Manhattan Dinners

I love having dinner at the apartments of friends. Those who know me well would contend that I just want real home cooking (since I don't do much beyond baked chicken, canned vegetables and tossed salads), but it is so relaxing to sit around a table with good food and good friends in an apartment in New York City. Maybe it's because most Manhattanites live in such small spaces that we're forced to get intimate and cozy.

Tokii's Juilliard drama classmate Max invited us to his apartment last night on Fort Washington Avenue to have dinner with him, his girlfriend (a Juilliard dancer), his roommate Seth and Seth's girlfriend (more Juilliard drama students). As we sat around the table eating an authentic Brazilian meal courtesy of Max, the conversation dabbled in work, school and future plans, which include more of corporate New York City for me and Hollywood hopes for them.

I wondered if these were conversations that Meryl Streep had with her friends before she graduated from the Yale School of Drama. Or even Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve during their Juilliard days. At one point, it almost felt like a Devil-Wears-Prada moment, where I felt like one of us should raise a glass and say, "To jobs that pay the rent!"

Instead I recorded Tokii on my camera phone doing one of my favorite impressions of the Grinch, Max was switching up his accent at random, and Seth was saying my last name like a Scotsman. Just another night among actors.