Miss Scarlett, in the (Soho House) Library, with the Cocktail Stick

"Where exactly is it? We've been here before haven't we? Late at night. You know that time. After that thing. With that guy on his Crackberry."
"That was someplace else."
"Are you sure?"
"Yep. And it's here. It says on the door. After you."

The people on reception are busy finding Paul Rudd's bags. In real life, he's a total Baldwin - although there's something not quite right about him. A glitch in the matrix. It's not until we're in the lift that I figure it out.

"His head's too big."
"What, the actor guy? So you saw him too. I wanted to nudge you, but I was trying to play it cool."
"So you resisted the urge to tell him, 'I love you, man'?"
"Yeah."
"And 'slap-a de bass'?"
"Well, I was going to do that. Just as the doors were about to close. But then I worried that someone would press the button and we'd both be standing there."

Our brush with celebrity is far from over. It's the launch of a glamorous friend's fabulous book and there's a crush of stylish people and a rash of mistaken identities. If this were a romcom, the men coming up and kissing me would have been handsome young bounders, looking to score with a bestselling authoress, but then falling hard for my clumsy, unpublished charms after a serious of neat misunderstandings and amusing mishaps. As it is, it's sharply suited men of my father's generation, swooping in and hurriedly shipping out when they realise I'm the wrong short brunette. I try not to feel like an apple with a worm in it.

And then there's the actor. I spot him as soon as I walk into the room, because we've been to the opening night of his play the week before. I didn't know that it was either an opening gala or a play of his until I saw the collectable Playbill.
"Look who's here."
"You know him don't you?"
"Well, I've met him."
"So go say hi."
I pull a face. A passing waitress snatches back her tuna tartar in offence.
"Maybe later."

Several cocktails and coctail sausages later we snatch a goodbye with the real authoress and slip out. It's tempting to stop the lift on every floor and explore.

"You wussed out. You didn't say we saw the play. That we liked it."
"Yeah. I didn't get a chance."
"Chicken."


The receptionist doesn't glance up as we leave.
"Big heads."
"Hmm?"
"Big heads. They look good on film."
"That makes sense."

We set off, back to Brooklyn

Dog-Kicking at the Greenmarket

There was something comic about the way he pulled his leg back and aimed a kick squarely in the small dog's hindquarters. With a yelp, the dog skittered behind the legs of a carefully accessorized Asian girl, and only then did it become clear that this wasn't horseplay, that no-one was fooling around.

As we got closer we saw the man shaking off his packages, telltale darkness blooming on the brown paper and puddling on the ground. So much filth from such a tiny dog.

"Get your fucking dog under control."

The girl failed to react. The chiuaua cowered in her shadow. The cute rom-con scenario was not playing out to script

"Here? How do you like this?" the hero asked, oddly calm. Leaning over her he wiped his piss-stained parcels - of canvases? of books? - on her coat.

She averted her eyes and jerked away, still saying nothing. No apology. No outrage.

All the Fort Greene folk who, like us, was diligently composting their food scraps (carefully stored in the freezer all week in reused plastic bags), looked at each other.

Now he was trying to wipe it in her face. Both dog and owner seemed to be getting smaller, shrinking back against the pungent garbage cans.

And then, with a final snort of disgust, he stalked away, and we went back to browsing the heirloom apples and the organic, free-range eggs.

The Night Shift

Last Saturday I spent the night sleeping on a camp bed in a basement room with sixteen men. Even with my ear plugs in, the symphony of night noises was incredible. Operatic snores were layered under creaks and mutters, counterpointed with sustained trumpets of flatulence. Time and again I woke in the shadow of a guest standing by the table at the end of my bed, though Chris swears I was dreaming.


The call had gone out that, due to a lack of volunteers, the shelter might have to close at the weekends. I'd signed us both up in a vague jag of well-meaning, despite the fact that it didn't really sound like my cup of tea. I like me altruism like I like my exercise classes: full of sweat and incident, with no time left over for awkward silences. Even among the securely homed, I lack the knack of aimlessly hanging out. As a rule, I'd rather be scrubbing toilets than making forced chit-chat. That Saturday night, however, that rule underwent a major revision.

By the time we arrived we were late and chilled to the bone after having spent the last half hour aimlessly circling the church in a snow storm. Drugged up to my eyeballs on cold medicine, I was heartily wishing we'd given up and gone home, rather than a phoning a friend to check if there'd been a last-minute email with contact details on it. But we had, and there had been, and here we were, making ourselves at home amongst the screened and vetted denizens of the city's day shelters.
"Yeah, we were wondering how the, erm, guests found it," I said, motioning to the unmarked door we'd passed and repassed several times that evening. "It makes sense if they're bussed in."
"I know. If someone walks in off the street and says he needs help..." The volunteer co-ordinater spread his hands in what I take to be an expansive gesture.
"You let them in?"
"No! Unfortunately, we'd be shut down. We have to turn them away."

The men who've made the grade are either sitting on their beds, or have nabbed one of the spots on the old sofas near the television. They seem tired - perhaps unsuprisingly, since the rules say we have to wake them at 5.30 for the bus back to the day shelter. There are white men, Hispanic men and black men, ranging from twentysomethings to haggard men in their sixties, although I don't ask and no-one offers those kind of details. Two, Pierre and Alabama, come and introduce themselves and thank us for volunteering. Turns out they are new to the shelter. Alabama's just got into town, and is still holding out hope of a job and cheap flat which a friend of his sister is supposed to be sorting out. Pierre is more of a mystery. Unlike the other men he isn't overweight or gaunt, and he's got the soft voice and direct stare of a ladies man or a con artist. He tells Chris that he can train him and 'get him ripped' - in a good way, we hope.


After some dallying over a Rice Krispies bar I sit down in the one free spot by the TV. I soon see why no-one's taken it. To my right, a scrawny old guy in a green t-shirt sits raking his skin with his nails. While I try to follow the plot of Law & Order his hands are furrowing under his shirt, scurrying round his back, delving into his crotch. Already I'm feeling itchy, and although I'm telling myself it's eczema, I can almost sees the fleas leaping over the cracked leather sofa towards me. There's a limit on how close I can sidle up to man on the other side of me (who snorts disdainfully whenever the onscreen detectives turn up yet another red herring) so at the first commercial break I jump up to use the toilet.

There's no women's toilet. In the interests of discouraging overdoses and beat-downs, the cubicles don't have doors on, but if I can get the room to myself I can lock the outside door. With the door closed the smell is overpowering; the toilets look like the set of Trainspotting and the floor is sticky with urine. Later that night I'll forget to put on shoes before venturing inside, and feel my socks sucking up the grime. Other girls might have bolted at this point, but I've been to Glastonbury, and I was made of sterner stuff

At least I thought so, until the aggro started...

Bellies Out at Sounds Like Brooklyn

By the time we got to the gig the support act had finished and the headliners were on stage. Already the lead singer was glossy with sweat, and his Lycra bodysuit was pulled down perilously low beneath the generous swell of his belly. It was hard to look away. The songs came and went, and so did the light displays and the monkey hat, but the drama of the night was concentrated in that gleaming, jiggling stomach and the rolls of Lycra beneath it. It was the same tease they play with underwear models, whose shadowed musculature draw the eyes down and promise that that pants-on situation is purely temporary. This time, however, a thousand pair of eyes were holding that bodysuit up, searing it in place.

A few years back I watched Gossip play Bestival on the Isle of Wight: another mesmerising Lycra and lyrics combination. It was at the time when Beth Ditto was the UK media's darling, and here, yet again, the only thing standing in the way of control was a pair of pour-on leggings and a lot of sequins.

We talk about rock stars being larger than life, and there's something quite magical when they actually are. Everyone wants a piece of you, and there's more to go round.

But God bless that Lycra - the unsung support act of the year.

New York Intimacy

Our Brooklyn neighbours have seen me naked more times than I care to remember. In our front room, more than thirty sets of windows face our window across the street, usually shuttered or sullenly dark in the daytime, but occasionally animated with ghostly life. In the middle room the window looks out onto an airshaft, and a peeping tom would need a wide-angled telescope to cop anything half-decent. Not so our kitchen. Washing up is like looking in a mirror. I turn on the water. My neighbour, standing less than two feet away, facing me, does the same. In unison we clatter our pots and pans, reach for scrubbing brushes and babytalk our mewling cats. The only acknowledgement I make of her is to angle my body to the side, as if sidestepping a mirror after dark - an echo of an older superstition.

The windowframe cuts her off at the chin and the navel. Even in winter she wears tank tops. Last year she turned on the airconditioning in April, and kept it nasally whining until well into the Fall. We have come to the conclusion that either her personal themostat is set on high, or she is just an enemy of the planet. She has probably heard these discussions, since we do not use our airconditioner and keep our windows flung open year round. Or perhaps her airconditioner drowns them out.

Our buildings are cheek to cheek, bending round the airvent to hug close again bathroom to bathroom. I smell the food she's cooking, the smoke when friends visit, which isn't often. I hear her door bell as well as my own, startling up from my desk and sinking back down when I hear the answering buzz of the door release. We don't often hear voices. Because she lives alone, it's easier to maintain the illusion of privacy. Like a child covering its face with its hands we insist: you can't hear us if we can't hear you.

The windowframe cuts me off from chin to navel. When I go to the bathroom in the night I run, my hands crossed over my chest. This is all my New York privacy. And as long as I never have to meet her, it's enough.

I Live to Lunge

We're sitting at a table in a Burger King in rural Vermont, and for the second time in as many weeks we're overhearing a serious conversation about the Caveman Diet.
"I mean it totally makes sense."
"Yeah, if you think about it, they say that our brains have shrunk since we were hunter gatherers."
Although some of us have developed a sense of irony, in compensation.
"So yeah, part of my deal about getting back to, you know, a more natural relationship with food and exercise."
The girls at the table smile as he casually runs a hand over his biceps. I wonder if he also takes a caveman approach to dating.
"So yeah, you know. Lots of running. Raw food."
Yer man's a hedgefunder turned personal trainer. In fact, the whole table's so ridiculously Alpha that the fast food empire should be sponsoring them to sit here and eat their whoppers and burger shots.
"Sounds like you're building a really strong brand."
"I mean, this shit's important."


Living over here, it's sometimes difficult to remember that London has its own special breed of city arseholes, spraying Eastern European models with champagne and pricing the rest of us out of Zones 1 and 2. But this shiny bunch of Ivy-Leaguers are in a class of their own. They're smart, driven and attractive, and talking to them after a long day skiing is about as much fun as side-stepping up a bunny hill.
"But, I mean, everyone seems really nice," I insisted on the first night.
By the second I'd added the qualifier "...just not, you know, really our sort of people."
By the time we left words like "semi-obnoxious" were starting to appear.
"It's like fucking Jersey Shore in that hot-tub."
"You've never watched Jersey Shore."
"Yeah, but don't you find it weird that they all have six-packs? I swear one of those guys played a reality TV star in some teen movie. Seriously, the situation is outta control."

Accustomed to feeling like outsiders (what with having accents and all) that weekend it was like we a different species to the rest of the party. Things came to a head over breakfast when we were talking with some of the guys about cross-use skis.
G1:"I mean, it's great really challenging."
G2:"Yeah, because that's the problem with normal skiing. I prefer snowboarding because you get a full-body workout."
Chris and I munch our cereal and nod pleasantly.
G1:"Well you should try these kind of skis. You're really engaging your muscles. It's like you spend all day lunging."
G2: "That sounds awesome. You know, I live to lunge. I'd lunge all fucking day if I could."
A glance at her face tells us she's not joking, and we quietly slip away.

I Live to Lunge

We're sitting at a table in a Burger King in rural Vermont, and for the second time in as many weeks we're overhearing a serious conversation about the Caveman Diet.
"I mean it totally makes sense."
"Yeah, if you think about it, they say that our brains have shrunk since we were hunter gatherers."
Although some of us have developed a sense of irony, in compensation.
"So yeah, part of my deal about getting back to, you know, a more natural relationship with food and exercise."
The girls at the table smile as he casually runs a hand over his biceps. I wonder if he also takes a caveman approach to dating.
"So yeah, you know. Lots of running. Raw food."
Yer man's a hedgefunder turned personal trainer. In fact, the whole table's so ridiculously Alpha that the fast food empire should be sponsoring them to sit here and eat their whoppers and burger shots.
"Sounds like you're building a really strong brand."
"I mean, that shit's important."
Obediently we troop back on the bus, having successfully foraged enough saturated fat to get us back home to New York.


Living over here, it's sometimes difficult to remember that London has its own special breed of city arseholes, spraying Eastern European models with champagne and pricing the rest of us out of Zones 1 and 2. But this shiny bunch of Ivy-Leaguers we're spending the weekend with are in a class of their own. They're smart, driven and attractive, and talking to them after a long day skiing is about as much fun as side-stepping up a bunny hill.
"But, I mean, everyone seems really nice," I insisted on the first night.
By the second I'd added the qualifier "...just not, you know, really our sort of people."
By the time we left words like "semi-obnoxious" were starting to appear.
"It's like fucking Jersey Shore in that hot-tub."
"You've never watched Jersey Shore."
"Yeah, but don't you find it weird that they all have six-packs? I swear one of those guys played a reality TV star in some teen movie. Seriously, the situation is outta control."

Although accustomed to feeling like outsiders (what with having accents and all) that weekend it was like we were a different species to the rest of the party. Things came to a head over breakfast when we were talking with some of the guides about cross-use skis.
G1:"I mean, it's great really challenging."
G2:"Yeah, because that's the problem with normal skiing. I prefer snowboarding because you get a full-body workout."
Chris and I munch our cereal and nod pleasantly.
G1:"Well you should try these kind of skis. You're really engaging your muscles. It's like you spend all day lunging."
G2: "That sounds awesome. You know, I live to lunge. I'd lunge all fucking day if I could."
A glance at her face tells us she's not joking, and we quietly slip away.

Battle of the Bowling Lanes

"God, I love Brooklyn..."
We're at a launch party for the 2010 edition of Not For Tourists - Brooklyn, a hitherto hipster-skinny guide to the borough's best bits, now growing paunchy with maps of Bedford-Stuy and Clinton Hill. It's held at Brooklyn Bowl - allegedly the world's first eco-friendly bowling alley, and certainly one of the shiniest and most beautifully designed I've ever seen. At your lane, you can lounge on leather sofas and watch the live band in the next room, or order obscene portions of Blue Ribbon (and, presumably, blue-blood) fried chicken. Since it's a launch, the bowling and first drink are free, and we've teamed up with a couple of guys, both sporting prominent facial hair. At one point I'm trailing 30 points behind my nearest (bearded) competitor, and only a flukey strike keeps me from total humiliation.

It was only when we were walking home (several Righteous Ryes, 8 chicken parts, and one Haitian benefit later) that we realised that this new alley is literally a couple of blocks from its less glitzy predecessor. The Gutter has its own beaten-up charm. The way I bowl, the aerodynamics of the lane doen't matter. Moreover, they serve hard cider in big bottles, not just local beers for local people. And I like the way the frequent malfunctions add an element of drama and suspense. Yet it's hard to see how it will survive the competition shimmying into the neighbourhood. Sure, Gutter's cool, and it's a damn sight cheaper, but it's pitting vintage against state-of-the-art, a mailing list against a PR machine, a jukebox against guitars and drums.
"We should go back to Gutter next time," I say, as we march to the Nassau G.
"Yeah." There's a pause. "But they don't have fried chicken, do they?"

The Golden Globes

"Wait you've got to watch this."
"She looks like Jessica Parker."
"She looks like Daryl Hannah."
"Her hair is ter-rible."
"What, I like it!"
"She's wrecked."
"I know, right?"
"Shh, I'm replaying it."

It's raining, both in LA and here in New York. From out of the floor-to-ceiling glass of our friends' Hells Kitchen apartment we can see that most of midtown is wreathed in fog. Even in Hollywood, people are cowering under umbrellas, shivering in chiffon and vintage lace.

Julia Roberts, arm slung around her agent, has on a simple black dress and her Pretty Woman grin. While everyone else is posing Pilates tall and making safe small talk, she's loose and half-lit. In the wings, a puffy faced Tom Hanks looks like he's concentrating very hard on standing upright and keeping his face straight as Roberts veers off the unwritten script. She calls out NBC, jokes about her sex life, and, best of all, draws attention to the absurdity of the interview process, where well-groomed hosts wax sycophantic for thirty second bursts before unceremoniously moving on to the next face before their inane questions are even answered.

Mostly the celebs smile graciously and melt away. Not our Julia.

It's clear from the host's body language that he's winding down the interview, but his stars are too A-List to physically walk away from.
"So, over to you, Natalie," he says, bizarrely thrusting the microphone at Roberts' face at the same time.
Before the cut is made, we hear her demand "Who's Natalie?"

"Yeah, who the fuck is Natalie?"
"She's priceless."
"Yeah, but what was that necklace all about?"

Later there's excited murmurs as Roberts steps up to present an award. The smile comes out again, but this time there's no manicness, no glimpse of the face behind the makeup.

"Her agent must have sobered her up."
"Guess so."

Glumly, we reach for the guacamole.

BAM and The Red Peril

The post-screening discussion had gained momentum and now the panellists were beginning to enjoy themselves.
"And of course what the film doesn't show is that his wife was one of the richest women in America, the heiress to what became General Foods."
"And you know all those train scenes? Well, really they arrived on their luxury private yacht..."
"THAT'S NOT TRUE!"
Three of the panellists' faces say There's always one crazy in the audience
The fourth panellist clears his throat, a little guiltily.
"And we are lucky enough to have us with us in the audience the granddaughter of Joseph Davies, whose mother and father were portrayed in the film."
His fellow panellists try not to look like they've been slapped in the face. Suddenly their wry critiques and witty asides seem snide and disrespectful. Quick as a luxury sailing vessel, they change tack.
"So, ummm, it'd be great to hear what your mother's experiences of Russia were."
But already the ambassador's granddaughter is making her way to the front of the room and gesturing for the microphone.
"You're all laughing at the film, but my grandfather was there and he said that that was what was so amazing about the trials. The accused men really did just go off and, you know, hang themselves."
There are murmurs in the room. She is talking about the scene of the purge trials, which, as one of the panellists has already pointed out, showcases some of the ugliest and most biddable traitors in the history of cinema.
"And you've got to remember. There's a war on."
The panellists nod sagely at this. Granddaughter holds on to the microphone The event has morphed from a film panel to an awkward q&a. Unwisely, one of them persists with the question of the sailing boat. She's sure that was what her source said.
"Oh that was a different time. They didn't arrive in it."
From then on the discussion is strangely charged. What's at stake is no longer a Warner Brothers propaganda film, but a family's reputation, America's moral integrity, and the true story of the second world war. People start sentences with phrases like "As a person of Finnish descent..." and two historians in front of us almost come to blows over a third historian's assessment of the Trotsky-bloc plot.
It's tempting to join in. Both the film and the audience members talk about brave Russia fighting off Hitler alone, as if as a personal favour to America.
"Twenty-five million people. I mean, you can't even imagine. They died for us," the Granddaughter intones piously.
I half expect someone to shout an A-men.

A Full Range of Movements

I've learnt the hard way that Aqua Exercise is really the only slot in the schedule where I have half-decent odds of being the sleekest, fittest, most flexible kid in the class. On Monday I hit the jackpot.
"You new here?" The teacher is wearing a low-backed black swimsuit and legging combo that, were she in Bushwick, would easily pass for street clothes. And she can certainly rock it. Her figure would be excellent advert for the toning powers of low-impact, water-resistance exercise, except she never gets out of her Havanianas and into the pool with us.
"First time."
"But you've done this sort of thing before, right?" she checks, handing me my styrofoam weights.
I think back to the sessions in our local pool in Koshigaya, doing splashy jumping jacks to J-pop, shrug and smile.
I take my lane in between two plastic-domed old ladies and test out the weights. In the air they are faintly ridiculous: scaled-down versions of the sort of weights dodgy Victorian strongman might have painted black and puffed over theatrically. In the water they put up more of a fight. Twenty minutes in and my weedy arms are already complaining. But the tragic thing is I suspect I might be the only one hurting...
Geriatrics, it turns out, are a bunch of slackers. I've never seen so much cheating in a class, so many instances of blithe this'll-do-ing, such frequent stops to chat about brands of crackers and last night's TV. True to form, I'm the youngest by a good three or four decades.
I finish the class smug and sweat free (such is the joy of aqua exercise) but sadly the feeling doesn't last for long.
I'd forgotten my swim cap, and after a lot of back-and-forthing I'd persuaded one of the life guards to lend me his, provided that I wore it inside out. The problem was that when I got out of the pool I couldn't remember which regulation white towel was mine. Not wanting to invoke the ire of a pumped-up senior citizen I had little option but to go knock on the door of the pool office without one.
"Umm, Diego..."
The door opens and a quartet of lifeguards turn to look at me, trying to be all nonchalant in my dripping bikini and scalp-plastered hair.
"Ah. Oh. Thanks."
"No, thank you. Do you want me to rinse it?"
There's an awkward pause. He laughs, as if I've said something rude. Maybe I have in lifeguard slang.
"You know no-one's ever offered to do that before... Thanks."
I parrot another "thanks" and make a run for it up the stairs to the changing room, cheeks burning, arms aching, but still, Lord be praised, the right side of thirty.

Winter in Wave Hill

"You know, you've got this place pretty much to yourselves."
"Odd that."
The man comes out of the side door of the booth. He's kitted out in heavy-duty gloves and scarf. His phone rings and he takes the call. We wait, the snowing whipping round us. The cold burns my nose when I breathe in, and I dream of long johns and global warming and hot chocolate that doesn't come in a packet from Burger King.

"Either of you students?"
I look hopefully at Chris, but he cuts me off my scam with a firm "No". This, after all, is the man who told the woman in the exchange booth that he'd given her too much currency - despite the fact she'd been rude, despite the fact that he'd run through his travelling budget and was living off brown bananas.

We hand over a twenty and wait for change. There is, apparently, no off-season discount, no danger money.

I know people who swear they never venture above 20th, but here we were all the way up on 254th where there's nothing to stop the snow settling and the feral cats filling the holly bushes with tough, mewling kittens. Wave Hill is a nineteenth century estate on the banks of the Hudson. This time of year there are clear views to the Palisades opposite, although thanks to the blizzard everything was shades of white and grey. Well, most things.

We are the only two on the tour. Our well-prepared guide has double layers of gloves. The wind chill factor means it feels ten degrees colder than it is. Which is plenty cold enough.
"You must come back. The wonderful thing about Wave Hill is that there's always something in bloom."
Chris mutters something.
"Sorry, I didn't catch that..."
"I said, except this time of year."
Our guide looks alarmed. "Well, there's plenty in bloom. Did you not see the..."
She lists, and we nod apologetically. We did see the beautiful red berries. And the purple blossoms. Yes, they were worth a visit in themselves.
The cold pulls my skin tight across my face.

Later, in a coffeeshop in the Upper West Side Chris pulls a seedpod out of his pocket.
"Wisteria."
"When did you pick those up? When you pointed them out to the guide?"
"No, I waited til everyone's back was turned..."
"Sneaky."
He shrugged, and we both went back to our hot chocolates.