Kissing Someone Else: Rodeo Bar (12/31/2006)

Rodeo Bar is one of those establishments teetering on the edge of being a dive. On New Year’s Eve 2006 I found myself crammed into a ratty table with Fay, Parker, Bobes and Fay’s younger sister. I sighed and kicked a peanut shell out of my shoe. My chances of a New Year’s kiss were non-existent. New Year’s has never been one of my favorite holidays. There’s always too much pressure to have a good time and to start the New Year off with the prefect kiss, but was this really a better option?

The previous year had been my first real New Year’s in the city since my move to New York. Doug and I had broken up at the beginning of October and I promptly spent the rest of the month wallowing. During my post-break up pity session my stomach was in such upheaval that for weeks I ending up vomiting up everything I attempted to consume. The upside of this illness was that by New Year’s I was looking particularly svelte and I was finally ready to kiss Doug goodbye; by kissing someone new.

On New Year’s night, Faye dragged me out of the house to attend a party with her friend Rae. Rae was a contributing editor for Heeb, a hip young Jewish magazine, with a hip young Jewish staff that often parties together and often welcomes the staff’s gentile friends to join in the fun. Perhaps Heeb isn’t the kind of hip publication that would grace Ms. Carrie Bradshaw’s coffee table, but considering I was wearing sample sale shoes and a knockoff purse, it seemed a better fit then a Vogue party.

Rae was aware of what she referred to as my “kissin’ mission’ and on the way to the party she pointed out that my Hebrew name was going to obscure me shikse appeal. I’d need another approach. The approach I choose was half a bottle of vodka. The adverse effect of the vodka was that somewhere close to midnight I lost track of the Jewish lawyer I’d been chatting up as we relocated to the roof. Instead I started polite conversation with the man closest to me and as we counted down the final seconds of the year I decided that our brief chat was enough of an ice breaker to start kissing him. So I did.

“Did you kiss Jews at the party?” Rae questioned me over breakfast the next morning.

“Yeah, I think his name was Adam”

“How was it?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer. When I was in my younger pre-pubesant Judy Bloom years I thought the best thing about having a boyfriend would be being able to kiss him whenever you wanted. Now that I’m edging towards thirty, I still think that’s true. But when you’re in a relationship, it defines kissing for you. The taste, the tension, the feel; they become familiar. The first time you kiss someone new, it s strange. It takes a moment to remember that these new lips do not belong to your former lover. It holds no meaning, unless you give it meaning.

“He tasted like Kahula” I finally responded to Rae

“That’s odd” She frowned “Normally we just taste like Jew”

We laughed and clinked our glasses.

Maybe I wouldn’t be kissing anyone at Rodeo Bar, but who wants to kiss just anyone?

*Recognize this song title? Post in the comments section
(Hint this one might be easier for my Aussie fans)