I used to think that if you put America in a Bunsen burner and cooked it down to its most fundamental essence, that you would have Las Vegas. But now I think that really, you just get The Cheesecake Factory. The faux-fanciness, with all the insane "Italian" "frescos" + the strange faux-familiarity between the customers and the waiters + the planet-sized portions + the creepy classical music + the awesome clientele wearing their dress-up outfits (girls: fluttery skirts, strappy-strap heels, skin cancer; boys: shirts tucked in) and clutching their vibotron-table-alert beepers for hours upon hours as they eagerly await a table -- it's like an underground railroad beamed them in from some Los Angeles prom and dropped them off right there at the Factory gate + the name itself, which sounds like a euphemism for something bad that happens in your pants or womb + the fact that there are twenty-five different cheesecakes, which is beyond all sanity + a full bar = one soaring American eagle of a restaurant.

My friend Liz Lavoie took the day off from her kids yesterday to go jeans shopping with me, and we lunched at TCF right out there on the deck, amidst the pigeons and the spectacular down-town view. We filled ourselves on bread and fatty salads and lemonade, and it was revolting and perfect, the exact right shopping-day food detour. I never want to eat anywhere else! PS: How awesome, how AMERICAN awesome is it that today my arm is sore from toting many, many hangers packed with denim?

(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)

(PS: My diary has officially moved over to my official evany.com website. Let's meet up over there!)