It was the First Saturday Art Crawl. I have to say that the art wasn’t that great, but the people watching was. There were varying degrees of genuine hipness, faux hipness, feigned indifference, and the plain old lost. Sometimes at the Art Crawl I wonder, in which category am I? Then I look at a black-and-white lithograph of a 50’s TV set with an insect on its screen, and remind myself not to worry about it.

I was with three ladies, one of whom was having PMS (I know this because she kept saying so), another who was really jaded about the art (which was OK, since most of it wasn’t good), and a third who is a clothing designer, a really nice girl who couldn’t see very well because she had lasik a few days back. The Bitchy, the Bored, the Blind, and me.

We ate at Koto, then walked over. The girls kept tearing through places, and I tend to saunter, and look at stuff, even bad stuff, because it’s an Art Crawl, and I’m not that jaded about art yet. And I would look at the women. I’m newly single. They would spend about 5 minutes in a place, then be waiting for me on the sidewalk. Then they’d give me a hard time, after Bitchy had already texted, while I was looking at the insect TV piece, “Are you still in there pretending you are interested in the art just to make us wait?” Finally, I offered, “Ladies. You do live here, right? How separated can we get on 5th Avenue? It isn’t Disney World.”

In the Arcade, a pie throw. A guy in a suit with oversized statement frames was sitting in a chair, and you could donate five bucks to something-or-other to throw a pie at him. Bitchy wanted to have a pie thrown at her, instead. She said it was her birthday, which it wasn’t; her birthday’s Tuesday. The statement-frames guy said he’d throw at her, but he missed on purpose. Good thing. Sticky hair does not sound like something to add to cramps and a headache.

We took the shuttle to the Estel Gallery, even though it’s a six-block walk, and at one point a car pulling a trailer with a giant red rooster strapped aboard went by. Bitchy said it was the best art all night.

We rode the six blocks back to 5th, because Blind said that walking in her boots would make her feet hurt. I had complimented her on them earlier. She’d explained to me that they were extravagantly expensive, and that leather from Chinese-or-Indian made boots was inferior, and would not break in well. I guess maybe hers weren’t Italian, after all. As far as that goes, I bought a pair of boots last week, and on the insole it says “John Varvatos • USA.” On the inside of the tongue, though, it says, “Made in China.” I wonder how well they’ll break in, now.

The evening wound down. Bored could not remember where her car was parked, and Bitchy insisted on driving her to it, so we got caught in downtown traffic, amid the subwoofers and “No Cruising” signs, which obviously do not apply to Saturday night. I was sitting in the backseat with Blind, and I wanted to flirt, but that did not seem appropriate. She’s moving to Seattle, anyway. Her last gig was at Ambercrombie and Fitch, designing “active bottoms.” I am not making that up. Active bottoms. I asked her to explain, and she looked at me (I guess she was looking) and said, “Sweatpants.” So now you know why Ambercrombie and Fitch stuff is so expensive. They were paying this one woman six figures to design sweatpants.

Bitchy’s headache was really getting to her a bit; she laid on the horn and backed a guy up at an intersection with a glare and the sheer dint of will. We finally delivered Bored to her car and escaped the traffic, and Blind went to the front. I was disappointed. I sat quietly alone until they deposited me back in Germantown.