Hollywood Square

I just pulled a big hunk of cardboard out of my prepackaged salad. Roughage indeed. Though I would be hard-pressed to parse the gustatory demerits of cardboard as compared to iceberg lettuce.

My disappointment is eclipsed, however, by my extreme excitement over having just ridden in my office elevator (the building has several film-editing companies) with Jerry Adler, best known to me as Hesh from The Sopranos. Now I can finally let go of some of the bitterness I've harbored ever since a co-worker claimed she had a cigarette break downstairs with Steve Buscemi.

Either I rarely see famous people, or I can't recognize them when I do. Here's my tally for ten years in New York:

_ Al Franken in the Rockefeller Center subway station (and this was my first week here, when I thought it was going to be a nonstop cavalcade of celebrities)
_ John Leguizamo in a Greek restaurant in Hell's Kitchen
_ Pierce Brosnan shooting a movie in the East Village
_ Janeane Garofalo in the West Village Urban Outfitters
_ Julianne Moore at the Strand
_ Neil Patrick Harris (you might know him as Doogie Howser) in a Times Square ATM
_ I can't count Michael Imperioli, because a friend and I were sitting in a diner, and he said, "Oh, there's Michael Imperioli crossing the street," and I lunged for the window and brained myself on the glass like a starling and was too dazed to focus after that

Can that really be it? Oh -- a few weeks ago I saw one of Linda Ellerbee's shirts hanging at my dry cleaner. Just one of the many rich rewards of living in The Big Apple.