Friends often tell tell me I date a lot, which I think is weird and not entirely accurate.  I suppose it depends on your definition of the word "date."  I was at a barbecue this weekend (hosted by Stephen to celebrate Joanna’s birthday) and was comparing my dating history this past year with a friend’s.  She was recalling how, for her, this past spring was a dry spell.  "I dated myself," she said.  She then went on to make jokes about how she always called when she said she would, and that it was all fine and good until she cheated on herself, but I started to think a bit about the times when the dates aren’t there — when there’s nobody in the bullpen™* and the most important person in your life is, well, you.  I started to realize that, so far this year, I have been running myself ragged, and now that the circumstances are what they are, it might not be a bad idea to date myself — to give myself that extra special care that I need, be it in the form of extra sleep, a weekly Pilates class, healthy eating, and/or enough down time to avoid being in a constant state of stress.  So at the moment, I’m dating myself, and damn it — I’m one hot date.

As for the rest of my weekend, Friday night I finally got to enjoy a meal at Gusto — looking forward to going back soon.  The Lovely Miss Katie, her college roommate and I shared the frito misto de pesce which included small softshell crabs, a grilled focaccia with figs and prociutto, artichoke ravioli in a sinful butter sauce, and polpettini — petite meatballs in a hearty tomato sauce.  Dessert was a light and tart lemon panna cotta and, strangely enough, I can’t remember the second dessert — except that it was good.  How very unlike me.  After Saturday’s barbecue (where Doug and Leora stopped by for a bit), I headed to Jenn & Carolyn’s for a party and enjoyed yet another Brooklyn backyard.  Very jealous of that, I tell ya.  Ended up at ‘inoteca quite late with Roopa and Anj, which made Sunday a bit mellow.  Thanks to the Brooklyners for their hospitality and to all others for the great company.

*trademarked by the Lovely Miss Katie, who is her own date this week at a yoga retreat.

I strongly encourage all of you to go to a burlesque show if you haven’t done so already, whether you’re on a date or not.  Not only were we treated to tunes from the New Orleans Jazz Vipers, but we got to see some fabulous ladies parading their goods with a healthy dose of flair, glitter, pasties, creativity, and laughs.  I’d have to say my favorite was Nasty Canasta, if only for costume creativity — she did her routine to Harry Belafonte’s Day-O, and let’s just say that bananas and tarantulas were represented.

After burlesque it was on to Tapeo 29, which I’d like to hit again — we were so late that we were only to enjoy their late-night menu, which consisted of nuts, cheese, chorizo, and olives.  "We’ll take it all."  Finally, we topped of the evening with a pit stop at Winnie’s for a karaoke fix (because, really, isn’t everything better with a little karaoke?).  On our walk there we passed the Wing Kei Noodle Company, where they were hard at work after midnight on a Friday, making noodles.  It simply radiated whiteness out onto the street.

Saturday was spent shopping for the evening’s dinner party.  For some reason, it is literally impossible for me to stick to a shopping list when I hit the farmer’s market or Whole Foods.  So I’ve got the few ingredients I need to make the main course (fresh pasta, yellow and red tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, garlic), but so many other things catch my eye and make it back home with me.  Blueberries, corn, an out-of-this-world lemon artichoke pesto, tomatillos, cilantro, jalapeno.  Sigh.  We had an absolutely amazing dinner party, with Vivian supplying antipasti treats from DiPalo’s, Melissa bringing a salad complete with peppery arugula, hearts of palm, artichokes, pine nuts, and  sungold cherry tomatoes (I had bought some of those, too), Jenn rounded out the meal with fresh berries and homemade whipped cream.  Jenn and Melissa also took care of the wine, which was the educational component of the evening.  It was old world vs. new world wines — we did two blind tastings of the same grape, one old world (Europe) and one new world (everywhere else) and decided which one we preferred in each pair.  The new world won both the whites and the reds, but we drank the losers anyway (god forbid anyone should feel bad about losing).

Sunday night Matt helped me eat the leftovers (I still have some, mind you, but that’ll be dinner on Tuesday night).  It’s always good to know you have friends around to help you out in these situations.

Thanks to all for your suggestions and input.  I’ll let you know how it goes (and I may actually wait a month or so to do this), but one thing’s for sure: I will NOT buy a Mac.  I’m just a PC gal, and that’s the way it goes. 

In other total dork news, I stopped at Staples on the way to work yesterday morning and purchased a little clip with a retractable elastic to hold my ID badge — this way I can hold the badge up to the reader without either a) unclipping it from my clothing, or b) contorting in some weird way or stretching my shirt/jacket/sweater/dress in order to swipe the thing.  It’s amazing how such a small thing changed my entire day.

Finally, and hopefully a little less dorky, here are the pictures from this weekend’s festivities.  An extra special thanks to Kim, who not only cooked a Thai dinner to die for, but who, with some assistance from John, brewed a batch of blackberry wheat beer that we broke out on the beach on Saturday evening.  Amazing.

Taken on the rooftop of Daisy May’s BBQ, where Adam Perry Lang showed me and Jen his garden.  Not only was he gracious enough to take the time to show us around, but he gave us each a beautiful aromatic bouquet of herbs and lavender to take home and throw in the tub.

A reader commented the other day that he gets tired merely reading about my social life.  Trust me, I’m pretty exhausted by the end of the week, and I sometimes feel like I never leave myself enough time to get everything done that I set out to do.  But that said, I love every minute of it.  Other things I did this week (outside of the new job — which is going quite well, thank you) that haven’t yet made the blog: lunch at Pampano Tacqueria with Christie, dinner with Jenn B. at Diablo Royale, dinner with Ali at Bar Jamon, a very sweaty yoga class, two other trips to the gym for cardio, a little quiet time at home (really, Dad, I swear!).  And tonight, back to the beach.  I’m already getting tired, but at least I know there’s a nap on the beach (and hopefully the new hammock that John claims to have put on the deck) in my very near future.