It’s Friday night.  I’m sitting on my couch with a glass of red wine catching up on last night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy.  In a few minutes I will transfer to the BF’s couch, where we will eat ordered-in food and watch more TV.  Last night I watched TV on my couch with the fabulous B and we ate ordered-in sushi.

Am I in a rut?

I did get off the couch one night this week to go to dinner with AC.  Where did we go, you ask?  We went to the Olive Garden.  In Times Square.  We weren’t trying to be funny or ironic.  We weren’t working on an article for the Times (blech) about top tourists spots in the city.  We just really love soup, salad, and breadsticks.

It sounds like a rut, doesn’t it?

I mean, here I am in New York City, capital of the WORLD (just ask the U.N.), and I prefer couches and chain restaurants to crazy nights out.  Either I’m in a rut, or I’m becoming a boring grown-up.  The thing is, the city becomes home because of the people with whom you share your life here.  It’s not what you do, but who you…wait, that’s not right…suffice it to say that the people who are my home here are so important and grand that sitting on the couch or at Olive Garden is enough because they make up the difference.

If this is a rut, I like it.  I think I will stay.  Let’s go to Bed, Bath and Beyond and pick out some curtains for my rut!

I will add, though, that New York leaves its mark on even the generic.  For example, on the way to 47th and Broadway and the ‘Garden, I walked behind this senior citizen:

And AC and I wouldn’t have walked out of an OG in Bama to be met with the opportunity to buy Obama condoms.  Which, at 3 for $10, are (as their peddler put it) cheaper than diapers.  And I doubt I would have sat on my couch in Birmingham discussing hot guys and Celine Dion with a dude friend.  And as for takeout with the BF…no one ever came close.

New York has a way of making all of life original.

(With that, I’ll let you know that I’m leaving this fair city for a week to traipse around California with the BF.  Don’t know how often I’ll get to a computer but can’t wait to tell the stories when I get back.  Until then, remember that you’re never to old–or too man–for a pink tweed sport coat.)