Doobydooby doo

When I first moved to New York in the early 80's, I was pretty miserable. I was subletting a dreary mustard-colored studio on 89th and Second, just around the corner from Elaine's, the restaurant made famous by Woody Allen-- but I was worlds away from the quirky-urban, romance-and-art-filled Manhattan of his films.

One summer night, coming home from my job as an answering service operator--(yes, children, this was before cellphones--even before voicemail)--I saw Mia Farrow and her bespectacled Swain huddled in front of the fabled Elaine's. (See, I still rhyme when I think of how romantic it could have been. Was, for some people.) Woody and Mia looked like little lost waifs who wouldn't have had a clue how to get home if their car hadn't pulled up to the curb. I can't tell you how much I wanted to be them.

That same sticky, un-airconditioned night, sleeping in the "loft" bed (so close to the ceiling it felt like a coffin) became unbearable. I moved to the mustard-colored corduroy daybed instead, tossing and turning and listening to the city through my open window, tortured with guilt.

Why had I ruined a too-early marriage to someone I adored, why had I moved to New York to pursue my Career (WHAT career!?) and my girlish romantic notions: lunch with broodingly handsome playwrights at the Russian Tea Room; champagne cocktails at the Blue Bar bought by lovesick lawyers; the unwanted attentions of Jerzy Kozinski or some other foreigner over martinis at One Fifth Avenue; breaking the hearts of promising stand-up after stand-up at the Improv--you get the picture. Most of those things didn't actually happen, but when they did, they were not at ALL the way I had imagined. I still wasn't Diane Keaton or Mia Farrow. I wasn't even Louise Lasser. I was sweat-soaked me, alone in the heat, stuck to the ugly yellow corduroy daybed, just around the corner from Elaine's. Why didn't I go back to the Midwest? I flipped my pillow to the cooler, dryer side.

From out of the stifling nowhere came the first few notes--slow, sultry, and so lonely they made me laugh out loud--a trumpet, moaning-- "Strangers in the Night"!? I jumped off the daybed, naked. Where was he? Finally! The man of my dreams, a man who could read my mind, behind one of hundreds of open windows, maybe in his own little sublet hell, crazier than I was, blowing his lonely trumpet at 3 am-- I would have married him on the spot. If we ever had met.

We never met.

Of course things are different now. Elaine's is gone, and so are One Fifth and the real Russian Tea Room; Woody Allen gives me the creeps, and Louise Lasser has all but disappeared. Diane Keaton still looks great and still plays quirky, but she seems to have gone off romance completely.

And Mia Farrow? I wonder why it never occurred to me, Little Miss Movie Trivia Freak, that sweltering August:"Strangers in the Night" was released the same year she married Frank Sinatra.

Maybe the most romantic memories we have are our regrets. I bet Mia Farrow thinks that, too.