Day Six: Israel on the Lower East Side

I meet Lisa and her girlfriend Maddie at Tapeo 29 on the Lower East Side a little after midnight.  Maddie is Israeli too, as is Rami, the bartender/manager, and so is the other guy sitting at the end of the bar chomping down on some kabobs.  I'm the only non-Israeli there.  It’s a great little spot. 

Me and Lisa

Rami shakes up a delicious lychee martini for me.  I ask him to repeat himself three times when he tells me that it will be $6.  It is the cheapest, legitimate cocktail I’ve had in New York.  Tuesday nights at Tapeo are half off.  Keep that in mind.

Hanging out with all of these Israelis, I forget that I am in New York and then realize that I won’t be for much longer.  I just traveled to Israel in a cab.

Maddie and Lisa are holding hands at the bar and I realize they are dating.  Another couple joins us.  Maddie gets up and starts clapping her hands and stomping her feet to the middle eastern music.  She grabs Lisa and they dance.   They are very intimate with each other.  Not inappropriately intimate, but its obvious that they are in love.  Then Maddie grabs my hand.  She spins me, places her hand on back and dips me.  She pushes me down until my leg kicks up and my hair touches the floor.  This is fun.  Different.

We head to the Box, where Maddie is promoting.  On our walk, I talk to Lisa. 

Lisa tells me that she was an artist and she had her own business in Israel.  It seems like every Israeli I meet is an entrepreneur.  She sculpted women’s bodies and designed her pieces to hold jewelry.  You can see her work at lisapere.com.  I ask her why she stopped.  She explains that it took so much time to make each piece and it wasn’t practical.  She came to the US to do something else.  Last week, I wouldn’t have been able to relate but now I can.

MaddieWe arrive at the Box and join a table of Israelis.  They are all entrepreneurs.  One couple lives in Ohio and they import dead sea beauty products from Israel and distribute them here.

I am chatting with an Israeli woman at the table who is visibly intoxicated. 

She asks me my name and before I can respond, she says, “Wait, I remember you.”

I tell her that I am quite sure that we’ve never met.

“The Hudson Hotel, you were there.”

“I’ve been there,” I offer.

“We danced all night!  How could you forget?”

I try to convince her that the girl she danced with could not have been me, but she doesn’t buy it. 

“I haven’t been there in months,” I explain.

“Oh, nevermind.”

Later I see her holding a girl’s hand into the bathroom.

Everyone at our table is a lesbian or bi-sexual.  I can’t say that I’ve ever been in this situation before.  As I observe, I consider whether I could be with a woman.  No, not for me.  I like men.

The Box is a unique experience.  There is a stage and a show that starts at 1:30am.  It is a burlesque show, taken to a new level.  The bathrooms are designed to accommodate sex.  I didn’t notice it until Angela, the bathroom attendant, pointed it out to me.  They have a cushion behind the toilet, mirrors, a bar to hang from and a foot pedal. 

“That is why it is a unisex bathroom,” she explains.

I am very careful not to touch anything.

If you’ve never been to the Box and consider yourself open-minded, it is over the top but entertaining.  See the New York Magazine review.

 waiting for me at home

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John is out of town this week so I am going to meet with him the week after next for another interview.  Tomorrow I am going to cross a few things off of the to do list and pack my bags.  Lyla and I will hit the road for Charlotte on Friday morning.