[July 28, 2011]
Dear softrice fan:
Forgetfulness is a monster that will eventually consume me. It is a seductive demon, armed with a charm offensive to trick my memories to elope with it, leaving me to rot in an emptied mortal shell. Against my inevitable defeater, I still put forth my best challenge. I cage my memories, in writing, to keep them with me, so that I have a life to share with lover. My forceful and desperate retention method works the night on another adventure with Honey, the screening of Cowboys & Aliens and dinner at Company.
Honey and I meet after work at the corner of 49th Street and Fifth Avenue, which is across the street from Saks Fifth Avenue. The movie is two hours, starting at 7:00 PM, wherein I did not want Honey to starve through the experience, so we decided to get a light snack beforehand. I suggested Macaron Parlour, supplier of macarons to Charbonnel et Walker on the 8th Floor of Saks Fifth Avenue. Ever since Honey had her first macaron, which was with me at the Delta Food Truck, she has been a delightful fan of them. Honey agreed to my choice, but at the dessert conveyor belt upstairs, we only saw a square of them for sale. Their macarons did not look pretty or fresh, so we decisively broke up with the dessert restaurant, and crawled our way back to the nearby Bouchon Bakery.
The skies were dubiously gloomy, while we were without umbrellas. Nonetheless, we ventured forth on our adventure, rather than return to my office to pick up my backup umbrella. It is our third time at Bouchon Bakery, although we did not come together on the first visit. I choose a Vanilla Macaron and Honey selected the Caramel Macaron. With our prize in hand, we walked through the humid streets to the subway station a couple of blocks away, and squished together on the 1 train to AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13. Her commute passed by entertainingly so, attentively listening to my gossips of sex at the office. Then we pick up our reserved tickets under my name at the American Express booth, eat our macarons (which Honey says is good, but pales against the pistachio and blueberry lemon macarons she had on previous occasions), and find seats on the west wing of the theater to watch Cowboys & Aliens.
Jon Favreau adopts an approach similar to Iron Man, which is a slow built-up of the technology in use, giving the imaginary weapons as much believability as possible. Honey said the aliens looked real, but I thought they were contradictory. They were savage and animalistic, for physical fearsomeness and superiority on sight, yet the movie still expects the aliens to be convincing creators and users of such advanced technology, relating to their spaceship, mining machines, aircrafts, and weapons. There were other holes in the plot as well. Why did the aliens need to capture humans to study our weaknesses? The aliens were already physically stronger, had warplanes against cowboys in horses, and laser guns against rudimentary pistols. There was no need to find more weaknesses. What kind of alien was Ella (Olivia Wilde)? If she could come back from the dead, why should I believe she could not do the same after exploding? If her race was dead, why come to warn Earth, and only destroy a scout ship? Most of all, why did the people not pick up another alien weapon, other than keeping Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig) special? Regardless of these inexplicable points, Cowboys & Aliens is an okay and entertaining movie for its two hours.
A middle-aged Caucasian woman, part of a group of lonely individuals gathering to do some activities while truly waiting to die, sat to my right and had a picnic throughout the movie. She went through snacks, a sandwich, and a warmed bottle of something to drink. Yet her most inconsiderate act was being too lazy to stand up and get out of the way, for Honey and I to leave, as the credits were already scrolling on the screen. We had to squeeze pass her legs, in the darkness, and onto a herd of outgoing viewers. Then there were long lines at the bathrooms, so we left and moved onto our next stop, pizza at Company, on 24th Street and Ninth Avenue.
Honey and I took the 1 train to 17th Street and walked the rest of the way. This gave us the opportunity for an evening stroll through Chelsea, and simultaneously holding more conversations. Since this past weekend, I have a recurring thought in my head, what happens if I fall asleep and never wake up again. If I planned to do something tomorrow or later in the future, I would go to sleep, only to never waking up and getting to do my planned activities. My brain is also constantly processing grisly possibilities. Death is one thing, but what happens if I star in an accident that leaves me horribly disfigured? For such a vain pursuer of beauty and perfection, should I cowardly live as a disabled freak or commit suicide and move onto my next reincarnation then? How do I face reality? How do I accept myself? My thoughts are questions with no answers. A world of possibility is my self-inflicted Hell.
Whatever the seed of my thoughts may have been, it seems this quality has been consistent in me. Honey says I have always been this person, without an off switch to shut off my thinking, unstoppable with a need to know why. I offer that I am scientist. I study, understand, and recreate. The difference is that the recreations will now be under my control.
Those are conscious thoughts. I also dream. Under uncontrollable conditions, I dream of life continued, if I never separated from my ex-girlfriends and/or severed my friends. Honey judges that my dreams are a waste of time. She coldly stares forward, without a care for the past. Wherein such subconscious longings may be disorienting, perhaps they are too the surviving witnesses of my humanity.
With the bad, along comes some good. I have a psychic rapport with lover, not unlike the one shared between Cyclops and Jean Grey in X-Men: The Animated Series. From a recent dream, lover and I were on a romantic date, happily drinking away and sharing desserts. The special detail of this dream is that I specifically knew we were at a place called Peels. Curious to know if there is such a bar or restaurant, I searched the name online. Surprisingly enough, there is a restaurant named Peels, on the Bowery. It serves regional American fare, but seems more like a popular brunch spot than the design in my dream. Nonetheless, Peels merit a personal investigation, as I emphasize to Honey.
Company
230 Ninth Avenue
New York, NY 10001
212.243.1105
www.co-pane.com
We arrive at Company, the most popular dining destination of the residential neighborhood. It is a one-story building, at the corner of the block. Company is spacious, sporting a wooden decor, and as Honey puts it, the room reeks of alcohol. The restaurant is more for drinking, but we came for their awesome pizza. Both of us go to the bathroom first, as the hostess readies our table. There are two unisex restrooms, prompting me to wonder if we could save resources and simply share one. Honey claims I wish as such, so I promise to tell her if I ever dream of using the same bathroom with her. We finish our biological businesses and find our table along a row of small tables against the wall, behind two large communal tables for a large party or many pairs of strangers, and first after the round table at the front. There were other dating pairs dining al fresco outside, but it is much too dark and humid for us to enjoy that option tonight. Honey and I comfortably nest a couple of hours within the AC and smell of beer.
Honey fancies the Housemade Fountain Soda, a mix of cherry vanilla and ginger ale. It is a pink liquid, topped with black seeds, and cooled with ice cubes. I ask the waiter for a dessert wine, for which he offers the Vin Santo, a dessert white wine from the small village of Volpaia in Tuscany, Italy. The name translates as “holy wine”. I find it nothing of the sort. The Vin Santo is neither sweet nor cold. I drink it all the same, but the Italian dessert wine does not make it onto my preferred list.
The Caucasian waiter informs us of the special fluke appetizer and a vegetable pizza. Yet we declined both options, as Honey dislikes cilantro and celery, which appears on both items. Honey wants to share a Radicchio Salad, but they were out, so we skipped ahead to simply having our two pizzas for dinner.
The first to appear onto our table is the Meatball Pie, a pizza topped with tomato, mozzarella, veal meatballs, caramelized onions, olives, aged pecorino, and oregano. It is a deliciously light crust, with satisfying mouthfuls of halved veal meatballs. Honey agrees on the noted positives, but complains on the skimpiness of cheese, as she is a big fan of it. She also suggests a more thorough dispersion of meatballs, so that every bite would have meat. The sweetness of the caramelized onions makes the pizza all better, my dining companion claims. A negative note is the infrequent discovery of olives. Honey dislikes this topping as well. Upon tasting the black olives on our pizza, my first thought was not my displeasure over them, but rather that lover would not like this. There are only a few olive pieces on the pie though, so I could easily pick them out, should I ever return on a pizza date with lover.
Honey and I initiated the pizza consumption process with the provided sets of fork and knife. I cut the tip and proceed with my hands. The usage of utensils to eat pizza is pretentious. Honey continues using the fork and knife, stating she started doing so after a visit of Grimaldi’s. She saw everyone else doing so. Therefore, Honey did not feel comfortable standing out with the usage of her hands. Speaking of the famous pizzeria, Grimaldi’s pizza is better, with a lighter and cheesier crust. Company comes in as a close runner-up, albeit offering a greater diversity of toppings. Honey feels the need to return to the original Grimaldi’s in Brooklyn for a refresher, while I feel the need to bring mom and lover to try both pizzas at Grimaldi’s and Company, as the two favorite women in my life are huge fans of the Italian pie.
Our next pizza is the Boscaiola Pie. Lover and my friends would easily see through my reasoning for the choice of this name, but Honey chose this pie for its flavoring, including tomato, mozzarella, pork sausage, mushroom, onion, and chili. I like the Boscaiola name better and it has a mushier crust, but the Meatball Pie is tastier. The Boscaiola Pie is overwhelmingly a mushroom pizza, with scarce pork sausage and other toppings. Although when you do taste the sausage, it has a pleasant, spicy kick to the meat.
Food: C
Drinks: D-
Dessert: N/A
Ambiance: D+
Final: D+
Honey liked the veal meatballs so much that I assertively interest her in the Meatball Shop, a restaurant in the Lower East Side solely dedicated to meatballs. They have all kinds of meatballs, served by themselves, in sandwiches, or over salads. I entice Honey to go now, to add onto our story for tonight, but we are full from the two individually sized pizzas. (I am no longer hungry, but I can always eat more, for the sake of the story.) Before we leave, the waiter confesses to us of my unique impression on him. Apparently, I am the first to ask for a dessert drink with my pizza. He was puzzled and troubled over getting me a suggestion, even though the result was a dissatisfying one. I confirm I am weird, Honey adds that I am special, and we depart from Company.
On our evening stroll back to the downtown train station, Honey shares her recurring dream of death. Once every three months, she dreams of falling off a building. Honey has no recollection of why she is at the rooftop of a building, how she falls, and wakes up in a state of panic just before smacking against the ground. Her count on the frequency of this dream surprises me.
We wait at the steamy subway station, to take the 1 train to West 4 and transfer for the F to East Broadway. To pass time, the two of us discuss the technical skills necessary to have threesomes and foursomes. Honey goes onto having sex with four girls at once, but I pull her back to sex with three girls, because that is the stage that I cannot get pass, before we get ahead of ourselves. Making love with one girl is straightforward. Having sex with two girls at once is doable, through vaginal sex with one girl and oral sex with the other girl. I am stuck at sex with three girls simultaneously. Honey laughs, because I realistically offer that the third girl can only be kissing my lovable tummy or sucking my toes. Her satisfaction would fall below my allowable performance standards. To ensure my service quality, Honey suggests I pop Viagra and have sex in batches of two girls at a time. She overestimates my physical endurance, for the first batch may be pleasure, the second a demonstration of ability, but the third and beyond would surely be painful and self-destructive. At a lost, Honey then invites me to her place to watch bunny ears tapes, to see, practice, and learn.
Our fantastical conversation steers unto a romantic escape, wherein Honey fantasizes us rocking the ivory beaches in a private villa along the sapphire sea of Bora Bora. Her affinity for international travel has a current focus on this French Polynesian paradise. The location might be more fitting for a honeymoon, but I offer to take her sooner, if only SPG would announce my winning of their contest to a free stay at either Le Meridien Bora Bora or the St. Regis Bora Bora Resort with greater haste. We have no complaints if my victorious vote was for Mystique, Santorini, or the Republic of Maldives instead.
We debate other possible escapes for her October birthday, wherein Italy and Turkey leads the candidates list. She does not want to go to China or Taiwan yet. New Zealand and Australia are strong contestants as well, but their shortcoming is their higher price ticket. As for her dream vacation, Chile, she accepted the deconstructive criticism of her friend that Argentina might be a better venture in South America.
Honey tries to convince me to go to Cancun with her. I may not be a fan of the beaches, but she baits me with one of the New Seven Wonders of the World nearby, Chichen Itza. These Aztec pyramids in Mexico are a worthy site to experience. I do need to check this off my list. Yet I remain doubtful if this is the time to do so. My decision stays as forthcoming.
Auditing our relationship, Honey says I am good to her. I watch movies with her, I eat dinners with her, and I play international travels with her. I include her in all the fun of my life, so I am good to her. This is at least the second time Honey has openly voiced the fact, which worries me, because I do not know where she is leading our story. I rather prefer open, collaborative, and planned relationships.
Ignoring the uncertainty, which is a staple ingredient of life, I take home with me another adventure to share with lover. People see me take so many pictures of food that they ignorantly think of me as a foodie and push me to become a food critic. This is more a psychological play than my uncurbed enthusiasm for food. It is cognitive association, or linking, which I laboriously mold. I sincerely miss lover. I miss her more than words can say. I want lover to naturally miss me and think of softrice as well. This is the opening of more doors for her to do so, whether it is food, international travel, Linda Chung, Marvel Comics, or breathing the air. I simply am for lover to miss and think of.
Always in a puff of smoke,
softrice
