be some butter churn of men switching them in and out. I want to live the moments I am in with the person I am with and of course I would rather have this all figured out by now but I don't and thus, comes ten dates in ten days.

Maybe I'm trying to make myself feel better. Maybe it's ridiculous a woman has to make herself feel better when she dates multiple guys when it's often assumed men are doing the same. But, for the record, while I am psyched for this week I don't usually prescribe to, nor love, so much dating and so much turnover in such a short span on time. And you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll be psyched to have a fifth date involving homemade cooking and favorite movies down the road. But I am where I am and I'm finishing this thing darn it and I so appreciate the men who are helping me do it. Thank you for entering this strange little world I have somehow teleported myself into.

And if you want dating advice, just click HERE.

<3

L.A.

The Fifteenth Date

2010-08-29T19:35:00.000-07:00

So this is what happens when you procrastinate or are focusing on other things (you know, like your job) and forget that, whoops, it's already late August and, uh oh, the entire Key to the City project ends on labor day (thankfully running extra-date this year) and you, ahhhh!, have TEN DATES TO DO IN TEN DAYS?

Can you do it? Will you make it? Damn right you will! And gosh darn it if you won't even have some fun!
Which brings us to the beginning of the end, and date numero quince!

The Time: Saturday, August 28th, 10:22am (me= 7 minutes late = success!)
The Guy: Tom, introduced through college dorm-mate Meg, 26
The Place: Freshkills Park, Staten Island
What Creative Time Says: It took us half a century but we made this together.

About one month ago I emailed Doug, the tour guide and booker for the Freshkills park extravaganza as, in order to open this key you had to secure a spot on one of their coveted tours. Thankfully, Doug was waiting for me as he wrote:

We were wondering if you'd every come out! After I read the NYT piece I looked back on our rosters and noticed that you hadn't been out - I do most of the tour organization and lead many of them and didn't think any blind dates were happening...

Thank goodness for small graces! Tom and I had also been waiting for our big moment as Meg tried to set us up way back when I only had maybe three readers aside from my parents and our schedules just never clicked into a date. Thankfully, and finally, with almost one week to go, we finally cleared our schedules for each other!

Ok now readers, so at this point in the game, I'm pretty good at a first date and I've also come to expect pretty much zero from the whole thing. It's down to a science, say hello, hug, comment on getting there, comment on the key to the city, and dive into a few hours of getting to know you chat. I wasn't expecting much, heck, Tom and I had barely exchang substantive emails before agreeing to meet, so I was going into this really pretty blind.

But there was something about this guy! Nothing big and fancy, nothing glittery, but damn if the more we talked the more I wanted to just keep talking. And the conversation wasn't all, where are you from what are your views, it was more, let's talk about that childhood pet we accidentally killed and the novel you have written that you want to keep working on (seriously, and tragically, we both had that in common.) It wasn't othat our lives were mirror images, but our life views and the rhythms of the choices made seemed to, well, compliment each other.

And see? I'm not even talking about the key site! Which was, totally awesome and fantastic and beautiful and I am losing my adjectives with which to describe it. Freshkills Park, kills meaning stream in Dutch, is a 2200 acre former landfill now being adapted to make the second biggest park in NYC. Soon (well,thirty years) to be featuring kayaking and picnicing, playgrounds and hiking trails, this massive expanse of land now operates as some kind of sanitation boneyard with long retired cranes creaking about the mountains and run down garbage trucks lining the gravel roads. Our tourbus, and fearless leader Doug, wound around the paths, over tons and tons of rubbish, literally, through highway passes and over creeks, all in the name of learning about this soon to be awe-inspiring space. I for one am happy I will still be living in NYC when it's all open.

Being on a tour bus meant the actual key part was a singular event, one girl opened the padlocked box to reveal a giant pair of binoculars (note: objects in magnification may be further than they appear, while using them I ducked out of the way of a dragonfly seemingly soaring towards my head which was, in all likelihood, closer to Manhattan than myself) and all of us key-bearers cheered at the surprise (two of them later recognized me and told me they were loyal readers, FUN!) I still made Tom open the lock, of course, and tried to explain to him why the entire thing was so exciting to me and Tom, bless his heart, tried to play along. Well, if I can't find someone who will squeal with delight when I stumble upon a purple piece of glass on the street, than all I can ask for is someone who will smile as I do so. We had a delightful time scavenging for gas vent kegs and trying to capture a picture of the elusive butterflies and bees on the hill.

Let this be a lesson to anyone who says NYC is all buildings and crowds, my friends, you simply have not ventured out enough. The paths and grounds went on and on and I felt just as I would on top of a conservatory area in my hometown of western, MA (minus all the landfill covering but hey, I used to sled over an old landfill near my house, as long as you don't lick the snow right?) I was sad when the tour ended (I was dying to climb up onto these giant blue sculptures, I mean plows, just waiting for human contact) but Tom and I chatted the entire way back to the ferry, often in hushed tones because we were the only ones on the bus still engaged in conversation!

After we disembarked most everyone made a beeline to the ferry but not us, we were brave adventurers here to conquer Staten Island! Walking past the scariest clown-painted bar I have ever seen in my life, a homeless shelter for youth, and the tiniest bait and tackle shop I've ever seen, a cart of used books caught my eye as carts of used books are want to do and soon we came upon the most fabulous used bookstore I have yet been to in NYC. Everything Goes Book Cafe and Neighborhood Stage is everything that I truly miss about coffee houses/bookstores in NYC. Sure, we have housing works and McNally Robinson, which I love and are certainly able to do the trick, but here, in the heart of the oft-forgotten borough, was a place full of vintage records and current novels, 19th century playbills and local artists, but without one bit of the pretension that often occupies these areas in Manhattan. The couches were free to be sat upon, the regulars had out their tarot cards, and the hummus was homemade, I was in heaven.

Tom copied my lunch of an iced mint tea and a bagel with cream cheese, tomato and fresh basil (brilliant new combo!) though he preferred his bagel to remain untoasted, and we sat out in the completely unoccupied back porch area to delve into the realms of children's literature and our favorite movies. I don't think I've ever been out with someone with whom I had such opposite tastes in culture (the man hasn't read Matilda or The Fountainhead, people) and yet whose opinion made me want to look into the movies I may have otherwise skipped over. It was just like the bagel, familiar and delicious with just a new enough twist to keep me delightfully on my toes. I went to acroyoga after the date and for the first time in awhile I didn't even need to be flown before I was smiling like crazy. It had been a good day, a very good day indeed.

So I think it's fair to say this date may have been one of the more promising of them all. Not only does Freshkills have a lot of potential and a lot to look forward too, but I do believe Tom may reappear in this week of insanity himself as another key date.

Looking Forward,

L.A.

The Unbearable Lightness of Dating

2010-08-27T22:45:00.000-07:00

Here's where I admit that this whole dating thing is really, really hard, and sometimes it really really sucks. I'm about to enter a crazy week not unlike my first flurry foray into this project, ten dates in ten days to top off a summer of adventure, of finding NYC, of finding myself and finding many, many first dates.

But, if I am honest with you all, and with myself, sometimes it's a pain in the butt. I am psyched and committed to jump full force into the next (and last?) series of dates. I'm looking forward to a trip to the Whitney, to grooving with Louis in his house museum, to visiting a courthouse without my suit on, and yes, returning to Staten Island. I'm devilishly ready to meet the men my friends have set me up with for the last venture into finding summer love and anxious to bring summer out with a bang (and a key, and nearly a dozen locks.)

But my goodness if it can't be tiring at times. Being open for three months straight? Believing in the possibility that a connection may be out there? Making the guy feel comfortable and ensure (or at least try to ensure) that he is having a fun time too? Listening to friends dismiss my idea when they go home to their husbands (for clarification,I am not talking about any of my wonderful friends in beautiful relationships who posted comments and furthered dialogue on the last post!). Going through personal struggles and both not wanting to be negative on a first date and also wishing someone already knew. Let's face it, dating can be hard, and dating openly for one whole summer, looking for love, wanting love, but also realizing and admitting and succumbing to the idea that it's all about the experience, the adventure, the moments, well, that's a tough order.

Being single means being your own cheerleader when you want to give up, it means kissing yourself goodnight and telling yourself you're beautiful every morning. It means getting yourself out of that funk and telling yourself a funny story to make you laugh. And it can be insightful and gorgeous and comforting but it can also be, well, hard, and lonely, and, dare I say it, sometimes a little sad. I didn't expect to put myself out there just to find "someone" but the more you date, the more you are confronted with the idea of idea, and thus, the fact that you yourself are floating in orbit.

I don't want to give the wrong idea, I still love all of it, and tomorrow I will wake up and head to that ferry full of possibility and wonder.

But tonight, I just want to acknowledge that it can be tough out there for us single folks in a world made for twos.

-L.A.

The Leap

2010-08-26T21:57:00.000-07:00

On December second 2006, halfway through my senior year of college and just before my twenty-second birthday, writing " I just want to be with someone whose arms I am as excited to jump into as a pile of leaves fallen from a tree."

The air has finally begun to cool.

Which means many lovely things. It means I get to curl up in a warm sweater as I write this post from my front stoop overlooking cobbled stones. It means lovely jaunts with blessed coworkers and actually enjoying the breeze. It means acroyoga without getting over heated and the reminder of leaves changing color and newly sharpened pencils and the back to school giddiness in the stomach even if you're finally an "adult" who no longer has "summer break" and thus no longer can relish in the mystery/terror of beginnings of class sections, new teachers, cute boys, notebooks that have yet to be written in, subjects that have yet to be learned. The leaves will soon begin to fall.

It also means the end of the Key to the City project. Fear not, I promise you I will get it done (I have quite the week planned) but I have to say that in this summer of love of art and love of life there has been less love than usual in my dating experiences and adventures. What I mean to say is that it is intellectually and romantically interesting to me that I have not yet found someone to consistently share the end dates with, not because I believe men are like fish and you just have to hang around long enough to catch something worthwhile, but because in my past, it's worked out that way.

Now, to be fair, none of my relationships have exactly lasted. Dating I am great at, actual relationships, admittedly, not so much ( I believe Morgan Spurlock proved that McDonald French Fries outlast my boyfriends in terms of a shelf life) but I have, in the past, found people with whom I wanted to share more than a handful of outings. And so far, in this project, either I haven't found them or they haven't (metaphysically) found me or, perhaps more fittingly, we collectively didn't find our connection.

Could it be the project has bitten me in the rear end? Does the possibility and knowledge of completing so many dates in a summer take away from focusing on the man at present? Or have I been allowed to explore more, look for deeper connections, so I am not just falling into old patterns of "eh, you're not so bad"-relationships that inevitably end? Maybe it's something in between. Maybe I have been allowed to look but, truth be told, I have no idea what on earth I am looking for.

It's easy to make lists of attributes, the rambling "cute, funny, smart, good guy" persona's that work like fortune tellers in that we all agree with are talking only about us. Ask one hundred people what they are looking for and I bet 90 percent will tell you much of the same. And there's a difference when you add in personal chemistry and the pace of your conversation and how wide your smile gets when he calls but really, on a first date, I just have no idea how you know anymore.

I knew with Jared, my high school sweetheart who I oft refer to (and shout out here to his fantastic mom who I am told reads this blog and to whom I would STILL like to apologize for consuming 99 percent of her sons time throughout our freshmen and sophomore years of high school, had texting taken off by then I'm sure it would be closer to 100) almost right away. I knew when I first saw him and the first time we hugged I literally, LITERALLY, got weak in the knees. Granted, I was thirteen and had maybe hugged two other guys in the non-cousin variety but still, it was everything the movies tell you it's supposed to be, your breath slows down, your heart speeds up, and everything, even the thoughts through your head, go into slow motion.

But back to life, back to reality and back to non Romeo and Juliet tumultuous hormone driven love from the 90's. These days, I'd like my love with a side of stability please and I'm willing to do what it takes to get there. Though the dramatic parts certainly encompassed a large sector of my life and, while it's been a while since I've bled a pen dry with longing over some boy in a journal, I sometimes read over my piles of notebooks in gestures of humility, thought provocation, and, often, amusement. I quoted Shakespeare, wrote poems, stated, in all truth and belief to myself, that I felt I would die without X,Y, or Zach. But for all that adolescent heartbreak and handwritten drama, I still don't know what actually made my heart go thump-thump.

Is this the silliest of all questions, am I questioning the obvious here? I honestly find myself with guys who are smart, who are cute, who are funny, with whom I share interests and activities and I'll-be-damned if I just don't know what I am supposed to be looking for. My knees don't go weak for anyone, and I no longer stammer at the prospect of a male at the other end of the phone (ok, maybe i never stammered, I've always been quite the flirt but blazing heartbeats like bouncy balls on a san francisco hill, yes, that once existed). But still, I admit, I am totally lost.

I look now at my friends getting married, my friends having babies, my friends dating exes they had once written off and I just wonder, how did you know? Did it take more than one date? Did you ever think it could never work for you? Could you wait until he called you back or did you hold onto your phone like one grasps monkey bars in childhood? Did you know you wanted to look into their eyes forever, hear their voice for always or did you have to distort it to accept it at first in your mind? Did you fantasize right away or did you run screaming before you see things clearly in the closer-than-it-appears mirror of self-reflection? What were the right jokes and right moves and the right time to kiss and was it right because it was simply all wrong? The facebook albums flooding my newsfeed, full of white dresses and tuxed best men, show me one endpoint and I wonder, could they articulate the beginning?

I spent some time this past spring recording my friends, let's call them Julie and Pete, who, together, comprise the most wonderful loving couple that I dare say has walked this earth. I attacked the male counterpart of the pair (the female is one of my better friends from law school) within the first ten minutes of them picking me up from the train station with the question "How did you know you were in love with Julie?" I followed up with the notation that they had first been friends, and how did they know that it could be more than friendship.

Here is his response (note, Julie was with us when we were recording so he addresses her towards the end)

I'm the type of person who doesn't sort of make decisions or have epiphanies in one fell swoop. So I would have to say there were a number of moments when I sort of realized that I was in love with Julie... I think when I had a wonderful moment when I had this gut reaction was when Julie had just gotten back from the airport from visiting her sisters, and she had all her luggage, and she just looked so beautiful and she had this big smile on her face and we hugged and she gave me a kiss on the cheek and I had that butterfly feeling and I started thinking about dating Julie right at that very moment. I had liked Julie before that but I hadn't sustained the emotion before that previous moment. I had thought about it before, but I hadn't known. But then that moment, when you walked in, you were radiant and smiling and I felt all light hearted and I couldn't think about other things for awhile and I was just thinking about you.

Damn.

Incidentally when I followed up with Julie about why she was so happy that day and why her smile was so big, she replied

Because I was happy about seeing Pete. I had to go right from the airport and Pete had sent me a cute email over the summer and when I walked in, to have him sitting there, was really great.

So my question remains, what came first, the love or the love? Without Julie's smile, which was sparked by Pete's presence, would Pete have fallen in love with Julie in the first place? Perhaps I am getting to brainy about all this, too deep (I am a lawyer after all) but as I go on date after date with wonderful guy after wonderful guy, I wonder, what am I missing? Should I know right off the bat or should I give it time? How do I know? And is it that I just have to let go of the knowing to truly find out, to let anything happen and be open to possibility in order for the love to creep it's way in? Is it silent or noisy, hidden or in plain view? My question is not "where is the love" but "where are my glasses so I can see it properly."And maybe it doesn't need to be there, or maybe the real kind never is there, right at the very beginning, and I need to relax and look for comfort, not love, and delight, not necessarily adventure, and find it through being open and willing to allow it to come.

The question still remains over whether I have learned anything yet from this project aside from a lot of self reflection and a newfound appreciation of Staten Island, but, just recognizing the journey is often step one. Four years ago I wrote, " I just want to be with someone whose arms I am as excited to jump into as a pile of leaves fallen from a tree."

That, at least, is a sentiment I can stand behind and taking the plunge is something I have become a champion at. And until the day comes when I know it's right, well, I'll keep jumping with my impish self until I find a pile suitable enough to sustain a legion of notebooks. And in my last dates, I want to jump with some of those great guys with whom, in my past, I may have thought "eh, this won't work," but who deserve a second (or third, or forth look.)

Luckily, the leaves will soon begin to fall and I've become more comfortable with the first step, the leap.

Love,

L.A.

The Fourteenth Date!

2010-08-22T21:33:00.000-07:00

Yet again, I found myself running late. I know it’s not at all shocking by now but if you are unaware of just how many distractions exist in the twenty-first century then I doubt you’re a reader of my blog to begin with. Today the subject of my tardiness lay in Bikinis. I was headed to the beach, Coney Island to be exact, and lay on my wooden bedroom floor with no less than six bikinis strung around me in my room like the after affects of a tornado rainbow. Not only would I be baring myself on this first date, down to my pale skin and freckled legs, but I couldn’t actually find a matching suit. It had thrown me through a loop. Then, I stopped and realize that should my date be lucky enough to see me in a bikini on our first date, well then, my date couldn’t very well complain over whether or not it matched. This wisdom in hand I grabbed the closest set I could find, threw on some purple shades and ran out the door to date number fourteen!

The Time: 1:05pm, Saturday, August 14th

The Place: Brooklyn Public Library, Coney Island Branch, 19th and Mermaid Ave.

What Creative Time Says: Some space is shared and some knowledge is shared.

On this Saturday I was headed to Coney Island. Home of the annual sandsculpture contest (which I have won, albeit with adorable kids but I won nonetheless), the mermaid parade (which my friends have protested in) and, of course, the nathan’s hot dog eating contest (which I was thoroughly grossed out by in the summer of 2006 right after moving to NYC). I head to Coney Island at least once a year and always find something new, something sunny, and something supremely odd. With a key in hand, I knew this time would be no different.

I was nervous for this date, perhaps so more than all the others. It followed on the tails of two dates where I may have become too detached for my own good and I needed something to kick my butt back into the world of fun and romance. Something to make my stomach flip and nerves slip away. As I walked up to the Brooklyn Public Library, key in hand and passport and pocket, my date’s reflection greeted me first in the plexi glass windows. I saw a rather short individual, with sun bleached hair that could do with fall darkening and a nervous yet adorable smile, containing excitement and possibility. Oh, and she too, had a key in her hand.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, today I was going on a date with myself and Coney Island, where you can be whoever you are right out in the broad of dailylight even it is a, gasp, single woman!, a place that has gone through more transitions than a s scandaled US senator and has always come out on top, was the perfect place to do it. You may protest and most certainly parts of me did when I came up with this hair brained scheme. After all, our society works in twos, we’re not supposed to go to the movies, to dinner, and certainly not the beach, with only ourselves provided the much needed company we all craved. But here’s the thing. I wanted to go to the beach, I wanted to eat a Nathan’s hot dog and I wanted to ride the Cyclone. I wanted to experience the joy of opening a lock in New York and there was no one on that particular day who I’d rather go with than myself. So that’s exactly what I did.

For those of you who remain unsatisfied, well, the library agreed with you. The gates remained firmly closed (budget cuts I was told) and I imagined a rather large woman rolling her eyes and saying “uh-HU you’re not gonna get in here without no man.” I guiltily smiled, holding up my key as if to say, well, I tried, and bowed out and away from the elusive sight. While walking back towards the beach I stumbled upon a community garden, my third through this whole key journey and ate a fresh tomato with Carlos who runs the place. “You got a boyfriend?” he asked me, teasing with his male friends smoking cigars and roasting corn. “Still looking,” I smiled back, making a mock sailor’s gaze with the palm of my hand, “let me know if you see anyone, I’ll be by the ocean.”

So a key site I would not visit but a day at the beach, well, that was something I could sink my feet into. I found a spot between the nutcracker salesmen, tattooed snake wielding locals, and blasting radios, and settled into Anna Karenina for the afternoon. Did I mention this was after I chatted with two very cute boys from Germany awaiting their flight to Las Vegas. Flirting with cute boys you find along the way. Now there’s something you definitely can’t do on a date with anyone other than yourself.

Not 30 minutes into my solo adventure I ran into Elly and Emily, two wonderful (single!) women who were freshmen at Connecticut College when I was a senior. I always think about this when I am in New York, how many people you know and love surround you at any moment, in the next subway car or the next street over. For every person you run into in a coffee shop you know there had to be another who had entered just 20 minutes before and chatting with long lost friends? Not something you can do on a date. Speaking of dates, as I was posing for a picture by myself for this very blog I reached my arm around fake shoulders and laughed, “take one of my hot date.” I kid you not my friends that my outreached hand actually hit a confused, but very cute, guy who, when he later returned after Elly and Emily had left, told me he was named Dennis, worked for the city, and he wanted for my phone number. The project was definitely on to me.

Later I strolled on the boardwalk, had the hotdog (ok Corndog) that had eluded me (and which my stomach very feverishly protested) ever since I saw Joey Chestnut take home the championship for the U.S. of A. and danced the salsa on Coney Island’s wooden planks. I walked through fairgrounds, watched couples win each other cheap stuffed animals by filling balloons with water, and tried not to get dizzy at the idea of the new contraptions in Luna Park. I sidled up the 20’s makeup styled woman running the Cyclone booth and when she said “just one” when handing me my ticket I said “yup, and it’s my first time!” Her expression softened and she winked, take a seat near the front and soon my roller coaster, spacious the seat as I had it to myself, was plummeting down towards Coney Islands beaches of proud “freaks” and the children of NY.

On my way out, smiling with glee, and rattling in the head (the Cyclone is from 1927 after all!) I passed the small display of treasures which make up the Coney Island History Project, The most wonderful treasure there, a man named Jim, became my tour guide and pointed out the delights, sights, and unbelievable crowds that made up the tourists of Coney Island’s past. Young couples rode wooden horses and posed kissing on paper moons while the beaches teemed with the most modest of bathing suits covering, literally, every possible square inch. I loved everything about Jim, his voice, his stories, his papery hands and the laughter in his voice. I was interviewed by the delightful Natalie who compiles the oral histories of Coney Island (hear my interview here!) and when I came out I took pictures with my new love: Jim. I teasingly asked if he had a grandson, alas, they were all married. Jim explained to me that everyone just wants to get Coney back to where it used to be and my friends, I think we shall all be able to help with that!

The day ended with Anna Karenina and myself, headed on a subway back to NY. As I opened the pages a recipe fell into my lap from the previous owner, who had sold me this copy on her stoop. “A recipe for Lemon Asparagus” read the top, and at the bottom, “Enjoy” with a heart around the letter u. Small acts people, small acts.

Later, at home, over a dish of Lemon Asparagus and a glass of chilled white wine, I received a phone call from along awaited man I had been flirting with and another old flame pulled up on my facebook feed. Tomorrow, I would make dates with each but tonight, my cute-if-overly-excitable date who made me slightly overcooked asparagus, was enough.

Opening again soon, ever brighter than before,

L.A.

Speed Date for a Cause!

2010-08-18T20:59:00.000-07:00

Loves,

So if you are not one of my friends who read this blog, let me tell you a little bit about myself: I am heavily into non profits here in the city. I love working for them and supporting them, raising funds for them and putting their profile out there. In the past I have had TONS of fun putting together "Speed date for a cause" events, putting singles together to meet, greet, hopefully kick it off with a beat, and then throwing an after party for coupled friends to attend featuring performers, auctions, and raffles for all attending. It's been pretty successful in the past, with couples and prize-winners growing out of a fundraiser for a local NGO, and I'd love to replicate the experience with Key2theCity.

So here's what I am looking for.

If you are a venue, or a performer, or a place that could offer an item or gift certificate for a raffle, shoot me an email at keys2keys@gmail.com. In the past these events have been a TON of fun and have raised a good amount of money, I just want to keep the love flowing through this blog itself.!

And I'll be posting details as soon as I have them for all you readers looking for love. And YOU, my loves, will get to vote on where the money goes, so stay tuned for that as well!

xoxo,

L.A.

The Thirteenth Date

2010-08-16T22:12:00.000-07:00

Sadly it didn't happen on Friday the 13th, and you may be able to guess how it ends but I'm hyper and awake and it's past midnight so what else is there to do but post?! Here goes!

The Time: Tuesday, August 10th, 2010, 8:05pm
The Guy: "Phil" met on Okcupid (where else?!)
The Place: Gleason's Gym, 77 Front St, Brooklyn, NY
What Creative Time Says: Like all lockers, this one is yours as long as your lock is on it.

This post is, perhaps, too far removed as it happened one week ago and the buzz of the after glow is not coursing through my veins as I already know how the story ends. I skipped to the last page of the book and found that Charlotte died (ok ok, it's not that dramatic but you know what I mean!) and some of the fun of Wilbur's adventures are thus lost (and if I've lost you, well then, you seriously need to reexamine your childhood). But we forge on in blogging as we do our quest for love and so I will share my tale of "Phil" with you all.

In another twist of my usual style, I think I've found my metaphor before I've even begun. Usually, I write these posts and connect the dots towards the end, finding, I hope, a clever way to sign off which ties in the date and the man and the experience when I am almost finished writing but I think with "Phil" I've got it all figured out ahead of time: I had my boxing gloves on and my fists up before we even began. "Are you saying you wanted to fight, L.A.?" you may ask, but you would ask wrong, instead I was so covered and protected and ready to be beaten up that I didn't allow myself to really shine through. "Phil" (and I am going to stop using quotes now, you all get it's not his real name, yes? though he never did choose that pseudonym) does movie/tv/editing/I'm being purposefully vague work in Manhattan and has the greatest curly hair and the warmest smile in the universe. He caught me working on my cell past 8pm outside my all time favorite photo bookstore in DUMBO (yes my favorites here get that specific, I have a lot!) Power House Books. Part avante garde photo house, part camera shop, part gallery and performance space, pH has it all and tonight I awaited my first date with Phil (well, until my client called my cell, really need to do something about that) while listening to a half puetro-rican half irish woman describe growing up in the 70's in brooklyn. This is what I love about NY, you can't pass a corner without stumbling upon something that will make you smile.Apparently dumbo is extra magical in this sense. Phil mentioned he had heard music and we tore off in the direction of trombones until we stumbled upon, yes, a HIPSTER marching band. Ladies and Gentlemen, it brought tears to my eyes.

Gleasons Gym is a hot smelly wonderful sweatbox full of tough looking men and the women who beat the crap out of them. I felt like I stepped onto an actor's immersion set of some Rocky Balboa pic where the blood aint' fake and the tears don't come till you're alone in the shower. Men staged fights that must incur at least 15 bruises a minute on classic blue and red rings and here I was, little pixie in her hipster red t shirt and work skirt, holding out a key.

The locker, in its glory, revealed jump ropes (I did a double!) and hand tape (we couldn't figure out where our thumbs went!) and signs telling tourists to "go the F* away". Ha! Adventurous, giving, mean and playful, maybe here was my perfect man? Phil and I fake-boxed each other, took pictures of famous people and incredible 80's haircuts, and bought water to replace the gallons we had sweated out in the 15 minutes we were in the gym. Just try and tell me that's not a cute beginning.

And I felt I liked Phil, I really did! He was funny and cute and smart and playful, even if he was maybe too ashamed to be on a date with the key girl and didn't want his picture taken. But here was the problem! I had become The Key Girl. I had turned into that story that your friends read about and here he was on a date and here I was, feeling like I needed to be bouncy (which I was) and happy (which I felt) and refuse a second cup of coffee (which I did) because of what I felt someone else knew about me. And I was detached! I felt it! I tried to be charming and myself but I couldn't stop talking about the project and dating and I am sure I didn't make Phil feel as special as he totally is (the man has shook Obama's hand, enough said) when he had dinner at the delicious and delightfully concepted Rice restaurant (but skip the lemongrass salad, it was lacking in flavor!)This project, which was meant to put the FUN back into dating, and make the rejections hurt less, has perhaps provided me with a little too much extra padding (and not just because I've been eating too much good food, Ba-dum CHING!) No, instead, I've become prepped for the dates themselves to fail, ready to just love the date, enjoying from a distance before I could even get close to the fire.

Which is why it's not surprising that I received the following email in my inbox a few days later (Phil, if you read this, don't kill me!)

Hey Lauren
Hope the rest of your week has been good and you werent too tired at your early morning court appearance. I had a nice time with you tuesday night– that boxing gym was crazy, and the random hipster marching band? funny stuff. That said, I dont think that we should go out again, but i look forward to following your project on your blog and wish you the best.
Cheers
Phil

Which, you know, equals total bummer. And I am sure it could have been any number of things but really, it's probably that I have become too protected by the project. Too much of an outsider, too much of an observer. I'm living my life, to be sure, but am I living the dates and the connections with the men? As of now, unclear.

So guess what this gal decided to do? On Friday, I went on a date with a guy and didn't go to a key site (hit up one of my favorite first-date spots, Gowanus Yacht Club, which is uber cool and cheap and has pirogi!) and I didn't even tell my date about this project at all. And he still told me I seemed detached! (ok, maybe I was a little too invested in analyzing the couple next to us but who doesn't do that right?) Hmmm.

So that is how I found myself lying on my bedroom floor, surrounding by bathing suits, searching fruitlessly for my cutest purple bikini, in preparation for my big saturday date. A date like no other I had tried before. A date that would break all the rules. A date which you'll have to find out about by reading my next post. :)

Trying to take away the gloves and see what's on the other side!

L.A.

P.S. In case I don't get around to blogging my next adventure soon, here's a little preview:

The Hollywood Ending. Or, Moving Beyond.

2010-08-15T21:07:00.000-07:00

     I am blessed by many things in life and one of those things is that I live in an amazing apartment with a family I love in a gorgeous townhouse with a lovely garden in NYC from where I am writing this post. It is a late Sunday evening and the slightest of raindrops are falling on my shoulders (and hopefully not into my keyboard but I need a new computer anyway) and the sky is tinted orange and it's a perfect place to hear and smell and see and wonder. I have been blessed in this project this summer and all the love it has brought me. Even if it is not the kind of love I have expected. Even if that kind of love may not ever happen. Even if I feel pressure to find, but want to cry because I may not have, the Hollywood ending.

      Confession: I just got back from watching Eat, Pray, Love.

     Now before you go all hipster new york judgemental on me I would like to note that the majority of my movie money is spent on documentaries and clever indie films like Breaking Upward and The Lottery but every now and then I get sucked into a chick flick. And now I am terrified.

     I don't think I am going to find love. At least not this summer. Everyone keeps reminding me that it is already mid-August and states confused that I "haven't found someone yet" and that I "only have ten dates left" (I did two last week, I'll catch you up soon, promise) and I know that everyone so badly, myself included, wants me to have this perfect hollywood ending where I ride off on a boat or a plane or the staten island ferry with a wonderful feminist 28 year old man who speaks fluent spanish and runs his own NGO empowering youth in NYC and who doesn't mind I'm the girl from the New York Times article who is silly about her life and deadly serious about her job and we kiss and everyone in the theater's eyes well with tears.

     Sort of the opposite of what this project was meant for has started to happen, I have begun to take the pressure off the dates to the extent that there isn't any pressure left at all. On Tuesday I went out with Mark who, I could tell, viewed the date as a fun idea but not something that would equal long lasting love, I am sure, in part, because he was with the key girl. This prompted me to go on a date with Chris and not even do the key experiement at all and ended up analyzing and talking about other people dating so much that he told me I seemed "detached" from the whole process. Even yesterday, when I took myself on date number fourteen, I found myself flirting with cute travelers from Germany and giving out my number to a could-have-been Jersey Shore member from Brooklyn because of the story it all creates. And while I am focused on this story I am not actually creating my own. And I blame Hollywood for a lot of that.

     When I was younger and in a relationship with Jared, the love of my teenage life, I used to imagine he would be hiding behind my door with roses when I got home on a really bad day. In my head, "Matt", my ex with whom I royally screwed things up years ago, would have realized by now what I mean to him and how I've changed and I'll find him on my front stoop and we'll share a passionate kiss, preferably in the rain, before he says he's loved me all along. According to the Rom-Com's, Cheese guy from the deli would have already slided some adorable yet quirky token through my mailslot in order to ask me out and, by now, I should have met at LEAST seven soulmates who I should be trying to choose from.

     In Eat Pray Love Liz, now played by Julia Roberts, finds her love in Indonesia and she is "rescued" in a sense from her year of unbalance, her time without sex, her lack of love. I remember being in Bali over two years ago and running tipsy on the beach with a dear though still relationship undefined friend of mine and his friend with whom I had shared some romantic connection. We stripped down to our bathing suits, avoiding fisihing lines and guided by the moonlight and dove into the warm welcoming water. I remember swimming out until the water was at my neck, holding my breath, and sinking my knees to the sand. I allowed the waves to crash over me as my body went limp, tumbling and tossing in the waves, feeling like jello pudding moving through the sea.

       I was, I believe, waiting for someone to come to my rescue.

      Not that I was actually in any danger (I used to be a lifeguard after all) but something made me believe that being weak and vulnerable and sad was what made men fall in love with you. Maybe it's because men in my life have been drawn to my darker side, maybe I've had too many breakups after I kicked a guys ass skiing down a mountain or in my career, or on a stupid test in fifth grade (that's for you Ian!) but I always thought that if I just opened myself more, just let them see how much I needed them, just became a little more sad, my love would appear and come, "to my rescue." In Eat Pray Love, the movie, Liz/Julia gets sideswiped by her man, yes, but he later shows up with her shoes after a near-encounter with an STD from another guy. We are told that the unbalance of love leads to the balance of life and this new man is what brings it to her. Or, as my friend Suraj who was dragged to the film with his girlfriend and was complaining about it's length put it,

     "We get it, in order to get over a guy you fall in love with another one."

      I love a good romance as much as the next girl and my DVD collection is stored with all the classics, and I know I am not saying anything new but that I know I need to let go. It's a lovely fantasy but it's not for me. I think there is a great chance, much to the dismay of the artist Paul who told me he felt I'd find love, and my readers who are rooting for me, and, if I am to be honest, my very own heart. And I have to admit that even as I am writing this my brain is ticking with "oooo! but now if you let go of it, you'll definitely find it soon!" (Kantian in it's own way but I doubtfully effective in the real world) which is, of course, a hollywood trope (see He's Just Not That Into You for a most recent example).

      I just want to be more PRESENT in my life and the dates and the moments. I am so present with every seashell, every key hole, every surprise I find and yet, oddly, with the men I've detached myself. If I don't fall in love at first sight with birds tweeting and a musical number (see Enchanted) I tell myself this must not be it and enjoy my own adventure, happy to have a partner in crime, but waiting until the next guy comes along because, after all I'm looking for George Clooney and this is not it. But what if I let go of it all? What if I welcome in the possibility that the summer may just be one of fun and not that of love? What if I remove the ideal of some perfect hollywood ending, the perfect hollywood guy, my somehow turning into the, as my ex "Matt" put it, the "cute quirky girl from a romantic comedy."

   I'm just me and this is my story and I'm going to love it even if it isn't what Hollywood had in mind.

     The rain has stopped falling and my laptop is, thankfully, still humming away. My chamomile/mint tea has begun to cool and the neighbors windows above mine are darkening as lights and eyes close. I'm pulling on a sweatshirt to ward off the breeze from my skin but welcoming it weave through my hair and soon I too will go to sleep. And for once, I'm not going to picture any dream I hope to have. This time, I'm going to be happy and open with what comes along.

Open,

L.A.

Progress!

2010-08-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight was a lovely night, a lovely night indeed.

It was rainy and I was ruminating and marinating of thoughts on my mind and I could have curled up at home but no my friends, NYC called as did my wonderful new friend Andrea. Andrea and I met in true NY fashion when I was hosting trivia night and her boyfriend brought her along and we just CLICKED. Clicked in a way I haven't just clicked in a while with someone, like legos when they finally snap into place. Snap! Ah, yes, that feels right. Thus began a delightful fizzy beginning of a long string of romantic friend dates (picnics on the hudson, mojitos in Brazilian gardens, etc) which greatly confuse her boyfriend.

Tonight, it was jazz.

I ventured in the rain and my amazing "new" (read hand me down) black back-zipper pants to Cafe Vivaldi at

32 Jones St, not far from where Andrea and I live blissfully close to one another, to see the Dymaxion Quartet a delightful band of Andrea's former drum teacher, a bassist, a trumpeter, and one very cute saxophone player (seriously, it is impossible for me to go anywhere and not fall in love with someone's eyes and talent). Here's what I like about jazz: hearing the notes makes me feel as if I am being extended a massive box of crayola crayons and walls turn white and colorable and I scribble drawings all over them in time wit h the notes. Yellow exclamation dots and blue concentric circles, green boxes, red bursts over black lines. When I listen to jazz I close my eyes and lose myself in the musings on the music and the creations created in live audible color. I can paint a picture and out of the picture comes a story and out of the story lives my life and it grooves and bops with my ebbs and flows.

Andrea and I ordered a mini bottle of champagne, toasted to ourselves, and settled into an evening of choose your own adventure style music with audience interaction, song-name wit (ie Wollman's Rink: No one ice skates angry, this tune's no exception), and, did I mention, a very cute wedding-ring less saxophone player.

You may think, "oh, I bet she dates the saxophone player and brings him to the Louis Armstrong house!" but not tonight my friends, tonight was about me and Andrea and the jazz and our fizzy lovely drinks.

BUT, there is a reason this entry is called progress which I think many an NYC gal can relate (and perhaps anywhere where one walks home alone from an evening out) and that involves the dreaded WALK HOME IN SILENCE. You may not know it but apparently walking a mere ten minutes alone without headphones is the time where I call men in my life that I probably should not be calling. Exes I am not yet 100 percent over, men who live hundreds of miles away with whom there could be a spark. It's just filler and it's embarrassing but it's an activity I have honed my skills incredibly well in over the years in new york and walking home after an evening on the town.

But not tonight! No, tonight, instead, the music continued to play in my mind and I breathed air into my marinations from the day (my new mantra? I wish us peace.) and called, instead of voids where I wished love existed, those who I do love and who love me already. Sally and Kim and Travis and David and others not previously mentioned in this blog, and then I tip toed among the rain drops and wished for peace in myself and in others while jazz music played in my head. A simple step, yes, and one I've taken before, but not so deliberately and conscientiously as tonight.

"Borrowed moments of fleeting serenity"

L.A.

The Twelfth Date

2010-08-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

Whooaaaaa we're halfway there, who-a! Living on a Prayer! That's right folks we are exactly halfway through this crazy Key to the City dating game, combining locks and keys and New York and men, all to find what exactly? My next true love? My next relationship? My, let's be honest here, first ADULT relationship? Or just to strengthen my bond further with my adorable and smoking HOT city. Only time can tell. But for now let's rejoice in getting to that halfway point and pray that I'll round it out by labor day. Time is ticking so let's go!

The Time: Saturday, July 31st, 1:25pm.
The Place: The Point Community Development Corporation, 1391 Lafayette Ave, The Bronx
The Guy: Omer, 28, met online, natch, at Okcupid.
What Creative Time Says: You can make artwork while participating in this artwork.

I was perhaps, more excited for this date than any other. Omer and I had shared a delightful repartee online involving discussions about hulualu and the Phantom Tollbooth. Our online flirtation began when I "winked" at him which some would say is a no no (girls are meant to be winked at, not winking themselves) but of course I ignore all gender-based dating rules and jump right into the fire myself, both feet forward, eyes wide open. Plus, Omer is a teacher in the Bronx, working with kids with special needs and my own children's rights heart took a double beat on the prospect of discussing education in our country, perhaps while hopping through some child's hopscotch drawing on the Bronx streets. Yes, I may be just a little bit crazy but these fun visions are what get me revved up for the endless legion of first dates I go on!

I was also excited about this date because Omer chose to visit The Point whose rusted door hides an interactive art project. Let's get really meta about this, I was using public art, to create my own personal art, which is in itself relational, BY making physical art. Whoa, was your mind just blown? Because mine was!
Omer and I met up by the Hunts Point Ave 6 train stop, which, I should point out, took me three differnet subways to get to after my morning brunch in Park Slope (first time riding the new M train, yea yea!) Once I got off the train there was a wide open space with racks and racks of colorful discount clothing, a sparse yet existent farmers market, and music blasting from pully cart speakers next to men selling Icee on the street. Now THIS is what I call NYC in the summer.

Omer and I walked towards the community center and he had a surprisingly wonderful sense of direction and sense of purpose. Later, Omer told me that Hunts Point is actually one of the most dangerous in NYC, but on this day I just revealed in the open fire hydrants (I think I scared off kids when I ran my hands and feet through them myself, squealing with delight), baby Chihuahuas on the street, and the fact that I now knew where a rocking episode of This American Life: Middle of the Night, took place. I will definitely be back one day at 2am to check out the fruit vendors in insomniatic action!

But today we were here for the Point Community Development Corporation and after winding down steep hills and past giant warehouses and seemingly empty train tracks, we came upon a lovely patch of land featuring fountains to play in, grilling quinceanera participants and yes, even free boating every Saturday in handmade wooden boats. Omer and I chatted with the people who ran the project, asking about the possible involvement of our various youth groups, before the delightful Cici lead us towards a giant locked wall full of rusted industrial machinery serving as art. From there we walked inside an open space where boats were made and youth empowered, past a bright garden featuring fresh basil and to the very door itself. Turning the key and opening the door, we came into our very own Pollack-esque art wonderland, a sanctuary of a shack right here in NYC.

Once you open the door an EXPLOSION of primary colors rushes up and greets you hello like your new family in a foreign exchange program in high school. Everywhere they call "look at me! look at me!" and you just want to dip your hands into a huge vat of blue and place your handprints everywhere, shaking hello with the art like a train-caboose politician. Paint and newspaper and paper and crayons lay open to your disposal, to add onto the already existent art or make your very own imprint on the space. Omer and I climbed rickety ladders, helped add onto rainbows, and made paper mache hearts before being greeted two fantastic women on their own exploration. Bonus, they were on a date! Double bonus, they met on okcupid too! Triple bonus, they had read my blog! It was a match made in funny connection BRONXNYCKEY connections. Obviously, we had to take the below picture!

I've begun to notice that I'm not the only one using these keys as a way to find love. Shelley and her date actually made their first encounter in Times Square while receiving the keys and countless others have expressed their self-love, searches for love, and symbolism of love on the pages and walls of the point art shack. People wrote, on the walls, both the cheesy (smile more because you never know who is falling...) the touching (whoever you are just know that I love you), the personal and silly (psst-don't tell the G-meister that I am in love with him, he makes me smile <3) and even, perhaps a reference to this very blog!!!

(Excuse me for a moment, "Empire State of Mind" with Jay-Z just came up on my ipod, I must dance around my living room now.

Back. :) So after making some art of our own, (I had to create the above giant heart, yes, sometimes I even make myself nauseous but you've got to put sunshine in the universe if you want it to come back!) we walked off in search of the point cafe, promised to lie just up a hill. Omer and got a little lost, made some mechanics a little confused, and talked about our various travels in Guatemala. Finally, we reached the gate of The Point to find it locked. Hungry and sweaty, we were at least somewhat amused by a very bitchy newswoman attempting to shoot a story about a killing in the area. I wish you could see her outtakes.

Luckily, I had checked out Creative Time's website where Carey Clark, who I assume is linked to the project, actually posted her PERSONAL cellphone number to assist us wander-lost key holders as we explored her neighborhood. I called her and she answered right away and directed us towards Real Azteca, not five minutes away. We were definitely the only gringos in the place and the children definitely stared at me with more than a little curiosity (who is this girl in a sundress loudly delighting in the carved pictures of a man eating another's heart?) which added to our adventure feel. We HEAVILY over-ordered (my parents always told me my eyes were bigger than my stomach) but the food was so darned good, cheesy and bright with cilantro with tortillas to make you melt into their corn-thick goodness, that we were soon both leaning back into our chairs and rubbing our bellies.

After filling ourselves to burs, we headed down to central park where I do acroyoga as often as I can. Omer and I discussed the over-medication of kids, charter schools, (can you sense a theme?) and sibling relations (he has a twin!) before we parted ways after an hour of yoga with the kindest people in NYC. Seriously, if the acroyoga bunch isn't filled with love of the universe I don't know who is.

Though it was an utterly fantastic perfect NYC day, I told Omer a few days later that I didn't think we worked in the romantic sense. He is, like almost all the guys I have met on this project, incredibly nice and smart and, perhaps more than anyone else I have yet met on this journey, I respected and admired his career and contributions to the world. Our energy levels, however, were just a bit off (perhaps I am getting to yogi for my own good but what can you do?) Omer is quiet and unassuming in a wonderful zen way but my mad-paced tea party view of the world doesn't always jive (though I often wish it would.) I dated a guy in college whose stillness when we were together calmed the chaos of my soul (not an easy feat!) but sometimes I get self-conscious when my yips and bounces are met with quiet which is, admittedly, my own fault and no one elses.

But though there was not a love connection, this was a perfect example of why the project works and how I hope it will influence dating generally. No, I probably won't end up marrying Omer but the day was one of my best yet of the summer, full of creation and spontaneity and really really good Quesadillas. Just try and beat that with a first date at a bar with a beer.

Playing in hydrants and dancing in my living room in Sunday morning P.J.'s,

L.A.

PS. This blog post is dedicated to my sassy gay friend Anthony who, if he hadn't overslept on our brunch date, would've never allowed for the time for me to finally write this overdue post!

Only in New York

2010-08-04T20:55:00.000-07:00

Only in New York can you have a stressed day,
full of clients and motions, phone messages at bay
Get home late, go to exchange some cheese
The kind they gave you was not what you please

Only in New York can you head round the block
After cranking AC till the heat wave is stopped
Skip into a deli, walk to the meat section
Look to your left and make a connection

Only in New York is there such witty banter
Of utensil stealing, rhythmic as a cantor
You wait in the aisle pretending to look for a sweet
Step behind him in line, your eyes again meet

Only in New York do you share the same road
Yappie puppies and hipsters, last night's pie a la mode
Line the street as you exchange your names and professions
Makes you realize why pick ups are such an obsession

Only in New York, may all this take place
Unless, of course, you allow for the space
For only in new york, though true as it may be
Is really, just an open, possibility.

Stay tuned for updates from this delightful little adventure, brought to you by L.A. and the deli counter folks who accidentally gave her American, instead of cheddar, cheese.

Happy Monday!

2010-08-02T10:00:00.001-07:00

Hey Guys!

Happy Monday! According to my fancy google-analytics device, most of you read this blog during the week, most likely while you are at work! I hope I am able to give you a nice little respite from your return form the weekend. I know Mondays can suck, with their piled up voicemails and early wake up times (I just bought a sound deck to wake up to an actual song of my choice, I know I am behind the times on this and it's not new but it is to me!I am almost PSYCHED to wake up tomorrow! Ha!), but, as my dear friend David (aka Boston Guy, writer of THIS witty-commentary blog) once said "Mondays are days too, cause you can't go through life hating 1/7th of the week!" He even made me the wonderful sign (and posted it on my Freshman dorm door) pictured on your left (oddly sideways...).

This weekend I spent Saturday exploring the The Point in the Bronx with Omer, a brand new date and one of my favorite sites so far! I don't have time tonight to post about the date but here's a sneak peak from Shelly, the rocking woman we met on our adventure (she was on a date too! this project is truly fantastic!)

Here! Click here!

Keep rollin',

L.A.

How To Be Alone

2010-08-01T15:49:00.000-07:00

Admission: This project is tough! It involves free time and effort, and smiles and un-understanding friends and supportive and curious minds. It's made me get out and explore on days when I think I'd rather stay in bed and have to hear (and say) hard words on this path. Today, on this lovely rainy Sunday, while I fold laundry and calmly rock out to my new Sony Speakers, I'm reflecting also on how it's hard that I haven't FOUND "the one" (or, ok, since I don't believe in that, a possibility) yet. Part of me imagined that the second I flung this out in the universe Mr. Could-Be would jump out of the bushes, (ah ha! You found me! Here I am!) and the summer would turn into an adventure, and blooming, of a relationship (I know, I still believe in magic, so sue me) And, as you know, that has not happened yet. Don't get me wrong, I love the adventure, the sites, the wonder, the magic of the key-turn, but I'm sure all you readers, as well as myself, were hoping for more re-peat visitors.

As I ponder this, "Again and Again" by the Bird and the Bee playing in the background, my amazing friend Kim comes through once again with sharing this gorgeous video entitled "How To Be Alone." It's a visualization of the beautiful caramel-apple like poem by Tanya Davis, the rockstar Canadian poet who performs the piece herself. I think "How To Be Alone" encapsulates everything sad and lovely and melancholy and tip-toe-terrific about being alone even when, "Society is afraid of alone though. Like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements. Like people must have problems if after awhile no one is dating them." Her words are wonderful and her accent, added to this whimsical animation, just can't help but make you smile.

Watch this on this pretty gray Sunday.

Perhaps the only thing better than being alone (when you allow it and acknowledge it and treasure it) is being with a love, and being alone and with someone at the same time. Those quiet moments where you both sip your tea, waking in the morning, rousing from sleep and finding someone's arm on your back. Truth be told, these moments exist more in the fictional realm of my memory (movies and novels and the like) than in past history, but I know it's out there. And I know it's worth waiting for.

One half of one of the most delightful couples I have ever met (seriously, they just SHINE), after reading my Pleasures of Being Single post, wrote to me the following email:

"I read your blog entry about the pleasures of being single and it really resonated with me. I think it's totally true what you say about it allowing space and time to explore yourself and the world around you. The only thing better than being single, in my opinion, is being with someone who's really a perfect match for you (which is what we're all looking for ultimately, right? at least, most of us are). I feel like my fiancee and i are lucky enough to have that, for which i'm incredibly thankful, but it took a long time to find each other. And I have to say, learning to enjoy the waiting -- and the searching -- made the finally finding each other even sweeter."

How's that for inspiration?

Enjoy this day, and those you love, and who love you, and yourself most of all.

Love,

L.A.

The Eleventh Date

2010-07-30T21:51:00.000-07:00

The Time: Saturday, July 24^th, 12 30 pm

The Guy: Scott, the dashing daring dater from date 10

The Place: Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn

What Creative Time Says: Only a small fraction of the public collection is visible on these walls- the rest of the collection is in storage.

Alright, maybe not the most lyrical description in the universe from our friends at CT but no matter, Saturday was a hot one and I was ready to spend the afternoon in the cool cool A.C. of the Brooklyn Museum!

Scott, my new interest from the tortilla spectacular that was date ten, and I decided to meet at Greenmarket, one of Brooklyn’s best farmer’s market located just steps from the museum at Grand Army Plaza. We were both sticky with sweat by the time we met (thank god it was mutual, I seriously considered hopping in a fountain before I met up with him but I figured that may be harder to explain than just, uh,it was hot…) under the shaded tree while a performer danced along a giant marionette puppet.

There have been many an afternoon where I’ve feasted on the fresh riches available at the Greenmarket and Saturday was no different. From smelling fresh peaches to photographing rutabaga, popping blueberries into our mouths and sampling pickles from Rick's Picks (will one of you marry me? Please? It is my dream to be a pretty princess for a proper pickle prince), the market is a feast for the eyes, ears and, of course, mouth.

Scott and I settled on a loaf mushroom ciabatta bread from Bread Alone and a heavenly tri-sampler of Lynnhaven goat cheese and found refuge in the shade by the Brooklyn Museum. We made friends with a very inquisitive four year old, discussed the delights of Prospect Heights (Scott’s a newbie, whereas half my friends from High School live in the area including this amazing blogger of the 'hood), and covered ourselves in flour from the freshly baked bread.

From there it was on to the museum! I think I cried a little bit inside when we entered the plated glass turning doors and were met with a delightful slap-in-the-face of roaring AC, like a really bad smell that overcomes you all at once, but this time in the best way possible. We greeted the Rodin sculptures (his garden in Paris is one of my favorites in the world) and entered the museum.

Today had a particularly fun challenge as my Key To The City Passport had been sucked into the giant black hole of my apartment-post-vacation and was nowhere to be found. Thus, we had no idea where the keyhole was! It was like a wonderful museum caper (Mixed Up Files anyone?) and Scott and I were partners in crime, searching out oil paintings of dead people, who would lead us to THE KEY.

I was hesitant to see what my next institutionalized experience would be like because in The Met, as you know, I struggled to see how the project intersected with a strict museum foundation. Brooklyn, however, in a somewhat more sweeping comparison, tends to be a tad wonkier, and friendlier, museum and borough (they have a whole room here for student art, and a feminist-centric wing to boot!) Adding the search made it a true joy.We spent the afternoon dashing through rooms only to be tugged by a painting, a photographer, or sculpture that caught our eye, was a jolly way to see the museum, as if every piece was a siren like distraction on our journey; Warhol battling with the Ancient Egyptians for our attention, trying to tempt us from the American Period Section. I could have spent the entire day imagining myself playing with Noah’s Ark wooden figurines in the meticulously curated 19^th century drawing room, (not to mention laughing at the 1852 painting entitled, literally "The Reprimand: Ah you naughty fawn you have been eating the flowers again!") but our fate and destiny awaited!

Finally, upon reaching the very top floor, I found it: the two stern looking portraits sidling an unassuming door with one key hole. Martha and George’s eyes were cleverly averted away from the site, so as not to draw attention to the wonder but Scott and I were too schooled in this game and we POUNCED on our enemy with vigor and stealth. The door was ours to open, AH HA, and the Russian secrets (they're everywhere!!!) inside, involving diamond-bedecked dandelions and miniature stern-looking bears, twinkled in the concealed glow of a jewel-heist’s glass case.

The adventure ended with a trip through the future, a place where paintings and textiles, bicycles and old

forks, are chronogenically frozen (or at least put into really sick boxes) until they are needed again in the museum’s rotation. Scott and I flashed the secret currency signs to ensure safe passage of the priceless collection: all in a day’s work.

And….back to reality.

Can you tell I had fun? I most absolutely did. Scott is a very sweet, funny guy who clearly loves diving into life as much as I did. I realized at the end of the date, however, that I was possibly relying too much on the key, the journey, the adventure, to create the spark of a romantic connection between us. As much as I wished and wanted to say “ah ha! Found him! I can finally take a break from searching all of New York to line up a few dates!” I knew that it wasn’t really the case and it's super hard to admit that to myself, but sometimes you've gotta suck it up and face facts. If I held everything in a magnifying glass I would see that, as attractive and delightful as Scott is, we really didn’t have that much in common, aside from getting excited about everything in sight. (Scott, if you are reading this, you are totally kick ass in every way, promise! Darn sparks getting in the way!) I guess that’s the wonder of NYC though: you can share any moment with any one person and have it turn into a swashbuckling adventure, even if for the afternoon.

At some point though, you’ve got to step back into the sweltering heat, roll up your sleeves, and get sweaty once more. And the sun was certainly shining as I re-entered Manhattan.

Eating Flowers,

L.A.

Oh My God It's Been a Week

2010-07-29T21:59:00.000-07:00

A week without blogging! Not that I assume you are all waiting on what is happening with my love life but apologies to the existence of this project nonetheless. Soon I will post about date eleven which took place last Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum with the delightful Scott and I've got another date lined up for the weekend to one of the key sites I am most excited about of all!

Other than that my last week was spent running into Western, MA to paddleboat by moonlight with high school friends, wishing everyone and their mother "congrats (endless exclamation point!)" on facebook for getting engaged, happening upon art gallery openings in Soho and CD releases in DUMBO, and even, finally, cleaning out my suitcase from CA (yes, I too realize this is insane as I got back almost two weeks ago).

So, in short, my lovelies, expect updates soon and have the most fabulous weekend of all time.

Love,

L.A.

The Pleasures of Being Single

2010-07-22T21:55:00.000-07:00

                Tonight, while watching a dreadfully amazing TV show on Hulu (I have no TV and a 13 hour workday today called for some mind candy entertainment), something sparked in me the immense pleasure of being single (ok the "something" was a gay plot line involving a spring break cruise but it was still a spark!) I don't necessarily mean the love yourself love your time with yourself areas of being single (though those are meaningful in a very Eat, Pray Love sort of way) but the FUN, the candy cane swirl skippy and ironic Katy Perry California Gurl video times of being a single woman (yes, in Manhattan, but anywhere at all really).

              Being single means possibility. It means that every guy in your vicinity, be he subway pole sharer or skinny jean wearer, grabbing his luncheon of meat or passing by on the street, every one is the potential to be your next great love. Or, your next great date. Or your next great oh-my-god-that-guy-smiled-at-me-on-the-street-and-I-am-totally-stalking-him-on-Craigslist-missed-connections. Being single means flirtatious looks in a coffee shop and fantasizing about what the guy reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being really thinks about Milan Kundera (I preferred the book of laughter and forgetting myself). It means flipping off your shoes and diving headfirst into a cartwheel in central park hoping he'll notice and pointing out men at brunch before dissolving into giggles with your girlfriends. It means controlling your future because it's yours to shape or choosing to let go completely because life could bring you any possible surprise. Being single means first dates and first kisses, first text messages and phone calls. It's going through every single possible outfit in your closet until your bedroom floor embodies a child's kaleidoscope eye and curling your hair into the curly Q's you always wanted since you watched Shirley Temple at age 6. It's loving the moments without feeling guilty and being sunshiney-freely open to that passing dandelion tuft and this penny on the street and their very cute green eyes.

          Too often the stories of single women become plights of "finding the one," as if the entire point of being single is waiting for the next bus on the road to marriage is going to pick us up. I utterly admit to sometimes being exhausted with looking for the next big thing, the next man to know how I like my iced hazelnut coffee and to whom I don't have to explain the ins and outs of my work. (Admission, I emailed "George" again, I couldn't help it! I give up and admit I am really not so cool at this whole like thing). Sometimes I fear I choose to become relationship-ized (new fun word! I just made it up!) with men who I ultimately know aren't for me because of just wanting something to work out. Society tells us that is our end goal after all and even the books about single women almost always end up with a male lead towards the end. Someone please make the indie-rocker chick flick movie I like the best that ends with a happy fulfilled single woman who states the fact proudly that she has no man(s) without a "but" following implying the first half of the sentence needs some sort of qualification to make it ok. ie "I am single but I learned how to rock climb", or, "I am single but at least I got this new cute puppy." No! Just, I am single. Period. Or even an exclamation point, or two.

           I think I forgot for a moment that this is what this quest is supposed to be about. Not finding a man but loving being single and the adventures and stories of those I meet on the way. Of unlocking keys and becoming giddy at dead fish and flirting (god it's just so darn fun to flirt, it just IS) with men and the city and life itself. It's not about loving a city or a person or yourself but loving life and catching every moment of it.

          And, we've got to admit, that's a heck of a lot easier sometimes when you're single. Period.

Punctually correct,

L.A.

PS. This blog post is dedicated to my amazing friends, Sally and Kim, both of whom have far beyond fulfilled their requisite gchat-about-a-guy hours in the name of friendship.Though neither of them are single at the moment, I could not imagine New York without them. You both teach me how to find pure-spun joy in every, every, moment.

Fingers Crossed

2010-07-21T21:42:00.000-07:00

Hello my dear readers,

Today, this very day, I am asking something from all of YOU! That's right, I've been giving you mild entertainment as you take those "click breaks" during work and I'm asking for a little help in return. I'm hoping that somewhere out in the universe someone MIGHT have an extra ticket to the Moth Grand Slam this upcoming Wednesday at the Highline since I sat on my too long to buy one and my recent addiction to their podcast needs real life feeding.

Anyone? Anyone?

What I need to give something up?

Alright, Alright!

Below, please find my most favorite FREE things to do with your summer in NYC, enjoy! More will come if I score a ticket!

XOXO

L.A.

Floating Kaberette at Galapagos Art Space (Saturdays)

Hudson River Movies (Wednesday and Friday Nights)

Anything in the Garden at 6th Street and Ave B

Asssscat3000 Comedy (Sunday Nights)

Bryant Park Movies (Monday Nights)

Moondance Dancing on the Hudson (Sunday Nights)

Movies on the Elevated Acre

Broadway Stars Softball League

And, of course, all the ways to see Shakespeare:

In the Park On the Run In the Parking Lot

The Tenth Date

2010-07-19T21:59:00.000-07:00

I am back from CA and ready to dive into the dating adventures of L.A. in New York, or, as this is more commonly known K2TCK2MH (yes, my friend actually typed all of that into a text message, I am now an acronym ;)) Admission: my computer always shuts down when I write these posts (need a new one so badly!) and I am running on 8 hours of sleep over the past two nights and have court at 7 30 (yes, 7 30!!!) am but it's simply been too long since I've filled you in on my adventures. Let's hope I get this done before midnight as tonight I visited one of the sites I have been craving to check out from the start...Tortilleria Nixtamal!

The Time: Monday, July 19th, 6: 20pm
The Group: My wonderful reader Melanie, her fiancee Bob and their very cute single friend Scott, 25.
The Place: Tortilleria Nixtamal, 104-05 47th Ave., Queens, NY
What Creative Time Says: At home as well as in the world, some of the best rooms are not for the guests.

Tonight was my first date back in NY, my first date with a New Jersian, and my first date met through this very blog! Melanie, a super cute, fun, and bubbly girl, took me up on my offer to get a copy of my key if she set me up with a male friend and then doubled with us on the date. Though she currently lives in NJ she confessed a love exploring NY and described Scott in the following manner:

25, web analyzer, karaoke singer, marathon runner with a heart of gold and an endearing lisp.

Come on, who wouldn't want to go on a date with this guy?

Seriously, I should start a dating website where we all describe our friends (Recommendedbyme.com?). In just one sentence we've got kind, employed, quirky, athletic and adventurous, how could I possibly say no?

Due to my 5pm meeting in Queens being canceled I was running early for once and decided to catch a bus (yes, a bus, I just love looking out the window!) to Flushing's Chinatown so I could try the "best" Zhenzhunaicha, or bubble tea as you laowai know it, as raved to me by a client at Taipan Bakery in Flushing. Ladies and gentlemen, I not only found the under-$2 hamburger, but the mecca of not-too-sweet-with-perfectly-textured-tapioca-balls bubble tea. Just elbow your way through all the old ladies and you're golden.

I zipped on the seven to Corona, listening all the while to RJD2 who I love and gets me in meeting new people mode and headed over to Tortilleria stopping on the way to smell fresh bread, taste piragua, and take in the sights of another world within NYC. TN, as I am now calling it, looks like a giant sunflower of color on an otherwise quiet residential street and when I walked inside I spotted not only a lime green wide-brimmed hat AND party pinatas, but also a giant wonderlike willa wonka machine perched in the window. I peered around the room, wondering what the key could possibly open, until Melanie and Bob walked into the restaurant.

You know when you see couples and you think, "Yup, peanut butter and jelly." ? That's kind of how it is with Melanie and Bob who just FIT. Right away they were filling in each others sentences, teasing easily and cutting one another off to finish stories in perfect sync. They were easy to be around, and added to the fun, in total: the perfect couple to double date. Scott followed soon after and instantly you just know that this guy is up for anything. Maybe it's the pierced ears or intriguing scars, or maybe it's just his instantly warm yet mischievous smile but I knew right away how Melanie found someone to be roped into such a crazy adventure as a double blind date with some random girl on the internet.

Our confused waitress kept coming by until we finally told her that we had the key to the city. She smiled, somewhat exasperatedly, and asked us to wait a few minutes before another woman, clearly the boss, came over to our table. To this, Melanie and I cheered which threw her only further into confusion (what were these white girls doing cheering in her tortilla shop?), don't worry, our group totally won her over by the end.

Our fearless leader, the boss as she will be known, led us to the back of the store where a white door covered in blue scribblings, clearly marking from our ancient key-ancestors, awaited. Scott plunged in the key, turned the lock and lead us to....a supply closet! But wait, there's more!

You know me, I'd probably be excited with just a broom closet, but peek your head further into the space and you will find a set of dairs plunging ominously down into darkness. Follow the faint glow of what lies beyond and the subtle yet distinct smell of ground corn and you find an entire workshop beneath the restaurant's floor! Bags upon bags of stacked hard white corn placed before a labyrinth of slides, chutes, tubes and vats of boiling hot water making NYC's only nixtamalization (real word!) machine!!!

We learned, we laughed, we almost had our skin burned off, and then, we MADE! Yes my friends, yours truly, little Mandarin speaking Gringa of NYC, was making her very own Tortillas out of freshly ground white corn from Illinois. I sucked at it, ok, we ALL sucked at it, they are tricky little buggers to perfect, but The Boss read all of our personalities in our own tortillas (multi-dimensional for Scott, whose Tortilla boasted a variety of textures, over-excited for me, as mine was, unsurprisingly, scorched). We signed our names on the now-squiggly worm blue door, and we headed upstairs to order the real deal.

Over mouth watering Tamales and scrumptious tacos (the delicately fried fish with lots of squirts from the slice of lime was my favorite) we discussed how Melanie and Bob met (the internet!) and got engaged (in NY!), Scott's work adventures to Korea, his new found love of obstacle marathoning (or did it have a different name? My brain cells are dying the closer I get to midnight!) and our tattoos (we all have two, minus Bob, who has none). We finally won our waitress over with horrible jokes and never ending smiles and ended the night sharing a rather large 40 of classic Mexican beer. Soon the two hour limit I set for myself had long since passed and the lights were turning off at Tortilleria Nixtamal, it was time to head back to my lovely little borough.

The double date experience was really fun, and I'll definitely try it again. I'm psyched to see, however, how the new dynamic duo of Tortilla making super heroes, Scott and Lauren, do one on one. perhaps on another date with a key. After all, I've got 14 more to go and I can't resist a tattooed guy who can make such a slammin' tortilla.

It's one am (but my computer only crashed twice during this post!) but I have to share that as I caught the E train home I opened my much-loved New York Magazine and found a whole section on Tortilleria in the magazine's annual cheap eats review. Living proof that love grows on love.

Rollin',

L.A.

Photos Photos Everywhere..

2010-07-15T00:41:00.000-07:00

...but no love of which to speak.

The amazing photographer, Piotr Redlinski (check out his work at http://www.redlinski.net) , sent me a link to the photos he took on my 2-3 and 6th dates, respectively an experience I still can't believe I actually had. (Kudos still to the guys who braved that particular adventure with me, you only live life once right and who can turn down the NYTimes? Not me.) The photos are, of course, bittersweet to look at, as you know nothing has worked out yet with the guys I have seen so far. My first instinct was to delete the link and run away from the thoughts of the dates. I'm trying to be more chill about these things (promise I am) and having photos to look over doesn't necessarily help.

BUT.

Then I remembered what was, perhaps, the biggest mistake of my life. When I was dating my high school sweetheart, love of my teenage life and now fantastic chef-to-be (maybe) in NYC (seriously, have him over to cook you his homemade mac and cheese, you'll DIE), Jared, digital cameras had not yet been invented (or had not yet reached the masses at least) so the pictures we had were taken by his parents or snapshotted by the two of us when we could get our hands on a camera. My senior year in High School, after we had broken up, his new love (?) told me some upsetting news about the summer before I went to China. I tearfully pulled out our pictures and said "but, doesn't he look like he loved me there?" "No," this unnamed girl told me, "it looks like he loves the camera." (Teenage girls are just so fun aren't they?)

You can guess what I did next, tore up practically every picture I had of the two of us into shreds of tree branches and disembodied eyes. It felt AMAZING at the time, exhilarating and liberating and naughty and wrong but I don't think there are few things I regret more than attempting to erase my past in that way. And there's a difference between letting go and forgetting there was once possibility in the air and that, I hope to never forget. It took me a long long time to get over Jared fully (he's one of my best friends now) but it would have been nice to always have the tangible reminders of the crazy Romeo and Juliet type love I once shared with him nearly a decade ago.

So, lesson of the day? Send all love letters, notes, pictures, etc to friends for safe keeping until you've reached the point of no-hurt-return and they can bring you smiles instead of tears. Oh, or just get a reporter to follow you on the dates so it will be kept in perpetuity until some fancier version of the internet comes along!

Learning,

L.A.

How to Lose a Guy... Part Two

2010-07-14T17:14:00.000-07:00

I wish I had my camera cord here so I could just post pictures to give you a visual journey of my day yesterday as it was one of the most visually stunning hikes I have taken in my entire life (running very close in line with Tiger Leaping Gorge in China which, if you visit China and miss this, you are missing out on one of the most spectacular experiences in the universe). Alas, the electronic device that brings what I saw to you all is stashed away in my Container Store shelves in NYC. For now, my words will have to do.

The morning started with a quick motorboat ride across Lower and Upper Echo Lakes just south of Lake Tahoe itself. There are few things that I find more simultaneously cleansing and exhilarating than a great, fast boat ride where I can lean over the front bow (or is it stern? clearly I'm not a boater), take out my hair and feel the wind whip as the scenery blurs along the side. I just love it more than I love a gigantic glass of iced tea and lemonade on a really really hot day.

My Dad and I were clearly the least prepared hikers making the journey, even the other day hikers had knapsacks and walking poles and since we didn't even realize we'd BE hiking until my dear friend Abby, with whom I co-ran Law Women in law school, told us this venture was a can't-miss for any visit to Tahoe. That is how you could find me in kid-size addidas sneakers (just bought for their cheapness as all I packed were flip flops, my one true clothing love aside from Tutu's) carrying a beach bag as we made the 3.5 mile hike to Aloha Lake. We got lost, my dad got a blister, and I added more red blotches to my already sunburned skin, but it was truly truly breathtaking.

You see, I'm obviously a city girl but I need a bit of country every now and then. I need to be reminded that beauty exists even without cultivation in the bouquets of wildflowers that bloom along country paths, to slide down snow in the middle of summer, and mostly to stare into the great untouched expanse that still exists in our over Macdonalized country. When we arrived at the Lake there was only one other group anywhere in eye or earsight and, after they left, it was if we were the two remaining survivors on this bizarre, glacial rock covered planet. Trees rose out of the water and the snow capped peaks melted into the pools by our feet. I lay on a rock and read Chuck Palahniuk's latest crazed venture into the human psyche and imagined prehistoric turquoise slinky creatures pulling me under the water as I swam to the opposite rock shore. It was awesome and magical and I am so glad they have not yet ruined it with a movie set.

This hike had a purpose, however, and I wasn't soon to forget it. I tend to venture off the paths, even if that path is the one thing protecting me from tumbling down a mobile rock/pebble wall into the awaiting lakes below, and soon I found the perfect spot; many many meters above my head stood an old twisted tree trunk, reaching forward, escaping from the live tree it was attached to, straining to point towards the lake from where I had come. I scrambled up the wall, waited upon the trunk and wrote the cheesy (but, I hope, cheesy in a good way like Fresh Mozzarella and not in a bad way like packaged Muenster) words:

Goodbye A, B, C, D, the mean parts of E, and all the others I have hurt or been hurt by in the process that is love.

A-E, of course, stand for the various men I could feel I needed to let go of. Either those for whom I had remnants of feeling but who I had been told would never let it return, those like George, for whom I kept questions that may never be answered, and those who had hurt me the most in this strange journey we call life. I tucked the paper under a rock perched under the tree, ensured it was secure, kissed it goodbye and traveled on.

Yes, this was a very Eat Pray Love moment for me but what is life if not a collection of little rituals we complete to make ourselves feel better (Aside from maybe brushing your teeth what does the rest really do) and I had gotten so stuck in a little funk about this I needed something big to shake it from my system. (In case you can't tell, I'm very into metaphorical change). I still feel sad for my losses and hurt I have created, but at least I now know it's out there in the world and not just buried in my heart.

Because sometimes past love, or even past possible but not yet attained love, can be a lot to carry by yourself. It's nice putting it somewhere for the time being.

Pictures when I return to NYC, which is in, countdown, three days!

A little lighter,

L.A.

How to Lose a Guy in One Vacation

2010-07-13T09:09:00.000-07:00

Perhaps lose isn't the proper term as I mean to kick this guy out of my memory lane without passing go or collecting two hundred dollars. I want to leave him locked inside a lobster trap at the bottom of Booth Bay Harbor Maine, or perch him under a boulder here in the woods of Lake Tahoe, California. Not him, of course, but the memory of him and the possibility and excitement I shared around him.

I'm talking here about one of the guys previously dated on one of these dates who, for google's sake, we'll call George (fingers crossed I don't actually meet a George on the rest of these excursions!) It's my fault really that I ended up beginning to fall (we're not talking cliff diving here, just peeking over the edge, getting excited about what's below, and getting ready to strap on a bungee cord) when he clearly wasn't available but gosh darn it if I didn't feel I just had to give it a try! So there were key dates and dinner dates and hudson dates and dinner dates. I got so tripped over my feet thrilled at finding someone passionate about what they do I ignored the heavily punctuated fact that he ended his work tales with "this is why I can't be in a relationship. I'm too busy." I threw away his signs of past heartbreak, his current closed-for-dating-business signs prominently hanging outside himself (they were practically neon for goodness sakes). But still, I'm bummed he couldn't at least have told me over an email, a text, gosh ANYTHING but the radio silence I've received for the past three weeks.

I fully recognize it's heartbreakingly difficult to have to tell someone you're not that into them and I am not at all claiming I am good at it. There is absolutely no right way to go about it and you're going to feel uncomfortable and awkward and probably more than a little bad about yourself. I don't tend to date people I dislike (a good practice I recommend heartily) which means I am often letting down nice guys. But come ON people, if you get the butterflies and delight and skipping-hopscotch feeling delights that come with meeting someone you DO click with, you're going to have to put up with the icky, mud sandwich moments that come with the territory as well. You can't just walk away from someone without saying a single word. Where do people get off believing that is OK?

Decent or not I'm here in California thinking of George and just wanting to rid my head of him. For the record, he's a great guy and it's not that I think he's the scum of the earth, just disappointed of actions took or not taken. Let it also be known that, yes, we had only been on 4 or so dates and no, I'm not crazy and saying I lost the love of my life. I'm just a slightly more deflated-balloon (think Winnie the Pooh when he goes honey hunting) because not only did I feel we had a possibility but also that it was ended so passively, presumably meant to only keep me guessing (Will he call today? Maybe that email is from him? Yes this sounds pathetic but you've all done it too!) until three weeks go by and I must guess that yes, he's either been eaten alive by one of those rabid raccoons running around central park or, I probably won't see him again. I also just can't stand , and I'm talking can't stand like you hate the the mean girls who tease your new bracelet in High School, the way that this inevitably makes me a drop more cautious, a drop less trusting and a spoonful more weary. I like my optimism verymuchthankyou and it's frustrated when someone comes along and messes with the whole layout.

So? What to do when you wake up with a case of the blues over a guy and you want to kick yourself for even caring but yet you have to acknowledge where you're at or you'll just knock yourself down further? How about living out a fantasy? Perhaps one listed at the top of your blog post. Put on some hiking shoes, climb to a remote spot in Tahoe, write down his name and stick it under a bolder;leaving him in CA so you're rested and rejuvenated and ready for action when you come back to NY. Pictures of the spot will be posted when I return this evening.

So, maybe it will be a good day after all.

But I still want my Calvin and Hobbes book back!!!

Cheering up,

L.A.

The (practically) perfect man

2010-07-11T09:55:00.000-07:00

I am writing this post from the apartment of the perfect man (and on his roommate's ipad which is tricky to use and does not allow me to spellcheck, just as a heads up.) I have found him here in california.
His name is Travis, he lives on 61st street in North Oakland CA with a charmingly composed roommate Mike. He is hilarious and kind, came to my rescue the moment I needed him, can talk about any subject for hours on end, plays foursquare brilliantly AND he may be the first man I have ever met to fully not care what anyone else thinks about him. When I'm with him I feel so at ease, have so much fun, and just become more enraptured with the world and the fabulous humans it can create. A weekend with Travis has been like picnicing on clouds ; beautiful and calming and so fantastical you feel like whooping in delightbefore biting into a watercress sandwich (because what other kind of sandwich would you take on a picnic to the sky?)

Two clarifications:

1) I didn't meet travis in california, I've known him since the fates brought us together in law school homeroom four years ago.
2) Travis likes men.

No this is a not a post of a single woman lamenting the fact that her perfect guy is gay (though I do find the object of my affection to be a delightful movie). Instead it's a realization of the fact that I do have someone, albeit someone who lives across the country with me, who emobodies so much of what I am looking for in the hetero variety. I tend to get anxious with friends and boyfriends alike about whether I am doing and saying the right thing much more so than with strangers ( yes, I know this is strange but I thank you for your concern, at least ut makes me a great FIRST date!) This obviously proves establishing relationships of any variety more taxing but with Travis our relationship just IS this wonderfully symbiotic union, I never have the same fears of losing him that so often plague my encounters with others. Travis and I, in fact, work almost too well as half our friends in law school were convinced we were dating, undoubtedly lowering both our odds of finding someone to whom we were actually atrracted.

Relationships are supposed to make us better. I want to be with someone who, instead of making me question the idea of attending a pig roast in a national park, dives right into judging a sauce contest with abandon and no napkins. People continuously ask me what my type is and while there are some features I seem unable to disentangle myself from, (brown haired hipsters who remain rather thin without ever attending the gym apparently is one) nothing is set is soap stone. Really you don't know squat until you're lost in the Bronx trying to find something to fill your hungry stomach. Which is why this project will hopefully lead to something meaningful, someone complimentary, and, maybe even some time that feels like picniking on a cloud.

The Updates (In Verse!)

2010-07-08T21:44:00.000-07:00

So many of you, myself included, are asking "so what has happened with all these guys whom you discuss so eloquently on your blog"? Well, my friends, I do believe it would be entirely unfair to lay out the ups and downs of each guy, as they were certainly not signing up for a dissection of their summer loves, just mine. Thus, as there have been nine dates nine different guys, I've composed the below poem for your enjoyment regarding each of their status in my love life. Long story short, I'm still looking. Apologies in advance for my dorkiness, putting things is verse just makes things more delightful.

Eight Little Men, in NYC

Eight little men in NYC
Eight chances at love
Eight chances at glee
Their only common denominator?
Me

One man was a delightful,
Sweet, pondering, not a boast
Too bad he's set on living
In the opposite coast

Another had style
But there wasn't a spark
Though he was dapperly dressed
Inside Bryant Park

Another full of pizazz
And stories and lore
Took too long to make contact
I think him I did bore

One was not a man
But a dear loving friend
At least I know she'll remain
Until this story's end

Which leaves four little men in NYC
Four chances at love
Four chances at glee
Their only common denominator?
Me

One was so handsome
And driven and smart
But worried me with his speed
Made me unsure of my heart

With one guy 'twas smooth sailing
He was quirky and fun
Though he fell for another
I wasn't his "one"

Another had promise
He was dashing and brave
I didn't feel the romance
Though it I badly did crave

And finally, my favorite
Full of sparkle and light
Disintegrated into thin air
With not even a fight.

Which leaves, one little woman in NYC
full of hope and wonder and even a key
What adventure is next?
Well, just wait and see.

I'm off to Cali tonight for one week but hopefully will have some fun posts while I am away. Stay cool in this heat all!

In Rhyme,

L.A.

The Other Hobby

2010-07-06T20:35:00.000-07:00

I'm counting down the days for my week-long vacation to California! Home of redwoods, my amazing sister Jessy, and Lake Tahoe! Assuming I have wireless access I'll still be posting but in the meantime can any of out there in internet world suggest some summer reading? One of my favorite activities, aside from exploring NYC and dating of course, is tumbling into a book that I cannot pull myself out of for hours. Though I read a great deal, it's been awhile since I've fallen in love in the literary sense. So you have a taste, here are some of my all-time favorites for summer time:

The more "serious": The Sparrow,, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Bel Canto, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell, The Handmaid's Tale, The World According to Garp, The Virgin Suicides, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, The Things they Carried.

The less serious (and I refuse to be ashamed for loving these!) : The Time Traveler's Wife, Summer Sisters,My Sister's Keeper, The Nanny Diaries, The Devil Wears Prada.

The books that "everyone" loved and I did not:

The Life of Pi, The God of Small Things, The Kite Runner.

Gracias!

L.A.

The Ninth Date

2010-07-05T11:34:00.000-07:00

Friday night = date night for this busy blogger. That's how I found myself in a previously unexplored (for me) section of the Bronx at 8pm, with Michael Evans himself trying to sell me copies of his book "Son of a Snitch" and its many sequels. Cue date nine.

The Time: Friday, July 2nd, 8 15pm
The Place: Centro Cultural Rincon Criollo, Brook Ave between 156th and 157th, The Bronx
The Guy: Doug, 26, a "set up"
What Creative Time Says: Can the city come together around a single neighborhood garden?

My good friend Julia jumped on the dating bandwagon when I first began this whole project and said she had the perfect guy for me to go on a date with. "Hilarious, spontaneous, and hot!" she told me, and after a telephone conversation and numerous text messages we set the date. Doug had a choice between the community center and the Whitney and I was psyched when he chose the center, wanting a little extra adventure myself.

It was, if you can believe it, Doug's first visit into the Bronx and while I go frequently (for the court and the gardens), it was my first key site to this borough (I've now done all five, hurrah!). Of course, I was running late (future dates, I think we can say it's safe to assume I always WILL be now!) so Doug made friends with the above-mentioned author who would like me to remind you all that his books are available at Border's and Amazon.com. And sometimes, if you're lucky, at a street corner outside the subway station of 149th street and third avenue.

The sun was beginning to set as we walked to our destination and while most of the street was lined with chain stores and discount dens, the glow of the setting sun lit up ancient architecture and side-street townhouses quite nicely. Music blasted from stoop gatherings and, when we asked a group where we could find "the gardens" they knew right away where to point us.

The "Centro" has been around for over thirty years (though the location has changed) and it's clear it's truly a community center in every sense of the word. Couples danced, children ran, and men gathered just to chat in the small yet wonderfully laid out space. A number of gardens dot the walkway in patchwork form and each keeps a meticulous display of produce from cabbage to corn, lavender to pear trees. Roosters and chickens crow (in the middle of the bronx!) and grape vines canopied the whole event. It truly was a bursting oasis of sound and color.

Yvette, whose husband owns the garden with the key, a delightful array of vegetables with an incredibly friendly scarecrow (date eleven?), and whose father started the whole center, was kind enough to give us a tour of the space, pointing out different types of vegetation and telling stories about their owners. We met her husband (they met in NYC!) and her father and a wonderfully talkative man named Tito who extolled the virtues of the neighborhood and invited Doug back for a big upcoming block party (and mother's day, father's day, and every other holiday imaginable, Doug made quite the impression!) The liveliness of the conversation (Tito punctuated his phrases with "puh puh puh") and the authentic, edged, way in which everyone spoke of their neighborhood was fantastic.

For our food quest we asked Tito where we could find the best food in the 'hood and he pointed us towards a place "on 167th, I don't know the name." He recommended we take a taxi but that's not what feet were made for so we began our mile long walk to the unnamed restaurant with delicious food. I'm not going to lie, the sights on this venture were not quite picturesque but had their own charms. We ran into the most fantastically haunted house I've ever seen in NY, witnessed trash-can sign battles over proper english and garbage delivery, made friends with a firefighter whose been in the neighborhood for decades and let us inside the station, and watched kids pop wheelies on their bikes. For conversation topics there was the fact that Doug and I have both lived in China, he explained to me the ins and outs of business consulting (he's in law school but thinking of moving back to HK to pursue something I vaguely understood as buying companies to make them better), and the different sections of NYC (he lives in Harlem).

When we approached the intersection there was a version of KFC, dunkin donuts and the glowing Lechonera restaurant. The waitresses at first clearly were confused as to how we ended up there (I think everyone was, actually) but when I asked her to just bring us whatever was good she turned game and played along with our adventure. She brought us the most delicious steak dish I've had in a long time, not quite as tasty friend plantains, delicious chicken of which I made Doug eat the skin (it's the yummiest part!), and, the kicker, chilled red wine.

After dinner, on the way to the lower east side where Julia's boyfriend's band, The Wind Up, (shout out here to their rocking first song in the set) was playing at the legendary Arlene's Grocery, our Ipods made out on the subway. I use this term of phrase to mean that we played songs for each other from our ipods, trying to get a taste of the other's style of music. Sadly, my collection is depressingly sparse and all my "cool" tunes are from guys I've dated mix CD's, but I'd like to think I can hold my own. Doug had some awesome emo-hipster-punk-indie songs that we jammed to along the B line.

To be honest, I probably wouldn't have chosen Doug as a date on my own. I tend to go for more hipster than wall street. The truth is, however, that clearly something has gone wrong with my choices, or my matches or what have you, and thus, part of this exploration is to open myself up to guys who I may not pick for myself but who may just surprise me. Doug was everything Julia said, charming, funny, up for anything with an energy level that matched my own (especially once I got hungry, darn hypoglycemia). We had a great night together and hopefully can catch dinner again this week before I head off to CA to visit my sister for a week. It's like a rooster in the Bronx, you wouldn't go looking for it in the city because you'd never expect it to be there, but you never know, you could be delightfully surprised. Stay open, stay curious, that's my new motto! Plus, the man who runs the center had a key of his own, so I always know where to look in case I can't find my pair.

Curiously,

L.A.

The Love

2010-07-02T06:12:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share with you guys a post about love from almost exactly two years ago (June 25th, 2008!) which I wrote when I was living and working in China but was missing New York. Though it's two years later I still ponder many of the questions below. One of the things I've appreciated most about this blogging experience has been people sharing with me their similar experiences (I loved this piece at Zelda Lila, a new-to-me rocking feminist blog I will be checking) and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this as well.

On Love

6-25-08

I am beginning to realize that this blog is becoming less and less about lanlan in Beijing and more and more about lanlan trips over the big questions of life. And so it goes, allow me to continue in this vein.

I just finished reading The Time Traveler’s Wife for the third time. I was standing in Wangfujing, Beijing’s notorious shopping district, despondent at my inability to find a special type of alarm clock to send children I am working on a project with. I had been trekking around Beijing for the past week, peeking in Walmart’s, tourist shops, pharmacies and the like. One was finally shown to me and I was told it was not for sale, I could receive it only as a gift….if I spent over 1000 kuai in the store.

Sadly, I escalator-ed to the fourth floor of Xinhua bookstore, paved with five shelves of “imported books”, none of which are categorized in any meaningful sense. I had no idea what I was looking for, perhaps The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, recommended by a professor. My hands slid past old favorites, The Red Tent, Memories of My Melancholy Whores, Harry Potter boxed sets. My eyes stopped at the vision of two girls stocking feet next to a thermos and carefully folded clothes which had traveled through my mind when an old warmth mentioned reading it as well. The Time Traveler’s Wife it is. Again.

I’ve tried to make the book last over these past few days, interspersing it with Babbit, a 20^th century find. I cleverly didn’t let myself read it before 11pm, instead I’ve just been up until 2. Tonight, after returning from a UN themegroup meeting, I curled up and dived back into the glorious life of the Detambles.

Through the tears the last 100 or so pages inspire, wrought with their beauty and despair, I could not, of course, think of anything but love. Why do we cry at love stories? I wonder. Is it because they come to an end? Are we afraid to lose the love we know we will find? For some it is so. For me, I think I am more afraid that that love does not exist, or that it does and I won’t recognize it, or it won’t recognize me. Or that I had it in my dizzying delicious reckless swirl of life-threatening love I experienced at the age of 14. And that was my love.

I think that, ever since my parents got divorced, I am afraid of falling out of love. I am afraid that what was once my picture of what love was meant to be, my source of reality outside of the fiction of Disney and picture books, ended up just being another story I was told. When that adolescent love and I both met many years later, at 19 or 20, I remember the two of us hugging each other, holding onto that feeling which had once existed. He looked at me, sadly, in despair, knowing that our love was gone and where did it go and if it was gone was it real? (2010 update, he's one of my best friends today! and single in NYC!)

I am afraid of people falling out of love with me. That I will somehow provoke it and cause it, that it will be my fault. I put men through hell when they are first with me to see if they can take it, if they will be able to stand me at my worst, demanding, full of expectations, pushing hard. I’ve decided to have a new approach to this, in love, with friends, in work. Clearly my mind will never shut off and continue to imagine new scenarios and possibilities. I’ve taken to writing them down, to allow my imagination to exist and grow in a fictional world so I can more fully live in the present.

And what is my present?

Like everyone, I am afraid of being hurt in love. And yet, then I am afraid not to be. I relish in heartache and hold onto the tears discarded from a love story like stuffed animals in my childhood. An ex-boyfriend once asked me if I would become jaded in New York. Surprisingly, that has not yet happened, instead, I feel more aware of New York and of life than I ever have before. The co-existing forces of rich and poor, the perfume of women walking in SOHO juxtaposed with garbage cans long past their pickup date. Music opening from a broadway stage intermingling with the loud honks of 7^th avenue horns. I wonder if love works the same way, if the love I feel and have felt has allowed me to store it up inside of me, making each encounter that much more intense, each glimpse of love burning that much more bright. But I am unsure. Could pain work similarly? Do we feel it more acutely as we grow older or does it begin to wash over us and we become used to its flow, as the sand surely comes to expect the cool rush of wind over a wet receding tide. I fear the pain yet I fear it’s absence. For once I no longer feel hurt, that is the time I will no longer feel love. If we prepare ourselves for the worst it seems impossible that we could see the best. If we no longer feel the pain, I don’t see how we can experience the love.

So do I seek out pain to ensure myself that the nerve endings are still functional? Do I seek out love to find if it is real? Sometimes I feel as if I am looking everywhere, searching unlit coffee shops, friends of friends, the blank wooden tables of my lawschool and dusty offices of NGO’s. Peeking around corners, wondering if this is it, if this could be it, and wondering what it could be. Some say I am boy crazy, I keep lost loves, old stories, emails, exchanges, tucked into my soul as they are in my laptop. I think perhaps I am love crazy, waiting in excited, dizzying, breathtaking anticipation, for what could be.

Love,

L.A.

The Key to the Center of the Universe

2010-07-01T19:24:00.000-07:00

One of the most exciting things that has happened in this experience so far has being getting to meet Paul Ramirez Jonas, the ultra-inspiring man behind the curtain of the genius that is Key to the City. Paul is, perhaps, one of the most genuine people I have ever met. I literally dove into his hug when I saw him for the first time in front of the Key to the City Kiosk in Times Square*** on Sunday, the last day keys were being given out. (Sorry readers, he is very happily married, my mom wanted me to ask....!) We sat and chatted about art, interaction, and, of course, love as I pestered him if he had any single friends as fantastically creative and inspiring as himself. Paul's vision for the world is so innocent yet provocative, so delightful yet daring, I think I can say that along with NYC, I am officially in love with his work.

It was also really exciting fun to watch couples walk down the astro-turf sloping ramp, joyful with keys in hand. This couple met in NYC but refused to tell me where they met....hmmm, one can only imagine the delightful story shared by two secret NY lovers, or, at least, NY lovers of secretes...

And then, as I was walking to the subway, a Chinese couple (and yes I know they were Chinese! I speak Mandarin!) was doing a marriage photo shoot in the middle of Times Square.

I <3 NY.

**P.S. I've gotten a lot of requests from people asking me for copies of my key(s) (I have two, this is all about finding who gets the second remember!) and while I want everyone to enjoy the wonder of the project, I can't run all over the city arranging key swaps. SO if you can set me up with a single friend and come on a double date with us (I want to try a double date site!) then I'll let you borrow mine to copy. Deal? Deal! keys2keys@gmail.com

xoxo

L.A.

The Seventh Date

2010-06-28T21:55:00.000-07:00

After a week long hiatus and some media flurries, I met Saturday back to my regular dating self. Avi and I started chatting online way back in February and now that he'd moved back to the city of dreams we decided to get together, blogosphere and all. Thus, I bring you date seven!

The Time: Saturday, June 26th, 5: 50pm (I was on time! Victory!)
The Guy: Avi, 29.
The Place: Cabinet Magazine, 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn
What Creative Time Says: A door lets you come in, a window lets you look in, and a cabinet lets you share.

I knew from the get go that Avi was quite the ambitious guy. He wasn't content playing backseat to the planning of this date, oh no. He suggested visiting a site, THEN grabbing dinner, THEN hanging in a park, all topped off with a secret underground party that I had to SWEAR not to blog about in Brooklyn. I was nervous (one never knows if you'll even hit it off over one drink, let alone an entire night!I brought bananagrams just in case) but my sense of adventure and the fact that I would be able to incorporate a tutu into the evening's attire made me dive right in!

We decided to meet right outside the gates to Cabinet magazine and I walked on my way from watching the US lose to Ghana in the world cup (was anyone else kinda excited for Ghana?!) in park slope. One of the things I love most about NYC is how the neighborhoods blend and change without you noticing when the switch occurred. I started walking in overly cute, kids playing in fire hydrants, gentrified but in a hipster co-op way Park Slope and ended up in industrialist-art town with unfilled pools and rockin' block parties area-whose-name-I-don't-know on Nevins by Union Street. Avi and I had near perfect timing, a fitting beginning for a date that clicked like.... well, a key opening a lock.

Before opening the cabinet placed on a metal grate, I wanted to explore the alley. The falling lines of rusted fire escape stairs, leading up to broken windows and green-metaled frames, was like a city-made kaleidoscope and I wanted to lay on the pavement and stare up all day long. Either that or spider-man crawl up the structures, banging them down in my parkouring feat! Sadly, I'm 5'1" and webs don't shoot out of my arms and I stayed content imagining the placement of potted plants in the nooks.

Avi, of course, was awarded the privilege of unlocking the ominous gray-black box perched inside the alleyway and I love the pictures of him doing so because he didn't yet allow me to photograph his face! (See guys, I CAN keep you a secret, all you have to do is ask!) Wonderful cotton-candy fairground music filled the air and the words "look up" lay inside the box. We immediately did so to find...a small black contraption waving bubble-less wands in the air. Oh well, we danced to the music regardless and strolled on our way.

Exploring the area before dinner, Avi and I passed by the Gowanus Canal featuring bright green bat houses and heavy pollution, I dove into an artist's garden to snap photos of flowers made of beads and Cupie doll gnomes, and discussed Avi's avid love of bridges. We saw kids playing an elaborate game of tag, camels in a playground desert, spiky troll-headed flowers, and one fantastic art space called Littlefield. Because there wasn't anyone around every new site we came upon felt like a secret we had stepped upon. Avi and I got into some pretty heavy conversation (we've both worked with abused kids) but it only enhanced the contrasts of the warehouses to stained glass embedded in the concrete.

The rest of the date was just as wonderful and unpredictable. Due to the fact Avi had a car (though it had been broken into that morning and rode holding down a bike seat cover over the window, thieves be damned!) We went from Oaxaca Tacos (251 Smith Street) where the tortillas were fresh and tacos cheap, to Sunset Park (I swear if I take in another gorgeous Manhattan skyline I may have a heart attack) where there were real-alive fireflies and handstand contests in Chinese, to Quarter Bar Brooklyn where I had QUITE the delicious cucumber-infused beverage. Finally, we were off to the uber-secret get together which I am not allowed to share with you lovelies but my tutu-inspired outfit is in the collage. There are MANY magical spots in Manhattan worth exploring, let me tell you.

Truth be told, by the end I was thrilled with the date itself and even more warm and fuzzy to have made what I thought was a real connection with Avi. I was still beaming about it not two hours ago when I began writing this post and then, (literally, in the past five minutes!!!) I found out from Avi that he has begun seeing someone else seriously. We were literally talking just as I had gotten to the part where I was going to share how excited I was for the next date! He was wonderful and sweet and kind as he told me but my body still had that horrible reaction you feel when you realize you're going to be disappointed (stomach plunge, tingling limbs). And it felt very very sad. I've had a lot of fun on the dates, and definitely like some of the guys, but with Avi it just seemed like smooth sailing from the get go. But what can you do except hope that this is a sign that something even more magical is on its way with an old or new adventure...

So, my dear readers, it's heartbreak (or at least momentary sadness) number one here on key to the city. Somehow the Cabinet Magazine excursion fits to the end, however, as it turns out I was excitedly looking up for something that wasn't even there. Or, as Avi just put it over G-chat, "you still got to hear a song that you never would've heard, even if there were no bubbles."

With new notes, L.A.

The Eighth Date

2010-06-27T22:02:00.000-07:00

No no, you're not missing a post! Date seven was last night but today I wanted to make sure I posted about my very special morning Pride Date on Pride Day. Sadly, I didn't finish before midnight and this will be time-stamped for Monday. Alas.

The Time: Sunday, June 27th, 2010 (Happy Pride Day NYC!!!)
The Place: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Ave at 82nd Street, Manhattan
The Girl: Priyanka, 26, Queer-Positive and Feminist Theorist Rockstar of the Universe
What Creative Time Says: Here, culture is public storage.

So, as you can tell my date today was with a woman. The crazy-fabulous Priyanka, one of my very best friends from undergrad with whom I've talked for hours about gender binary structures and our belief in the kinsiean scale vs. sexuality based labels ("straight" "gay" "bi" etc.) We share so many of the same frustrations in dating that it only seemed fair and fitting that allow this out-of-town LGBTQ-ally to share a key date with me on this pride day in New York. I've tried dating women in the past and it never worked out but darn if I don't wish I was in love with the inspiring Pri. Please indulge this one diversion as I actually believe it's worthwhile to discuss.

Priyanka and I dragged ourselves out of our respective beds bright and early this AM to meet at the Met at 9am so we'd be close to the front of the line for when the doors opened at 9 30. True to form, I was running late and Pri, ever dependable, has saved a perfect spot towards the front of the line. She's been living in India running a steel company and I haven't seen her for what feels like eons so I am sure our squeals of delight when we made contact could have been heard down fifth avenue. I showed her my key and, magically, the line began to move.

We followed the instructions inside my "passport" and made a bee-line for the info desk and I urged Pri to tell them she had the key to the city. She did so, shyly, and we were pointed towards the back where a group was already hovering around a man with a beautiful (but lock-less, sad, no actual key-turning here) music box. Buried inside were tags allowing us free entry inside the museum. There were only a couple left after we grabbed ours and as this was the Met's last day participating in the project, I was glad we had braved the wee hours of Sunday morning to ensure another key adventure!

I had especially wanted to check out the new roof exhibit at The Met: Big Bambu, by twins Mike and Dough Starn. We followed at least five different guards instructions until we were pointed to an entirely different line to the left of the one we had just waited in. I didn't feel like standing around again but excited to get the hot tickets to the event. Luckily, someone standing ahead of us showed us the TWO PAGE long list of rules (which none of the guards had told us about) including the fact that we couldn't wear flip flops. As it was summer in New York, Priyanka and I were both, predictably, bearing our pedicured toes. Saddened ,we got out of line and headed to the roof anyways, only to meet more "Don'ts", "Stops" and "You Can'ts" on the roof. Hilariously the full title of the piece is "You Can't, You Don't, and You Won't Stop" I think maybe they should have taken out the last "you won't".... But really, I know it's art and we want to preserve it and the met wants to relinquish any responsibility but it just felt like it took so much away from what was a really wonderful, wild, frantic, improvisational work. I wanted to dance around the piece, to climb on it, to lay on it, to experience with every sense. So many rules seemed to kill the growth and I had to wonder if such restrictions were what the seemingly playful artist's truly would have wanted.

Luckily there was a wonderful cheery old man on the roof who, seeing my disappointment, pointed out some other exhibits he thought I may like and he was right (besides, you can't really keep a gal down who owns a key to new york). Pri and I danced our way through the musically rigged and themed rooms of the American woman exhibit. I visited the spot where my favorite painting, one of the Sunflower's series by Joan Mitchell, used to hang (It's taking it's highly undeserved rotation in storage, if you can hear me I still think of you and I'm sorry I haven't come to visit in awhile, I don't have a key to the storage room!!!) I found a quote that may explain why I pull out my camera every two seconds, and we documented love at The Met. Following our morning date we discussed marriage pressure, having to "look the part" at work, and my very fun date the previous evening (post coming tomorrow!) at the delightfully named Nectar on 82nd right around the corner. We split ways after a downtown bus ride through the upper east side, taking in the matching khaki kids and adorable dogs through the plated window.

I'm glad I got to "see" the Met's exhibit but found this key cite to be somewhat disconnected to the barefoot, whooping in delight, public yet private, magical sense I have felt at the others. It's like wishing you were in love with a best friend. You want to make it work so badly, because it would be so beautiful and easy to keep it controlled, and yet, in the end, you wind up yearning for those reckless butterflies.

Still Fluttering,

L.A.

The Stories

2010-06-25T23:50:00.000-07:00

This evening, after attending a fundraiser for my college professor's daughter's theater group (I heart NY!) I went to a friend's apartment in the financial district (he claims it's called FiDi now, I refute that but am open to debate.) While I love this friend greatly (ladies, he's single! If you want to meet one of the most genuine, hilariously-dorky, engaged and intelligent men in NYC shoot me an email), I do not love the wall street area.

Yes, yes there are movies on the Elevated Acre and free ferries to and from Governor's Island, but so much of the diverse charm of New York, the independent shops and other-worldly eateries are missing down below Chambers. (I am sure many of you will disagree, please do! And send me advice for where to go on my Trinity Church date!)

BUT when we climbed the stairs through a not-yet-bought penthouse (yea recession) to the expansive unfinished rooftop I literally gasped and practically fell to my knees. Hundreds of thousands of blinking lights, windowed desks, car taillights on third avenue and bridge pillars lay in an unending expanse right below us. This was a part of FiDi I could get behind. I swear, every day something makes me fall in love with this city again and tonight it was the idea of the fantasy that makes our city so incredibly unique. From where we sat people partied on rooftops and plugged away at work, streets were empty, others were bustling, and every single reflection had a story behind it. It's the fantasy's that make our city so appealing; the fact that a girl who started a blog to get out of a schlump can end up having you read her words, and that two people can find each other in a sea of millions.

Many people have begun sharing their NY love stories with me through email and I'd love to share more on this blog. While I have some hilarious "fails" (another post, don't you worry!) I'd love to hear more of the "wins". So please, if you like, tell your NY love story below in the comments and wish some luck on us all still looking for ours.

Love,

L.A.

The Date with the New York Times

2010-06-24T21:33:00.001-07:00

Well it has been quite the trip of a 24 hours, let me tell you! From being on the front page of the New York Times for approximately 45 minutes last night, to having elementary school friends come out of the woodwork that is facebook to email me, to getting emails from literary and hollywood agents, it has been one heck of a day. I have since learned a few lessons I would like to share with you all.

1) In this day and age, news spreads like wildfires under the bush administration and haters will be drinking their hater-ade! A few websites have since picked up the story and I've first learned that commenters can be so mean! It's amazing how someone can read three sentences about someone else and decide they know their life story.

2) Never underestimate the power of the NYTimes. I started this blog as a fun way to chronical my dating life when I had grown discouraged of the whale-mouth sized dating pool that is manhattan. When the times contacted me I was excited to say yes, having the worshipping-child like posture I reserve for the greatest paper on the east coast. I had no idea it would ripple as it has!

3) Watch your back. Since being featured I've had a number of interesting interactions, from guys I've dated on this sight, to exes, to reporters, all getting in touch with me with seemingly innocent plans when really you know they have their own agenda. Trust your instincts my love and stay alert!

4) Even little acts can inspire: I have been incredibly touched by all those who have reached out to me telling me the ways in which this story has brought wonder and love to their own lives. Some recently single ladies, recently divorced men, even couples, have emailed me to share with me their own new york city tales of love and loss and how this tiny blog inspired them to fall in love with their city all over again. I truly believe that my journey is not unique,but is one we are all sharing together. This city is full of amazing people, doing amazing things, and I am just honored to be a part of the celebration of life and love.

Today I bought two note cards for myself that I think reflect the current state of my being since my crazy story broke yesterday. The first states: "Overcome the notion that you must be regular. It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary." The second, "Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel." (Uta Hagen and Alan Moore, respectively). I do not want my life to be so divided as we make ourselves out to be every day. I do not want to be one person in my successful work career and another in my personal life. I want to be me, utterly, skippingly, pollyanna-ish believing-anything-is-possible-for-anyone me, works my butt off for social justice me, can't help falling in love with life me.

I hope that this tiny contribution allows you to be more of yourself, more of the time, as well.

Sprinkled throughout this posting are pictures from the NYTimes crew on my dates. There will be no more mass media accompanying me on the actual dates (though I haven't ruled out anything else), that's not really what this is about. But I could not have hoped for a more joyful group to accompany me on my quest, Randy, Evan and Piotr, you are all invited to my wedding, should it ever take place. Special thanks to Randy Kennedy and Piotr Redlinski for making an incredibly awkward situation as delightful as possible.

And not to worry, more dates are coming this weekend, as well as updates from the past.

Love to NY and all the dreamers out there,

L.A.

The Challenge - Restated

2010-06-23T20:08:00.001-07:00

Thanks to the New York Times, I've got some new visitors, here's my initial post explaining my project. I hope you enjoy and pick up your own key this weekend!

Take one single girl, the most inspiring public art project yet, and summer in New York City and you have the idea for a perfect blog:

Key2thecity, key2my heart.

After being presented with the key to the city and now having the ability to unlock 24 secret sights around all five boroughs, 24 dates will be had throughout the summer, seeing if both love and intrigue can exist in the city where no one sleeps.

The rules:

1) Every first date this summer must somehow incorporate a key to the city site: http://creativetime.org/programs/archive/2010/keytothecity/

2) Each sight can only be visited once before another sight is visited.

3) Men or women may be repeated before sites, meaning that a site may be visited on a second date if the man or woman warranted a second visit.

4) No ex-boyfriends allowed as sight visits unless they too are warranting a second visit.

5) As the key to the city project is to expand our city horizons, each site visit date must also incorporate a food or drink spot never before tried.

5) Whoever wins my heart also wins my second key to the city.

6) Have fun, love life, love NYC, love love.,

Love,

L.A.

PS. Shoot me an email at keys2keys@gmail.com if you're interested in visiting a site with me!

The Sixth Date

2010-06-21T19:29:00.000-07:00

Well my lovelies, it has been one whirlwind of a dating week. I successfully completed six dates in eight days and visited not only brand new parts of the city, but made some pretty wonderful connections as well. What better way to celebrate leg one of this journey (we're 1/4 of the way there!) before I dive back into lawyer land than with a visit to the George Washington Bridge.

The Time: Saturday, June 19th, 2010, approximately 7 45 pm (apologies for being late!)
The Place: The George Washington Bridge, Near 178th Street and Cabrini Blvd, Manhattan
The Guy: Alex, 25 (soon to be 26), met at a Time Out New York Event, also known as a "ketchup" (he was the one without the glasses.)
What Creative Time Says: This is an actual doorway into the city...

I'm not going to lie to you all, I was really really excited about this date. I've recently become obsessed with bridges (just walked over the brooklyn bridge for the first time, I know I should be shunned for taking so long but at least I was daring enough to scamper onto the car overhangs before being yelled at!)and heard the GWB had killer views. Plus Alex, who I had met a few weeks earlier but who had seemingly fallen off the face of the earth to the extent that I, kid you not, actually had him listed as "Mr. Unavailable" in my phone (it's a tactic people!), finally resurfaced. I was hoping the great energy we had would carry through the evening. It was time to get gussied up and spend a night on the town!

Buying a new top from my all-time favorite dress shop darling, after running an hour late after acro yoga in the park meant I was, tragically, half an hour late for the dearly waiting Alex. Luckily, the sun had not yet set and our very first views on top of the bridge were spectacular.

It was... I cannot even describe how beautiful and gasp-inducing and huge and magnificent the view of the city was. The longer you walk across the bride the larger the city becomes, seeping like a spilled glass of humanity, the empire state building slighting outpacing the rest, the hudson slowly unraveling in twinkling lights, the statue of liberty winking just in front of a bend. As the night began to fall, well, there was no more gorgeous a sight than the GWB on that Saturday eve.

Alex and I jumped right back to wherever we had been a few weeks ago. This was, officially, our second real date but we had run into each other a couple times in the interim. It was new enough that I still had no idea what to think when I was with him. Sure I felt the butterflies but he's in advertising (and a successful advertiser to boot) and I have a feeling he knows how to sell a product regardless of how he feels about it. Yet he was quite the perfect person to share the sunset with, we both sighed over Manhattan, discussing how we had actually dreamed to live here when we were kids, and how we had finally made it in the city we could now call home. I think I pointed out every cloud, every glimmer off the water, each criss-crossing beam and jagged edge, over and over. I just wanted to continuously shout "Look! Look! Look at our city, look at what we have."

The wind blew and paper-directions blown from New Jersey trucks swirled in the air. We came across a biking couple and took pictures of them with their iphone. They said they met in Manhattan and another New York love story was uncovered. Once we reached Jersey, I attempted to climb a rock wall in my white skirt and Alex took fuzzy pictures. We negotiated with security guards and I skipped down the passenger lane as bikers whizzed by, egging on Alex to do the same. It seemed to be a perfect evening.

Did I say perfect? Well, it was close. According to my nifty Key to the City passport book my key was supposed to unlock "the padlock on the right-hand door of the third gate you come to." As this gate was wide open we were perplexed and began searching around. Then, Alex found it, lying on the concrete like a dead baby bird lay the Medeco padlock, it had clearly been murdered, snapped with the deadly jaws of life of one angry New Jersian, trying to get into our city.

We took turns turning the key and looking sad for the camera. The men working on the bridge had no idea what the lock had once held captive, waiting for our release, and we were left to our imaginations devices. But nothing, not a broken lock, not the idea of whoever tore it, could take away from watching the sunset's reflection glimmer over my city of Manhattan.

Alex and I ventured even higher north to take in the tapas and perfect-volume music at the delicious (yet slightly overpriced) Mamajuana Cafe. The sauce on the Garlic Shrimp was incredible but I was still high on my visit to the bridge. I honestly barely remember how the evening ended, just that I skipped off into the sunset in my dreams.

Back to reality. I hope that what I felt with Alex was real. That it wasn't the keys or the bridge enhancing our enjoyment of one another's company but an honest to goodness spark. One can never be to sure, especially with ketchup. The tricky thing about dating is that no matter how much you like someone, no matter how many butterflies erupt in your stomach when you see them, no matter how much you really want it to work, it's not up to you; they need to feel it as well. As I'm somewhat of a control freak (I have planned all my dates for the entire summer after all) I'm used to knowing where I stand in the moment and what the next step will be. It's something I'm trying to change and I'm getting better. Step by step, key by key, I'm trying to sit back and enjoy. Even if it brings me to a broken lock, it will have been worth seeing the view.

But here's to hoping,

- L.A.

The Fifth Date

2010-06-20T10:13:00.000-07:00

It's Friday afternoon, you just won a big case, what better way to usher in the weekend and celebrate than with a Key to the City date!

The Time: Friday, June 18th, 5 45 pm.
The Place: The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Amsterdam Ave at 112th street, Manhattan
The Guy: James, 29, Met on OKC (yes, I am turning into an ad for online dating!)
What Creative Time Says: Thousands can congregate in this space made by a few.

I'm honestly beginning to worry a little about how I will get to all 24 spots this summer, mainly because so many spots are open only during work-weeks hours. Luckily James and I were both able to sneak out just early enough to catch the cathedral before the gates closed at 6pm.

James had already been to the cathedral when he had spent a summer at Columbia so he kindly guided me through the tour, pointing out different sections of the structure, how one could tell when parts had been made based upon the rock used (turns out we're cheapskates) and why the space wasn't yet completed. I was mainly walking around with my jaw dropped in awe of how gigantic the cathedral is. It is odd to see such massive created areas, enclosed by ceilings seemingly reaching as tall as skyscrapers. I had an odd desire to place a trampoline in the middle and bounce as high as I pleased. We whispered our way to find the baptistery which our key unlocked (there are hundreds of locks in the cathedral secreting away alters and confessionals), turned the key and entered into a circular room with a waterless fountain in the middle. Regal chairs sat around the wall and the ceiling arched and peaked its way up to a beautiful stained glass top.

We spent our remaining ten minutes exploring (and pointing other key-holders in the proper direction). Such imposing organized religion normally makes me exceedingly uncomfortable (given the wars, the history, the zealot movements, etc) but this non denominational spot was a refreshing move away from what one normally sees. There were small alters along the way recognizing everything from the FDNY to the AIDS plague (inserted in 1985!!!) and it felt right for NYC to have such a structure.

Leaving the cathedral (we were actually locked inside and had to find a friendly security guard to let us out, I was jealous of all his keys!) the sunshine blasted back into our eyes and the gorgeous gardens opened to us (well, truthfully, those were mainly locked too, there are too many bolts in this city of "ours"). To the left of the cathedral is a fantastic fountain with gods, animals, planets and elements, swirling and smiling to the children that run around it. James, who has done literally almost everything in the universe, from serving time with the Navy, to woodwork, to meeting Sandra Day O'Connor, to traveling to China, gave me the timeline of his busy life while we looked on the flowers blooming in the garden.

On the way from the cathedral to dinner/drinks we passed not one but TWO of my favorite things about NY. 1) A local bookstore with a bargain shelf out front (I should take the time here to mention my inability to pass a cheap bookstore without buying something, it's why I have two bursting-full bookshelves in my smallish apartment) and 2) a fantasy world landmark (this fantasy being Seinfeld, I finally happened upon the diner!!!) We came to The Heights on Broadway and 112th, recommended to me by my dear friend and loving ex- Ethan, beaming with my love of NY.

James and I were looking for an outdoor bar with cheap drinks and tasty food and man did we find it. So what if the wait was over an hour? Sitting outside overlooking morningside heights with a margarita made it worth it (the goat cheese quesadilla was to DIE for!) Plus, during our wait we laughed, pondered online dating (I was James' very first date met online thankyouverymuch) and met an amazing couple, Rosi and Dan who met, I kid you not, on the 1 train four years ago. How's THAT for a NY love story?!

James and I said we'd meet again but I haven't heard from him yet (what is the standard post-date call back time anyways?) Maybe he's waiting to see what I blog or perhaps it was just another fun evening in NYC, exploring, meeting, laughing and unlocking. We can't all get as lucky as Rosi and Dan, but the wonder of this city is that you just never know what you could unearth.

In open wonder,

L.A.

A Fair Warning

2010-06-17T22:35:00.001-07:00

And because I know there are a lot of single ladies reading this blog, make sure you heed the warning hidden inside a key-box.

xo,

L.A.

The Fourth Date!

2010-06-17T20:53:00.000-07:00

After a two-day hiatus from dating and a well-timed facebook post, I embarked upon my fourth date of this adventure to the as-yet-unexplored borough of queens. Rock.

The Time: Wednesday, June 16th, 645pm
The Place: Eddie's Sweet Shop, 105-29 Metropolitan Avenue, Queens
The Guy: Dave L., in my history of dating, this was our third date spanning from 2001.
What Creative Time Says: A soda stand is the perfect place to meet.
I met Dave when I was 16 years old in the ways of Judy Blume and Jewish Yenta's, meaning his parent's set us up. At the time I was living in China on a study abroad program in High School; his stepfather was my english teacher, his mother was my guidance counselor, are we sensing the rom-com indie set up in China movie yet? Basically I was told I was going to marry the guy before I graduated High School and after two dates in Beijing and another in CT, we were ready to hit the big leagues in NYC. Dave saw a facebook posting of mine asking if anyone knew any good men to date and, characteristically, nominated himself. Could the KEYS bring us together after a decade apart? Read on and find out!

Honestly, I had been having a pretty rough day. I love my job but the non profit world does not always smile on us workers. My instinct lead me to go home and watch bad tv but the keys had other plans and an adventure was predetermined by art! Thank goodness I didn't chicken out; instead of finishing the day in defeat, I had a decided victory over the gray clouds hanging in the sky.

Dave and I met as we exited the E/F trains at 71 Ave-Forest Hills stop and it was like old times. Funny thing is, we didn't really have any old times to fall upon. Meeting for this project was literally the third time we had met in over a decade's time. Being with Dave, however, was immediately like being with an old friend, or being reacquainted with the door of your childhood bedroom. It felt comfortable and easy, which was delightful.

Together we attempted to distinguish north from south and walked past the insanely adorable houses lining the streets of forest hills. I kept commenting that the only thing missing from the storybook adventure was a trail of breadcrumbs leading us to the sweet shop, seriously we could have been Hansel and Gretel. I kept stopping to take pictures of the flowers, the angles on the houses, the angular windows; while Dave filled me in on his life of the past five years, from playing, to coaching to now working for professional soccer. It's official, every one of my dates is going to incorporate the world cup in some way, guess I may have to start paying attention to the game...

When we finally made it to the sweet shop I think I actually squealed with delight. The old school soda shop sign, the rows of candy display, the faded booths and spinney stools, it was like taking a step back into childhood-fantasy time, all with fresh whipped cream on top. Truth be told I'm not sugar's biggest fan but I'd eat anything made in a setting like Eddie's. The frosty coffee ice cream's delicious cut against the humid night just added sprinkles to my sundae...literally.

Dave and I waited until the last moment to present our key with much fanfare. (Well, fanfare on our end, just expected groans from "Tommy and Olive" behind the bar) I wasn't expecting an actual lock as creative time's passport just said I should expect "an extra helping of a delicious treat." So you can imagine my delight when Vino the owner (who took his wife on their first date in that very shop!) pulled out a rather plain looking lock box and placed it in front of Dave and I.

Here, my friends, was the real magic. Stuffed inside that metal container were notes, knick knacks, business cards and letters from scores of people who had visited the shop before us. Everything from kooky playing cards to hand sketched drawings, menus from Bengali restaurants (in India!) to dinosaur tattoos, it was as if everyone left behind a little piece of themselves inside that box. Naturally Dave and I had to participate and we each selected a little something from our wallets. From Dave I chose a cranium card which he had labeled "un-whistleable" and he selected a business card from a hostel I had stayed at in Thailand last year. With a kiss on the cover and a turn of the key, our pasts and presents were sealed forever inside the shop of sweets.

We asked the guys of ESS (ha!) where to eat and unanimously we were pointed in the direction of Nick's Bistro, a new but "great" Greek restaurant "right around the corner." While we waited for a table to be prepared we explored the houses some more, me crouching down to photograph miniature gnomes, Dave keeping me laughing every step of the way. Let me tell you this, the people in Forest Hills are fantastic. I traipsed across many lawns, stopped many people for pictures, and asked endless questions. None of this seemed to bother the amused locals, they said sure with the careless attitude that only comes with being a true blue New Yorker.

So back to Nick's. Dave had never had a stuffed grape leaf before ("what do they do? use laserbeams!?" he asked) so we ordered a greek special and a plate of gnocchi to share. The grape leaves, greek sausage, and stuffed mushrooms were by far the best part of the meal. The complexity of flavors with the hearty orders made me stuffed and satisfied before the gnocchi even came out. Thank goodness for fridges containing leftovers which I am, truthfully, eating as I type this.

Things usually come full circle and as I approached the subway a favorite client of mine called around 10 30 and reminded me of why I love the work that I do. As the night ended so did my entirely lovely date with Dave. And here's the kicker folks, Dave lives in L.A. When I accepted Dave's invitation to go out I thought it couldn't have been BAD but I didn't expect it to be quite so much fun. We've really grown into ourselves and it was nice to feel at ease with and yet energized by someone else's presence. Dave is not only supremely intelligent (we fought over the best Shakespeare play, I still say the Tempest wins) but, more endearingly, everlastingly hilarious and I was bummed at the end that the chances of a second site visit with him would be slim to nil. If the point of the keys, however, is to bring wonder and curiosity to places that would have otherwise been left unexplored, well then it served its purpose with this gal and her fated love.

Besides, I will be visiting CA in July...

Sweet Dreams,

L.A.

The Third Date!

2010-06-16T20:45:00.000-07:00

Take a full belly rendering me unable to board the crazy bus that would take me back to the ferry, add a cute, smart, funny guy with whom I was having a great time, and you have one date turning into two, bringing me to..... Key Spot Number Three!

The Time: Sunday, June 13th, roughly 3pm.
The Place: Staten Island Buddhist Vihara, 115 John Street, Staten Island
The Guy: Tim, still....
What Creative Time Says: This Private Garden Welcomes Everyone As a Guest.

I was both excited and nervous to visit the Buddhist Vihara in Staten Island and was glad when Tim and I decided to embark upon this key site together. I've been fortunate enough to travel a decent amount in Asia and have visited more Buddhist temples than any other religious structure in the world and my feelings are always conflicted. On the one hand I am almost always without fail filled with a certain sense of peace and calm (I feeling I often struggle to fine) as I walk amongst orange robed monks, beneath the shadows of religious icons. On the other, I feel as if I am imposing upon a secret I should not have uncovered, that was not quite meant for me. I deeply respect Buddhism but I generally feel discomfort around organized religion and fear that my constantly churning mind will be discovered as I tip toe around temples and monasteries I have visited. Thus, I only wanted to visit this site with a second date, someone I already felt comfortable with. I was lucky enough to find Tim so soon!

The Vihara, which, I learned, is the Sanskrit and Pali term for a Buddhist monastery, originally meaning "a secluded place in which to walk," lay on the end of what would otherwise be a very ordinary road. Family Barbeques, piles of plastic toys, and American flags dot the lawns of neighboring houses until you reach the end of a lane. There, two sculptures guide your entrance to the sanctuary. Tim and I immediately followed the directions leading us to a locked gate to the left of the house which opened into a garden "maintained by the monks". The gate, unfortunately, had been left open (secure those locks explorers!) but a plain typed faced sign invited us into the house for meditation and tea when we were ready. As the rain was drizzling and the garden wouldn't be nearly as fun to explore without the obstacle, we fastened the lock and headed inside.

Shy as I always am around monks (and yes I realize what an odd statement that is) I awkwardly followed in a group of high school aged children to the main building. Peaking into what looked like a small classroom, a man in faded orange robes approached me. After we just smiled at each other and not knowing what to say I blurted out "we have the key to the city, we saw the sign, can we have some tea?" Of course, he replied softly, and a woman went downstairs to prepare our snack.

The monk led us into a low-lit room where a statue of Buddha lay to our right and colored lotus flower lamps decorated the ceiling. A man was in the back painting glue onto lamp-parts where, paradoxically, a high school baseball game played outside the back window. I began asking questions about the key project and the monk went to get another, more senior monk, who could better answer my pestering questions.

I still couldn't decide, however, if we were a welcome intrusion or a nuisance to the daily lives of the temple. Sri Lankan students came in and out studying Buddhism and math alike, preparing for an upcoming talent show and discussing upcoming meetings of the youth counsel. The men taught us about the temple and said that, because of the project, more people came to meditate. I told him I was bad at meditating, he said that everyone was. Which, in my mind, meant, "no excuses, when in Rome...." I asked to be guided through a meditation. Tim squeezed my hand signaling he had been hoping for the same.

This was, perhaps, the best part of the day. Tim and I sat next to each other, cross legged, perched on pillows on the floor, while the man lead us through a series of silent chants. I wish I could remember the words but with each phrase of "family, friends, unfriendly beings, and everyone" different people from my life floated through my head as I wanted to wish each of them well. Part of me wanted to reach over and hug Tim for sharing such a lovely moment, hearing the rain beat down on the roof, waving the rhythms of the man's voice, settling into the chime from the gong he struck. As we ended our short session, a bird began to chirp; the rain had ceased to fall.

After delicious ginger-infused black tea where I congratulated myself on having made it through the entire five minute session (did I mention this busy mind of mine?) and Tim told stories of a Japanese tea class he took in college involving meditation, we went out to explore the garden. The man showed us around, pointing out vegetables and flowers, but mainly just watching us interact with the space. I wish I could have been inside his head.

Tim and I walked back onto the bus and were noticeably more quiet as we rode back to board the ferry. The boat ride back was lovely as gray ships passed in the distance and Manhattan's skyline faded into the fog.

Overall this experience was perhaps the most unique and yet, perplexing. Though I loved the garden, it was the first time in this project I was interacting with others in their space and I was not sure exactly what they were getting out of all these people coming to their spot every day. Though perhaps the point of the project is not about gain or loss, but about each individual moment at a site generating into a collective human experience.

Oh yes, and I'll be seeing Tim again this Sunday.

Love and Peace,

L.A.

Corrections

2010-06-16T05:16:00.000-07:00

I received a text from Tim at 1am last night correcting my memory. As his research goes, it was Ben Franklin who met Thomas Jefferson at the Conference House and not George Washington. Apologies for the historically inaccurate mix-up, and for the spoiler that the third date went well too...

The Second Date!

2010-06-15T06:04:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday morning I ventured where no Manhattanite has gone before. At nine am I woke up, changed into shorts and a tank top, forgot to slather on sunscreen, packed my bag and headed to Stated Island. I was off on my second date with Key to the City!

The Time: Sunday, June 13th, 10:15 am
The Place: Conference House Park, 298 Satterlee St., Staten Island
The Guy: Tim (real name!), 25, also met on OkC.
What Creative Time Says: Our city ends on this shore -- beyond it is the Atlantic.

I knew I was going to have a great time with Tim when he 1) consented to being analyzed on this blog and 2) he suggested we go all the way out to Staten Island. Neither of us had been (though I have shamefully ridden the ferry half a dozen times, always sprinting around to catch it's return trip instead of actually visiting Staten Island) and it was clear we were both in for an adventure.

We hopped on the ferry only a few minutes after meeting at South station, trying to fill the minutes before take off ensuring we were actually on the date with, for example, lawyer17 (though, I should point out, my username is not that lame) v. hipster12. Once on the (FREE!) boat Tim showed me his MCAT flashcards (he's studying to become a doctor, sa-weet) sheepishly acknowledging how much of a nerd he was. Luckily, I heart the nerds.

Once we were officially in Staten Island we boarded S78, or, as I like to now call it, "hell on wheels". The driver must have taken something or had somewhere to be because I haven't been on a bus that fast since my field hockey team lost a championship game and the driver didn't want to have to put up with our adolescent tears. Finally, nearly two hours after we left wall street's shores, we had arrived.

Tim's phone steered us a stop too far (ah boys and their technology), but the extra ten minute jaunt through Staten Island made me gain a deeper appreciation for the place. My first thought upon seeing the island's insanely suburban-perfect houses? I am in Pleasantville. Suddenly I began craving sugary lemonade warmed by the sun in those little dixie cups. Preferably sold to me by a girlscout. Things got exciting, however, when we arrived at the conference house and looked out onto the beautiful Atlantic Ocean. I'm a sucker for water and immediately dove into my happy feeling that comes with viewing vast expanses of space (I blocked New Jersey with my hands).

After taking in the scenery Tim and I, pirate-like in our quest, read my passport's directions to discover the locked gate below the raised pavilion. Shouting in triumph I allowed Tim to turn the lock as we opened the gate upon the stuff teenager's rebellious natures are made on. In between flickers of light streaming from the wooden planks lay dead fish, graffiti about loving Victoria's mom, beer bottles and cigarettes. I seriously thought I had walked onto a John Cusak 80's movie set placed in the angrier parts of Cape Cod. Or, I now know, Staten Island.

Once we had thoroughly explored the spot, taken the free tickets to the Conference House tour, and left a note self-promoting this blog to future explorers, we made our way to the beach. Turns out Tim, not wanting to be outdone by the girl with the key, had done research on our spot and claimed the historical significance lay in the fact that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson sat on these very same sands to plan the battle which would give freedom to our country. Fittingly a veteran's ceremony was happening, literally, above our heads and we danced down the beach to the tunes of the Mason Dixie Line, picking up sandglass and spinal cords on our way.

After our near five-hour adventure Tim and I were STARVED. Apparently Staten Island boasts some of the best pizza in all five boroughs and Tim's smart phone searched until we found Salvatore of Soho! I was skeptical at first as I've eaten at a million places in NYC that claim to have "world famous" pizza but as soon as I stepped foot into Salvatore's I was sold. Not only did our definition-of-fabulous waitress Gabriella have a perfect Staten Island accent (big enough for you-alls) but my first bite of the house made dipping sauce for our perfect bread coupled with my tour of the checker-board styled room (complimented with a pull-chain bathroom) gave me a whole new appreciation for the forgotten borough.

Boy was the trip out here worth it! The salad was divine, the huge chunks of fresh mozzarella perfectly on point, and the pizza, oh the pizza. Crust bubbling with high temperature perfection, millions of herbs dancing on my taste buds, crispy pepperoni and a TO DIE FOR white pizza with the most spectacular ricotta (just hearing Gabriella say this word was divine) was quite possibly the best pizza I have had so far in NYC. Seriously just the smell of the garlic/cheese/bread infused white slice sent me spiraling into pizza heaven.

While ogling the food Tim and I talked about the inauguration, a farm he helped start in college, education in New York and the various research we've completed(on sharks and AIDS, respectively). It started to rain and Gabriella gave us free cake. By the end we wanted more, and though we were too stuffed for an extra helping of pizza we decided, right then and there, to go on our second date. Besides, there was no way we were getting back on that bus after the lunch we had just consumed.

Stay blogged to find out what adventure we had next, and how the date came to an end in the next installment: The Third Date.

And seriously, seriously, get your butt down to Salvatore's.

-L.A.

The First Date

2010-06-13T17:16:00.000-07:00

Alright folks, hold onto your hats, make sure you're sitting down, because it has finally happened. Last night I went on my very first date with the Key To The City project!

The Place: Bryant Park, 41st Street and 6th Ave, Manhattan
The Time: 10:55pm, Saturday June 13th.
The Guy: "Luis", a 26 year old met on OKcupid.
Creative Time Says: Many things that we own in common are invisible, yet in plain sight.

I wanted to chose Bryant Park as the first site to visit because the site the key unlocks, a lamppost box with a switch control, seemed like an iconic beginning. Not only is Bryant Park near the pulsating center of Times Square, but creating light is fitting as the start of my quest.

"Luis" (a pseudonym, unless guys expressly consent I won't be using any real names, posting any pictures, or giving away any identifying characteristics in this blog) and I decided to meet up before this project began and luckily he was game to grab a key and explore! Luis has lived here ever since he moved from the DR when he was just a kid and he clearly shared the same sense of wonder and love for this city as I did. I was running late from a photoshoot and didn't get home until 10:15. Frantically realizing that the park closed at eleven, I called Luis and asked if he thought he could meet me in half an hour. Luckily, he was game. My kind of man.

We met behind the great screen being erected for the start of the bryant park film festival, at approximately 10:52pm. My heart was beating that we may not make it in time as I watched a large group of excited teenagers approach the box, turn the key and flick on the light. Finally, Luis approached, dressed perfectly for a casual date on a saturday night, and after a hugging meet and greet, we went up to the box.

I handed Luis my key, wanting to allow him to do the honors as I had basically dictated the terms of our meeting. As he opened the box a couple approached, then another and another, until a whole little group surrounded us. When Luis flipped the switch we all cheered and it felt like a true collective effort. People had left notes announcing their past presence in the space while a perched daffodil waved a happy greeting. The man of the first couple began asking me questions about the key and, wanting to share the love, I explained the art project and how he too could be a recipient. Finally, I crouched down to open the box, worried it would be impossible to retain excitement after having watched it be done so many times before me.

I was wrong. There was something so satisfying and delightful about the key simply sliding into the lock with such ease. Bryant Park was a site I loved to visit and now I had the key to open one of its many secrets. I felt delight and joy, like I would soon burst with shared ownership and pride. I held my breath as I flipped the switch and looked up, imagining I could watch the jolt of electricity I had released travel up to the light.

But it didn't go on!!! I tried turning it on and off again and nada. Here is the dialogue that followed:

L.A.: Luis, what time is is?
Luis: Uh oh, 11:01.
Portly Policeman while unnecessarily blowing a whistle: GET OUT OF THE PARK!!!!!!!! THE PARK IS CLOSED!!!! GET OUT OF THE PARK!!!!!!!!!!

Tragically I was too late! The power circuit must somehow be connected to the park's internal clock and I missed it by sixty seconds. I was not too late, however, for Luis to snap this picture of my everlasting sadness.

(My shirt is by the amazing Sine Die by Beetle)

Soon, however, we were laughing it off, sharing in the hilarity of the build up and crash. At least Luis had gone first. Imagine a date with such a person as I and then not even being able to participate fully in the project!

The second part of the date had to, as outlined by my rules, brought us to a bar or restaurant neither of us had previously tried. Before running to meet Luis, while scarfing down pizza and washing my hair (the photographer had it teased), I dashed onto yelp. Entering "midtown east, $-$$, bar, and "outdoor", I got a number of hits and let Luis chose the spot. His choice:

Pinetree Lodge, 326 East 35th Street.

We didn't realize quite how far east 326 East 35th street was but luckily the walk was quite visually stunning. I'd never been that far east on 35th and the townhouses we passed along the way were a mixture of NY's beauty, history and quirk. Plus, I learned where the country of Malta is. Check out these sights from the walk-->

On the way Luis and I talked about the world cup and his sister's upcoming wedding, immigration to New York and the perils of online dating. I wasn't sure if we were having a romantic click but I was definitely enjoying the conversation, it just flowed.

We knew we had arrived when, many many avenues later, we saw a blinding swirl of christmas lights and, you guessed it, pine trees. As Luis pointed out, the Lodge looks like it belongs on the side of the road off some quirky city. I suggested Austin, TX. When we walked inside it fit out hypothesis perfectly, christmas lights strung in between mounted deer and tilted TV screens.

(Toto, I don't think we're in the east village anymore.)

Sadly the outside seating area was closed (9:30?! What, do first year bankers not enjoy fresh air past twilight?!) but we grabbed a comfy couch, albeit bedecked with more animal hides, and settled into our drinks.

By the end of the night it was clear we probably wouldn't be seeking a second date. Though I had a good two hours chatting, that's really all it was: fun talk in new places with another lover of our city.

No worries, I'll try turning on another light to see if the electricity catches....

Till next time,

L.A.

The Clarification

2010-06-10T19:59:00.000-07:00

Alright my friends, we are mere hours away from the weekend. Mere hours away from the total freedom and bliss of a full 48 hours without work. I love my work, I truly do, and couldn't imagine doing anything else with my life at the moment, but I need the breaks to walk barefoot on Coney Island, do circus yoga in central park, catch a vaudeville show at Galapagos art space, and, of course, to date.

I promise you, the dates are coming, at the latest I should have my first date/key post on Sunday. (I know, the anticipation is killing us, me most of all). However I feel I should give a clarification of the deep dark underlying motives of this project.

Here goes..........my goal is to find a relationship (there, I said it, all guys just looking for random fun may now exit the building and run in fear!) I know, you all thought I was looking to cash in on the obviously raging market for witty girls writing blogs (see Julie and Julia or Sex and the City, actually, don't, both movies kind of sucked). But no, I'm a much more humble girl, I'm looking for actual real dates with people who I actually have chemistry with (or at least the potential of chemistry with). I want to be with someone who knows that's what they are looking for too. No gimmicks (aside from the whole key/city/art project idea), no fake dates, I'm really looking for whatever "love" is out there in this fantastic city of ours.

Truth be told I've taken a few months off of dating due to my attempts to really figure out what it is I want and what it is I am looking for. I came so far as to acknowledge that I have no f'in clue and at least that's a start! For a while I thought I was done with it altogether, the dating, the confusion, the mixed messages and unanswered texts. I figured I'd give up and let the like come to me.

Because, let's face it, dating can kind of suck. You get hurt, you hurt people, you move on, you move in. There's a lot of push and pull, give and take, and all the chick flicks about "how to lose a guy" and telling you "he's just not that into you" have not made anything any easier. I can't tell you how many hours I have wasted analyzing the subtleties of a facebook message or a held hand. It's exhausting and I just want it to be FUN again. To get butterflies in my stomach or, if I don't, to at least have joy in their absence.

I hope this project will allow me to see dating for what it is, something meant to be fun, something that often won't work out but something that, if it does, can totally rock your world. Using 24 sites will force me to get off my butt on 24 evenings and actually go out with a complete stranger and focus on the experience and the exploration of the city and of each other. Key to the City has actually gotten me excited about dating again. Instead of wondering if we'll click or stressing about what to say, my dating life is now, literally, incorporated into a piece of art. Instead of worrying about what it MAY be I can just focus on what it IS: another adventure in NYC. One that, just may, turn into an adventure in my life.

Happy searching to us all.

L.A.

The Men

2010-06-08T19:37:00.000-07:00

While blasting to glee on my subway ride home, I pondered what the next post should be about. (Don't worry the first key date(s) are coming this weekend!) The next logical step is, I suppose, discussing how I am going to go about meeting these men for dates. L.A., you say, you need willing participants should you complete your goal by summers end. Fortunately, there are, in fact, at LEAST 25 single straight men in NYC. It's all about finding them. And unless any of my five, so far, incredible followers has a single friend to ante-up*, I suppose I'll have to go with my regular stand-bys.

As I see it, there are five main ways for women to meet men in this city.

1) The Pick Up

Typical, oft depicted in movies, oft leading to bad lines and even worse small talk, sometimes they can turn up a diamond in the ruff.(shout out to cute Ian with glasses. A guy I talked world politics with on an LES playground outside when I was only a wee summer intern during college,**). I have met more men this way whose last names I simply don't remember than facebook friends I will never see again . (Sorry Ian..... Andrews? Smith? Boulingstein? Bueller?)

2) The Set Up

Friends of friends are all sooooo NICE and SOOO CUTE and soooo funny and sooooo smart! Except, that is, when they're not. Not that I don't beg my friends to set me up with their own rejections (if they are a woman) or competition (if they are a man) all the time, but still, we should really know what we are getting ourselves into.

3) The Toss Up

Ah online dating. Realm of possibility, death of romance, world of creep. If their profile is great you pray they're cuter in person and if the picture is attractive you hope maybe they misused "their" ironically. Easy access? Yes. Crapshoot? Absolutely. Tons of fun? You betcha.

4) The Ketchup

You know how ketchup can make almost anything taste better (no? is this just me?) Well any guy becomes instantly cuter when you have an adorable meeting story. Take photographer I nearly knocked unconscious with a baseball in central park. I wrote off his first racist comment on our date as a bad politically incorrect joke because "our story" was so darn adorable (and gender non-normative!) Thus has lead my long string of meeting men who were selling me a computer, who were mannies in the park, who were so unavailable they actually took off their glasses at a party so they wouldn't meet a girl and who I bullied them into seeing me again, etc etc. Ketchup may add a comforting flavor, but eventually you're going to have to find out what your food really tastes like.

And last but not least.....

5) The Back Up

Taken steps 1-4? Can't seem to meet anyone? No problem, simply place that tape that is your dating life into the VCR (it's an old reference, stay with me) press rewind and go to your least upsetting previous encounter. Ah exes, what would a single gal do without them?

So what will win out this summer? What tried and true method of male meeting and mating will garner the most keys? Stay tuned.

*If you DO have a friend to ante up, by all means comment away.

**None of the mentioned men in this post are featured in these pictures***. Though these are real life men I have dated in NYC. Most of them are fabulous, most of them are still single, line up ladies!

***Unless they fit into category number five in which case, I've decided it's allowed.

The Idea

2010-06-07T15:30:00.000-07:00

Four years ago I moved in with my one true love, New York City. It's getting pretty serious but I think it's safe to say we're deep enough in our relationship to give polyamory a try and to let someone else in.

I love dating in this city because you never know who you are going to meet and you never know where you are going to meet them. Trouble is sometimes you then don't know what to do.

Movies,plays, comedy shows, etc are all amazing but I've spent way too many first dates confusing my love of the piece with my like of the person I'm seeing it with. Grabbing a beer is pretty recommended by all these dating sites and gurus and yet I feel like I'm letting my true love down if all I can come up with to do with her (him? is NYC gendered) is hanker down over a wine glass. Plus, if the date sucks what have you gotten out of it aside from a slight hangover and an empited wallet? Thus, I needed a plan, something to ensure that every date meant furthering my relationship with my one true love.

Along comes Key to the City. Bringing together public art, shared space, and secrets and intrigue, getting one of these 25,000 suckers allows you into all sorts of hidden corridors, chambers, gardens and boxes from the bronx to staten island. Better yet, it's all free. Plus, I've got two keys...

So sitting on the subway with coworkers I came up with this brilliant plan, combine my love of dating, with the love of the city and all it offers. If I find love, they get my second key, if not well I just visited 24 secret spots of my favorite place on earth.

Here goes!

L.A.

The Challenge

2010-06-07T15:06:00.000-07:00