opening day

I'm sitting in the courtyard outside school, basking in the warm afternoon air, celebrating the first day in I-don't-even-know-how-many-godforsaken-weeks that I've dared to leave the house without a coat. My friend Emma comes marching up and drops her bag dramatically at my feet. "Spring fever is REAL," she announces, without preamble.

"I can't get anything done," she goes on, in response to my lifted eyebrow. "I just want to make out all the time. And I'm always looking around...." She trails off as a guy in a v-neck tee shirt strolls past, nicely defined biceps on display.

I'm still sitting in the same place half an hour later when my friend Vijay walks by. He stops to chat about how nice the weather is, and it isn't more than 60 seconds before he declares happily, "It's Opening Day!"

"It's...what now?"

"Opening Day! The first really warm day of spring, when all the girls overcompensate by wearing booty shorts and...you know." Apparently he's been participating in an email chain with his buddies all morning discussing instances of this very phenomenon. I'm just as happy not knowing specifics.

But this all tallies pretty exactly with my experience last night, when I came home from a sunset run and shouted to my roommate, "Every hot guy in lower Manhattan is out jogging this evening! It is BEAUTIFUL!"

Spring's here at last. My first east coast winter was tough. But maybe it's time to get back in this game.

vikram, part 1

July: Nick is making fun of me again. I’m telling him the latest news, but he can’t keep the characters straight, so I have to go through and remind him of all the names.

Him:  generic white names

all of them

I could have pulled them out of a hat

Me:   next time I am picking someone to date I will find a Vikram, 

      okay?

just for you

October: I’m at a Halloween party in someone’s back yard, drinking cheap rum from a red plastic cup. I’m dressed like a Girl Scout, in knee socks and a skirt that would horrify my mother. I am too old for this.

But when he walks in, I perk up a little. He’s instantly noticeable, even in the middle of his pack of friends, and I think it’s his build – slim hips, broad shoulders under a thin tee shirt. And dark skin. Big liquid eyes. I won’t even notice until we go on our first date that his nose is also big.

I make eyes at him once or twice. Being a girl makes things so easy. (Okay, this skirt probably doesn't hurt.) In any case, it works: He comes over to introduce himself.

"Hi," he says, extending his hand. "I'm Vikram."

Bingo.

the view from wednesday

He calls me darling.  Gets away with it because of the accent.  The truth is I kind of like it.

Sunny in Los Angeles this week.  I'm still wearing boots and tights; I haven't caught up to the weather. 

shut up, clare

All right, so we haven't gone to New York. Instead we're here, in a French restaurant on Melrose, lunching on the patio. And, later, on the veranda at Shutters, sipping gin-and-tonics while the sun melts lazily into the Pacific. And, still later, in another French restaurant on Abbot Kinney, rapidly developing a matched set of miniature hangovers. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'm wearing a little black sundress, wedges, a light sweater. Big looped earrings that jingle faintly when I turn my head. I'm pretending it's already summer, and the weather has decided to oblige.

Next to me, he's wearing jeans, loafers, a navy blue blazer, and a crisp white shirt. With French cuffs. This is, he informs me, about as casual as he ever gets. He believes that tee shirts are for sleeping in.

He's a member of Ascot, for Christ's sake. I do my best Eliza Doolittle ("Come on, Dover! Move your bloomin' arse!") but he doesn't seem to find it quite as funny as I do.

That makes him sound like a stuffy bore, and he isn’t. Still, when I ask him about his favorite concert, he tells me about listening to a famous tenor sing in Red Square, with the Kremlin for set dressing. My answer -- Bon Jovi at the Staples Center -- seems a little pedestrian after that.

And it's when we start talking about computers (blessing or curse?) that my brain-to-mouth filter ruptures. He tells me how he insisted on using a typewriter for years, until his assistant finally rebelled. The words coming out of his mouth sound all too familiar. "God," I blurt, "you should really just date my dad."

There's a beat. He laughs, and then cocks an eyebrow into his glass. "Talk about lines you never want to hear on a date," he comments, his voice echoing in the gin. I have, as usual, said the wrong thing.

But it's true. Dad would love this guy. Whether or not I can is a different story.