KristyWes

Dear Kristy,

Decades from now, please remember last Wednesday night.

Remember that dive bar in the East Village, disguised as a dilapidated tiki hut, serving up bowls of popcorn with bacon bits and weak vodka tonics.

Remember the bar’s back room, where you sat in a cramped semi-circle with a few Improv classmates, waiting for one of your own to take the stage. Remember how Liz S. was the funniest in the stand-up line-up; she made you proud to know her.

And don’t forget the other comedians – the woman pretending to be an angry French teenager. The man-child who called himself “Mr. Chocolate” and ended every joke with “I’m just bull-sh**ing you.” And the transsexual named Melissa who kept meowing, eliciting laughter of the (mostly) nervous variety.

And remember how afterwards you all walked west on 14th Street, passing those three men chatting outside a church, those students in search of falafel, that group smoking in front of a bar, an old man walking his old dog, delivery bikes weaving through traffic – all evidence that this city still has momentum at 10pm.

Still moving west, then, the group dissipated - 2 classmates turned off at 2nd Avenue to go catch a movie, some others hopped a subway home to Queens, others grabbed a cab, until it was just you and Liz B. left. Remember how you stopped for pizza at 6th Avenue and stood on the sidewalk, chatting about work and life and improv in between bites.

Remember how that evening felt, what it sounded like, what it smelt like, even. And remember how you were aware, as each moment unfolded, that it was a New York City movie scene kind of a night.

And thank God for it.