I saw "Kissing Jessica Stein" on a date on Friday night. (Don't read ahead if you want to see the movie because I'm going to spoil it. But I'm telling you, you don't want to see this movie.) It's about two straight girls - one who is downtown and funky and works in an art gallery which is what all downtown funky art girls do for a living, and another who is uptown and uptight and works for a New York type magazine as a copy editor/aspiring writer while painting on the side and running every day because there are really people like that who can actually fit that much into the day, in case you were wondering if you should feel like shit about yourself or not - who "go gay" for like a minute, and then decide they miss penises, while pretending it's not about that at all. Or something like that. Also Michael Showalter is in it as the guy who eats pussy.

This movie is utter crap.

Here are the reasons why:

1. Because, like most of the cast of "Friends," "Sex in the City," and other film and television shows about Manhattan, the main characters have amazing apartments/clothes/shoes/hair that they could never afford in real life.
2. Because the romantic male lead addresses one of the shittiest speeches in the world to one of the romantic female leads at a dinner table full of friends and co-workers and she just sits there and takes it and then "leaves before dessert comes," as a sign of how upset she is. And I'm sorry, no matter how neurotic and passive-aggressive this character is supposed to be, no New York woman would let a man in her peer group humiliate her like that without so much as a "Fuck you." Nor would her friends and co-workers. What a ridiculous scene.
3. Because the same female romantic lead has a horrific speaking voice: light, sort of drunk, whiny, and girly. But maybe some boys like that? Nails on the chalkboard, I tell you. I was twitching in my seat everytime she opened her mouth.
4. Because this is not a film about being a lesbian. It's a film about two straight girls wearing hot clothes fulfilling male fantasies. Which is totally fine, except...
5. There is no lesbian sex. None. Lots of kissing. Lots of fade to black. What a fucking ripoff.

My date and I left before the movie ended and went and had drinks instead. Later we had sex, no thanks to "Kissing Jessica Stein."

***

I've been doing this a lot lately, this dating thing, which, I don't know is such a good idea. I haven't written about it that much (Although, of course, I feel like I write about it constantly which is a source of frustration for me. I mean, is this all I am? A woman who fills up time between dates with other things like work and rock shows and drinks?) because I am still undecided on my feelings on the matter.

To be honest, I think I feel as if I'm just biding my time till summer. I know that I'm leaving town then, I just don't know where I'm going. It's either going to be for fun or for work, and the up-in-air-ness of the past (and next few) months is driving me up the wall. So, to fill my time, I've been dating.

This is not fair, I know. A friend told me I might want to mention to these men that I'm heading out for the summer. I do mention it. I am not dishonest about my impending summer vacation. It is more the part that I don't want to come back that I sometimes forget to mention. Of course I'll come home eventually, don't worry. But I wish I wasn't, and I'm trying to figure out if it's possible that I won't have to, and that, I think, might slot me in the emotionally unavailable category.

But really, how much am I required to tell on a first date anyway?

I should be using my free time wisely. I should be writing more, and taking more pictures, instead of dating. I know, I know. But I have to tell you, I'm creatively bankrupt at this point. I figure I'll just cruise through April without thinking up one good new idea, and instead rest on the laurels of my past ideas. Why should I have to be spontaneously clever all the time?

I think about this every time I "get to know" someone over drinks, alcoholic and caffeinated alike. Can't I tell old jokes and stories about myself to my new male friends? Does every charming anecdote have to be rich and juicy and unique? Can't it be old, borrowed, and blue instead?

But then, of course, I ultimately feel false. I have no problem with misrepresenting my emotional availability, but I do have a problem with telling a story the same exact same way twice in a row.

***

I saw Jeff Pruzan on Saturday night. It was not a date. I told him about my Friday night. He asked me if "Kissing Jessica Stein" was anything like the previews, because if it were, he thought it would be an awful movie. I told him I hadn't seen the previews, but that my mother had liked it, so I had gone on the basis of that, that it wouldn't be awful if my mom thought it was ok.

"I don't trust any movie that has a gerund in the title," said Jeff.

I laughed out loud, really hard.

"'Regarding Henry'..'Guarding Tess'...'Deconstructing Harry'..."

"And 'Kissing Jessica Stein,'" I finished.

"Exactly. Hey, did you ever see 'Deconstructing Harry'?"

"It wasn't so good."

"It was one of the worst movies I've ever seen," he said, with a fire only a betrayed Woody Allen fan could wield. There are many of us. I understand completely.

Our talk turned to Hal Hartley films, and how disappointing the new one was supposed to be. We both agreed "Amateur" was the last bearable film Hartley had made.

"Did you see 'Flirt'?" Jeff said with disgust.

Jeff does a mean impression of how people talk in Hal Hartley films, which is actually not so different from how he talks sometimes, except louder. When he does these impressions it makes me fiercely love him, because, before he did it for me for the first time, it had never even occurred to me that someone would want to do an impression of how people talk in Hal Hartley films, that it was a thing to be done. But then, as soon as he had done it, it made perfect sense to me.

Sometimes I make a special request for him to do it. If Hal Hartley comes up in conversation, I'll say, "Do your impression, Jeff! Do it now!" I'll clap my hands eagerly. I chirp in delight. It makes Jeff happy, blushing even.

He does a great Scottish accent, too. I think he enjoys doing accents. I keep meaning to ask him if he was in theatre in high school.

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