Sorry I haven't been blogging more, but it's been quite a week. Noah was here until Tuesday, of course, and on Wednesday I went to see The Caretaker, a Broadway revival of Harold Pinter's odd black comedy with Patrick Stewart and Kyle MacLachlan in the leads. My date K. and I have been MacLachlan fans going way back to Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet, of course, and we were both generally pleased by the production. K. may have been the only person in the audience who didn't know who Patrick Stewart was; squinting at the program, she asked, "Oh, didn't he play Captain Nemo?" Boy, did I love this girl once.

Then, on Thursday, I attended my company's holiday party at the Temple of Dendur, an extravagant ballroom-sized location at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a vast skylight along one wall and the ruins of a Hellenistic temple in the center of the room. My date, a certain farmgirl in a very fetching five-dollar dress, compared the evening to something out of the Cena Trimalchionis, and she wasn't far wrong: small, delicately cooked crustaceans were served by tuxedoed waiters; a Israeli string ensemble, flown in from Jerusalem, played tastefully within the temple itself; and the usual assortment of quants, accountants, and financial associates floated around the room, huggy and high on champagne.

We then adjourned to the Hotel Chelsea, but stayed only for an hour or so: louder music, harder liquor, but I had to be at work the next morning. S. then forced me to walk fifty blocks back to my apartment on the Upper West Side instead of taking the subway or a taxi like a reasonable human being; "After all," she pointed out, "when's the next time you'll have a bumpkin visiting you?" True, true. But S. is now legendary among my colleagues for accidentally revealing to my coworker's girlfriend's brother that said coworker was planning to propose to said girlfriend. Silly me; I should told S. Bumpkin that this was a secret. But all in all, S. was an ideal date, the recipient of some admiring looks and one ill-advised pass to which she responded in her inimitable fashion: "How dare you, sir!" she exclaimed indignantly. "There, there!"

And so to bed, or in S.'s case, to my expensive couch, which she admitted was, in fact, more than passably comfortable. Then more work, interviews of young college seniors who are infinitely more accomplished than I ever was, tying up loose ends, some holiday shopping, and now suddenly I'm in my parent's house at Castro Valley, CA, going through my old papers from elementary school and wondering what in God's name to keep. Happy holidays, all.